These thirty-nine sentences

James Burnham wrote The Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism in 1964 and is colored by the era and the Cold War.

In the book he has a list of 39 questions intended to create a clear delineation between conservatives and liberals. They are mildly dated and there are more than a small handful where interpretation is critical. For example, the first statement is:

All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong.

The reader has to provide interpretive context. Is the statement referring to Public or Private segregation and discrimination?

If public, then I think both ends of the political spectrum might agree that it is wrong for Government to enforce racial segregation. Conservatives would also agree that it is wrong for the government to racially discriminate though most contemporary Liberals would disagree (affirmative action being a form of discrimination on racial grounds).

If private then I think contemporary Liberals would agree that racial segregation and racial discrimination are both wrong whereas most conservatives would disagree on the grounds of freedom, i.e. it may be morally wrong for individuals to segregate and discriminate but it is their right to do so.

There are plenty of other nuances and definitional issues scattered through the list. None-the-less it is interesting to note it and see how our perceptions and definitions have changed over the years.

Burnham believed that

A full-blown liberal will mark every one, or very nearly every one, of these thirty-nine sentences, Agree. A convinced conservative will mark many or most of them, a reactionary all or nearly all of them, Disagree.

It is interesting how he conducted the list.

These sentences were not devised arbitrarily. Many of them are taken directly or adapted from the writings of well-known liberals, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, or liberal questionnaires that have been put out in recent years by the American Civil Liberties Union. The last eight are quoted verbatim from the United Nations’ ’Universal Declarations of Human Rights,’ adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

The list of statements, agree or disagree, is:

1. All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong.
2. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
3. Everyone has a right to free, public education.
4. Political, economic or social discrimination based on religious belief is wrong.
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
7. The government has a duty to provide for the ill, aged, unemployed and poor if they cannot take care of themselves.
8. Progressive income and inheritance taxes are the fairest form of taxation.
9. If reasonable compensation is made, the government of a nation has the legal and moral right to expropriate private property within its borders, whether owned by citizens or foreigners.
10. We have a duty to mankind; that is, to men in general.
11. The United Nations, even if limited in accomplishment, is a step in the right direction.
12. Any interference with free speech and free assembly, except for cases of immediate public danger or juvenile corruption, is wrong.
13. Wealthy nations, like the United States, have a duty to aid the less privileged portions of mankind.
14. Colonialism and imperialism are wrong.
15. Hotels, motels, stores and restaurants in southern United States ought to be obliged by law to allow Negroes to use all of their facilities on the same basis as whites.
16. The chief sources of delinquency and crime are ignorance, discrimination, poverty and exploitation.
17. Communists have a right to express their opinions.
18. We should always be ready to negotiate with the Soviet Union and other communist nations.
19. Corporal punishment, except possibly for small children, is wrong.
20. All nations and peoples, including the nations and peoples of Asia and Africa, have a right to political independence when a majority of the population wants it.
21. We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others.
22. The primary goal of international policy in the nuclear age ought to be peace.
23. Except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly, to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong.
24. Congressional investigating committees are dangerous institutions, and need to be watched and curbed if they are not to become a serious threat to freedom.
25. The money amount of school and university scholarships ought to be decided primarily by need.
26. Qualified teachers, at least at the university level, are entitled to academic freedom: that is, the right to express their own beliefs and opinions, in or out of the classroom, without interference from administrators, trustees, parents or public bodies.
27. In determining who is to be admitted to schools and universities, quota systems based on color, religion, family or similar factors are wrong.
28. The national government should guarantee that all adult citizens, except for criminals and the insane, should have the right to vote.
29. Joseph McCarthy was probably the most dangerous man in American public life during the fifteen years following the Second World War.
30. There are no significant differences in intellectual, moral or civilizing capacity among human races and ethnic types.
31. Steps toward world disarmament would be a good thing.
32. Everyone is entitled to political and social rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
33. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression.
34. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
35. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.
36. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security.
37. Everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work.
38. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions.
39. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Burnham claims that most Liberals (in 1964) Agree with 85% or more of the statements. I suspect that is still broadly true. But there are some changes in the intervening fifty years. Some of the more progressive Liberals today, I suspect, would have quarrels with all or some aspects of the following assertions.

12. Any interference with free speech and free assembly, except for cases of immediate public danger or juvenile corruption, is wrong.
21. We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others.
23. Except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly, to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong.
26. Qualified teachers, at least at the university level, are entitled to academic freedom: that is, the right to express their own beliefs and opinions, in or out of the classroom, without interference from administrators, trustees, parents or public bodies.
27. In determining who is to be admitted to schools and universities, quota systems based on color, religion, family or similar factors are wrong.
32. Everyone is entitled to political and social rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
33. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression.
34. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Given the desire to regulate speech in many "Liberal" quarters, I suspect that these statements would draw disagreement, bringing the threshold down to 80%.

But lets look at it from the conservative side which is in some ways much more diverse (Burkean, Lockean, Painean, Hayekian, etc.). Burnham argues that conservatives (in 1964) would disagree with 85% of the above statements.

Going through this list, it seems to me that most conservatives today might disagree with perhaps fifteen of these statements versus the thirtythree that Burnham saw in his day. I think in many ways, contemporary Conservatives are more in line with the older Classical Liberals, in particular with regard to personal freedoms. At the same time, it appears to me that Liberals have moved away from some of those personal freedoms, particularly regarding speech and assembly, that were in the past so central to their concept of liberalism.

All speculative of course but it is interesting to see such a list which seems to have been viewed as reasonably reflective of the divisions at the time and how it is less illuminating today than it was then.