OPINION: What Is a Liberal?

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"Practically everybody I know is a 'liberal.' At least that's what they call themselves," a reader in Bethel, Conn, wrote last week to the New York Herald Tribune. "What is a liberal? A man who wants . . . higher taxes and more schools or lower taxes and more business, more government or less government? . . . I'm confused." The Trib, which cherishes its liberalism as much as its Republicanism, passed the question to its readers. Over a hundred definitions poured in, and a few shed a little light on one of the most overworked words in the modern vocabulary. Some serious and not so serious samples:

"... a person who . . . weighs a change from the point of view of whether it is an improvement rather than a novelty."

"... a person who believes that change is not only inevitable but desirable, and that unfortunately somebody is going to get hurt. This is contrasted to the revolutionary, who feels that numerous people ought to get hurt, or to the conservative, who appears generally to be the person who will get it in the neck."

". . . one who is so tolerant that he has outgrown all old-fashioned convictions of inherent right and wrong, good and evil."

". . . one who agrees with me or us today as regards something that I or we are excited about just now."

"... a man who is constantly and simultaneously being kicked in the teeth by the Commies and in the pants by the National Association of Manufacturers."

"... a liaison officer between the extreme Right and the extreme Left."

"... a conservative with a conscience which bothers him."