ALL THE LIBERALS OF THE WORLD; WAKE UP

The way citizens participate in politics has changed. Political parties hope that citizens will engage with political institutions.

In reality, political institutions face strong expectations and demands, which, when voiced, challenge the structures of power.

Instead of relying on institutions, people act independently through digital networks and direct action, for better or worse.

It is paradoxically shocking that, while cooperation is the only way to protect nature—and ourselves as part of it—we do not save ourselves by working together, but instead divide on every issue, speaking without listening.

In contemporary democracy, distrust has skillfully become part of the power structure, allowing leaders to operate within representative democracies through "strategic communication," outright lying, conceptual obfuscation, and the modern spectacle of conspiracy theories as bread & circuses.

We do not tolerate each other; liberalism has turned into narrow-mindedness, and values have become objects of ridicule.

Distrust in democracy is linked to distrust in the structures of power, and these reinforce one another.

The new digital, networked world provides new groups with a local proximity model while simultaneously offering a vast global arena for networking.

Social media has created a new civic dynamic in which citizens monitor, judge, reject—and praise—the actions of political leaders.

Its extreme form is populism and hate speech.

However, the answer to renewing democracy is not the overthrow of power and opposition to democracy, as populists often advocate, but the respect for democracy and human dignity, enhancing them, and protecting the lawful society from both extremist movements and greedy market forces.

Thus, democracy should be deepened further, and a solution must be found to the problems of representative democracy.

Liberalism includes equality, tolerance, and openness.

The principle of tolerance means that things are allowed until there is sufficient reason for prohibition—much like in a court of law, one is innocent until proven otherwise.

THE MISUSE OF LIBERALISM

The word “liberalism” has spread to become a label under which even groups with self-serving agendas, who are free riders on the backs of others, wish to fit.

The American way of dividing people and their values into liberals and conservatives has also spread to Europe, to the extent that values have become confused.

Our time is filled with different liberalisms.

Liberals can be divided into two main camps: conservative market liberals, or “neoliberals,” and green-leaning social liberals.

Neoliberals, who currently dominate the economic system, believe in a consumer-citizen concept where supply itself creates demand, and the best outcome is achieved by accelerating markets, constantly generating growth, where everything is subordinated to the maximal freedom of markets. The state and its welfare structures are seen as a red flag to the market.

Social liberals, on the other hand, favor the solidarity model of the welfare state more than market principles, believing that this increases individuals' true freedom of choice.

Between these liberalisms lies the most crucial dividing line of our time: the difference in the understanding of citizenship.

ALL THE LIBERALS OF THE WORLD; WAKE UP!