Session 14- Don't judge a book by its cover.

Heywood shows us how ideologies range from being a Liberal to a Marxist, from being a Feminist to a Conservatist. Liberalism as a form of political ideology might seem to many as one of the best basis to conduct your political actions, due to its not allowing the government to intervene stance and its focus on the individual itself. While it may look all hunky dory on the surface, in practice, Liberalism itself is flawed and barely manages to in act its elements.

One of the core elements of Liberalism is individualism whereby the imminent focus is on the individual itself and human beings are seen as individualistic and different from each other. Liberals feel that the world is rational, humans can make rational and efficacious decisions for themselves, there is freedom and liberty for all and they are free to do whatever they want to do. Liberals believe in consent, whereby everything should be based on the consent of humans. They also believe in equality in the human body and they are firm believers of limited government intervention. Now even though when one reads all of this, it seems that this is too good to be true, in practice however, this barely happens. In most of the states across the world, individual liberty, freedom and looking them as separate entities barely happens. Freedom of speech debates is present all over the world. Human beings are not rational; everyone looks for their own benefit at the end of the day. Human nature is not such that they would consider others before themselves, here the biggest rivals of Liberalism, the Realists step in who claim that human nature is selfish and self-centered. Due to these elements, social community and aspects of social unity also erode, as individuals are made to focus on themselves only, the aspect of making and working together in a group fades away. It is a harsh truth that a government of any sort governs every state in this world. If that government is given “limited” standing to conduct its actions, there will be more chances of chaos as there will be no social protection from a sub ordinate, there will be no accountability due to free will and people will do whatever they want to do, which might ultimately lead to destruction.

Thus like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover, even though Liberalism might seem as an ideology that works for us on an individual level, it is flawed and not pragmatic.