Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 2

I write about Northern liberals from considerable personal experience.

A Southerner married to a New Englander, I have lived for many years in a Connecticut commuting town with a high percentage of artists, writers, publicity men, and business executives of egghead tastes.

Most of them are Democrats and nearly all consider themselves, and are viewed as, liberals.

This is puzzling to an outsider conscious of the classic tradition of liberalism, because it is clear that these Democrats who are left-of-center are at opposite poles from the liberal Jefferson, who held that the best government was the least government.

Yet paradoxically my liberal friends continue to view Jefferson as one of their patron saints.

When I question them as to what they mean by concepts like liberty and democracy, I find that they fall into two categories: the simpler ones who have simply accepted the shibboleths of their faith without analysis ; ;

and the intelligent, cynical ones who scornfully reply that these things don't count any more in the world of to-day.

I am naive, they say, to make use of such words.