The new 7 Liberal Arts

Once in a while when someone asks me what I got my Masters degree in, I tell them "Master of Liberal Arts. (there's even a national organization of us!)" Most people don't know what that is, so I tell them kiddingly, "That means that I can tree-hug, recycle, and tax-and-spend with the best of them!" Most of the time, they have to think about that a second to know what I'm talking about, but they always get it. My kidding reference is talking about "the art of being liberal today."

Sadly, there's also a lot of truth in that. Being liberal today means embracing certain viewpoints, or "you're not one of us". In other words, it's become a conformist way of thinking that would be considered ironic by that very same group of people a mere two decades ago. Being liberal used to mean being open-minded, but now it means something else, and it's not anything good.

What got me thinking about that is when someone asked me "So what are the new 7 liberals arts today?" I gave that some thought, and I told him, "You know, you just gave me something to blog about!" So let's get into what the new 7 liberal arts are now today....

In the past, the seven liberal arts were described as thus:

Grammar
Rhetoric
Logic
Geometry
Arithmetic
Music
Astronomy

Later, they became:

Theology
Literature
Languages
Philosophy
History
Mathematics
Science

However, now the "liberal arts" can be defined as thus:

Abortion Above All to the point that it is a de facto religion
An embracing of the communist concept of the redistribution of wealth (aka "taxing and spending ")
An embracing of environmental issues to the point that it is a de facto religion
An anti-religious outlook in life to the point that it is a de facto religion (ironic, eh?)
Darwinian understanding of evolution to the point that it is a de facto religion
Sexual "free-thinking"
Blame (or bash) Bush for everything

Notice that I say "to the point that it is a de facto religion" four times. That's important, because it means that today's liberals have embraced those viewpoints to the point that they now consider those views as dogmas - that is, beyond discussion much like a religious dogma. That is, if you criticize abortion, evolution, global warming, or their anti-religious views, you are criticizing their religion. Making such political, social, or scientific views into religious dogmas is neither good nor logical, and it is damaging to society if it is incorporated into law.

I once considered myself a liberal, but the above list of the new "liberal arts" has pushed me out of that category and has now made me into an "anti-liberal". By the way, this is NOT the same thing as being conservative - even though conservatives are largely anti-liberal. However, while nearly all conservatives are anti-liberals, not all anti-liberals are conservatives. That's probably the best way that I can put that. I've said before that I'm an independent, so with this new refinement, let's now call me an anti-liberal independent. For today's liberals, I'm a conservative, because anything to the right of them is conservative.

Somehow, someway, the classical liberal arts got subverted by these perversions of classical thinking, which is a shame, because such thinkers are needed today. With my blog, I am trying to do my part to restore that classical line of thinking so that logic and reason can one day rule the day once more. There's always going to be a need for the "old school".