• Tinidril@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    8 months ago

    It doesn’t have to be sexier terminology, or even different terminology. Just don’t drop the word “liberalism” into a conversation and expect the average person to understand what your talking about.

    You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language. I know it’s technically incorrect, but language also isn’t static outside of academic disciplines. But ultimately you can use whatever language you want, just don’t assume a particular definition will be understood without explanation.

    • LemmeAtEm@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      The only people I know of who don’t know what the word “liberal” means, especially in the context the person above was using it, are very ignorant Americans. To be clear, even though I don’t like most Americans, I’m not blaming them for being ignorant in this particular case because they have been subjected to decades of mostly uncontested propaganda deliberately obfuscating the term. But most of the rest of the world knows what everyone is talking about when saying “liberal” and knows it’s a right wing ideology. And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know. People are generally expected to pick up the gist of a sentence or point via the context of what’s being said. The context was perfectly clear and it just sounds like concern trolling to go on about needing to hand-hold and dumb down the terminology being used for “the average person.”

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        8 months ago

        And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know

        Well, if you know that the person doesn’t know, giving definitions can be a helpful way of setting up your argument, but obviously these lemmitor assholes are just wasting your time.

    • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition

      Neoliberalism” rather. Though that’s more like mask-off imperialism. And “corporatism” is just capitalism but when you don’t want to admit that the problem is capitalism.

      Either way liberalism is the same idealist, individualist culture/ideology that emerges under capitalism to maintain that capitalist mode of production, and must be destroyed along with the mode of production it sustains.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      8 months ago

      You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language

      No one says “corporatism” in the real world. The better suggestion for an “alternative” is to just say “capitalism”, because that’s accurate enough.

      • What_Religion_R_They [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        8 months ago

        nOOooOOOoooooo you can’t blame capitalism! We have to make up a word that means “capitalism” but isn’t capitalism and fix that (through reform! because we shouldn’t try to abolish capitalism).