History of Liberalism: When Did It Begin?

When was liberalism conceived?

EDIT: For option 1:

School of Salamanca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sublimus Dei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Valladolid debate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About a few million years ago in the grasslands of Africa, pre-humans were bipedal monkey-men with slightly bigger than average brains. The women had kids and gathered food to feed themselves and the children. The men hunted, but otherwise wasted all their time and energy posturing and fighting about who was Alpha. The women decided to trick the men into regularly providing food for them and their children by growing boobs. :lol:

Men loved the boobs and wanted to have sex all the time. Instead of beating each other up and posturing all day long to have sex once a month with lots of women, they became Providers that had sex all the time with fewer (or just one) women. Men's competition for women stopped being purely physical (You beat me up and take all da womens) and became more intellectual (I think up ways to sneak in and bone your wife). The intellectual competition between men for access to boobs lead to natural selection for intelligence and bigger brains.

Liberalism, liberally defined as the intellectual capacity for progress, has been with us ever since women grew perennial boobs. :mrgreen:

Salamanca Reform of Spanish Colonization, although the Protestant Reformation sure helped.

With the Physiocrats.
They, in my opinion, were the first liberals.

Liberalism and Conservatism as words can only be defined by the specific time, location and context in which they exist.

For example... I believe 90%+ self identified conservatives in America support a womans right to vote and make a living.

In Saudi Arabia that self identified conservative would be a radical liberal by comparison.

Another example might be that UHC in America is seen as liberal idea, if we loosely interperate Conservatism as "Conserving, keeping the status quo, maintaining traditions etc" then in Canada my position to maintain Universal Health Care for Canadians is a Conservative position.

It all requires context.

Daktoria said:

When was liberalism conceived?

EDIT: For option 1:

School of Salamanca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sublimus Dei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Valladolid debate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Click to expand...

Liberalism itself is not cultural but a type of thinking, as is conservatism (and probably libertarianism but I have not seen studies on it). This is also true with populism, heirarchy, and any number of political behaviors and beliefs.

Its as old as people are.

Liberals of the middle ages were vastly different from liberals of today, with vastly different beliefs, but were still liberals due to the types of though processes, such as neutral or craving for change, view of man in a holistic manner, certain concepts of compassion and fairness (conservatives also have these concepts but in a different manner), etc.

ChunkySalsa said:

About a few million years ago in the grasslands of Africa, pre-humans were bipedal monkey-men with slightly bigger than average brains. The women had kids and gathered food to feed themselves and the children. The men hunted, but otherwise wasted all their time and energy posturing and fighting about who was Alpha. The women decided to trick the men into regularly providing food for them and their children by growing boobs. :lol:

Click to expand...

Seems rather chauvinist to say women deliberately objectified themselves into property.

Men loved the boobs and wanted to have sex all the time. Instead of beating each other up and posturing all day long to have sex once a month with lots of women, they became Providers that had sex all the time with fewer (or just one) women. Men's competition for women stopped being purely physical (You beat me up and take all da womens) and became more intellectual (I think up ways to sneak in and bone your wife). The intellectual competition between men for access to boobs lead to natural selection for intelligence and bigger brains.

Liberalism, liberally defined as the intellectual capacity for progress, has been with us ever since women grew perennial boobs. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

Can you explain what's intellectual about being a creep?

megaprogman said:

Liberalism itself is not cultural but a type of thinking, as is conservatism (and probably libertarianism but I have not seen studies on it). This is also true with populism, heirarchy, and any number of political behaviors and beliefs.

Its as old as people are.

Liberals of the middle ages were vastly different from liberals of today, with vastly different beliefs, but were still liberals due to the types of though processes, such as neutral or craving for change, view of man in a holistic manner, certain concepts of compassion and fairness (conservatives also have these concepts but in a different manner), etc.

Click to expand...

I was thinking in terms of modern liberalism.

The Salamanca Reform of Spanish Colonization was the beginning of multiculturalism and international human rights law, so I figured that's a good place to start.

Daktoria said:

Can you explain what's intellectual about being a creep?

Click to expand...

Not getting caught. :mrgreen:

Need to define what you mean by liberalism. Is it the bastardised American definition or is it the true definition.

Both liberalism and conservatism have always existed though out mankind's existence.