LIBERAL: Pejoritive Now, But Our Language Knows What is What

LIBERAL & CONSERVATIVE: A COMPARISON OF THE WORDS
By Daniel I. Fearn

Unlike the etymology of liberal which is consistent through time (Gk>L>O.Fr.>Eng.); the etymology of conservative is confusing, apparently inconsistent and hard to find. The cause of this confusion is probably due in parts to the lack of Latin fluency, the unavailability of etymologies in modern dictionaries and a conflation of two little known Latin words with similar but opposite meanings.

The words are servare and servire. Seem familiar? Conservation, observation, preservation, reservation conservatory, observatory. But what about these? emeritus, serviette, militate, dessert, administer, sergeant, desert. These words all have the english word serve as roots. Obscured of course by various prefixes, suffixes, modifiers and intensifiers, etc. It’s easy to verify by looking up words in a sufficiently dusty dictionary: say the 1913 Webster’s Dictionary. With a dictionary that contains etymologies, you can easily trace a course from, conservative, to conserve, and to serve. There in the etymology for the word serve you will discover servare and servire.

Of course, the trip is half the fun. It stretches over four, and perhaps six, millenium for the word liberal; and about three hundred years for the word conservative. Don’t dispair. You will learn the extraneous, bypass the useful and be rewarded with the arcane and profound on your journey through the world of words.

First, you may discover that the word conservative entered English by way of the French Revolution; or possibly more correctly, the Bourbon Restoration. The Reactionary leader Chateaubriand entitled his journal “Le Conservateur”. Fresh from its attempt to restore the French Monarchy, the word jumped the English Channel like a colossus to be taken up by Edmund Burke, friend of the American Revolutionaries and foe of the French. By 1830 it was the name of a British political faction and by 1843 had replaced the pejorative “Tory”. History marches on.

Look up conservative and you will probably be refered to conserve which means to protect or to watch over. But, if you recognize that conserve is really con (an intensifier)+serve; you have come to the crux. So, look up the word serve. The Latin root of this word is servus-slave. Con+serve mean to protect; yet just plain serve means slave or relates to slave. What is the connection between protection and slave? They’re the same thing or two sides of a coin. Or, so they were for the ancients; and some not so distant moderns as well we shall see.

Mention slavery to an American and the Negro slavery of the Antebellum period comes to mind. That was chattel slavery. Chattel slavery did not recognize the essential humanity of the enslaved. Chattel slavery led to a number of convolutions of thought and action that still haunt American today. If blacks were chattel or livestock; how then could they be three fifths of a human when it came time to divying up political power during apportionment? If blacks were chattel or livestock; how is it then that slave owners were not committing either rape or bestiality when they beget all the mulattos? These questions, of course, are inflammatory and tend to radicalize people. But that is in the nature of chattel slavery.

In other times and places, slavery existed; but not in its peculiarly virulent American form. In other times and places slaves held onto their essential humanity despite servitude and frequently rose to rule the society that had enslaved them. Slavery has existed in a multitude of local forms throughout time. Why then mention chattel slavery? Because, I believe it has polarized Americans and their language in a myriad of subterranean ways. Conserve versus serve, servare versus servire, liberal versus conservative being only minor but illuminating examples.

The false contradiction posed by servare and servire is, I believe, of very recent construct. When St. Augustine wrote about slavery for the early church in the early 5th century he used servare. How could that be? Slaves protected something? Or, was it that slaves had to be watched over? That’s more like it. Maybe there is even more?

When Thomas Hobbes published the Leviathan in 1651 he devoted a passage to a discussion of just two words: servare and servire. Actually, he devoted to the passage to the confusion of the two words by his contemporaries and the ancients; and decided “for by the word servant (whether it be derived from servire, to serve, or from servare, to save, which I leave to grammarians to dispute)” - emphasis added. What’s going on?

And let’s not forget the motto of the Society for the Cincinnati: Omnia relinquit servare rem publicam (He gives up everything to serve the republic).

St. Augustine. Thomas Hobbes. George Washington. It’s a mystery. Unless, of course, you know the history of warfare. For the ancient Romans, and the ancient Greeks too; I don’t believe there would have been any difficulty understanding the usage of servare and servire. Why? Because to the ancient warrior all prisoners of war were slaves - or they were dead.

Let’s imagine that you and I are ancient warriors. The crisis of the battle has come and passed and your side has panicked, broken and are running for their lives. I, on the other hand, are chasing you. This, of course, is the most dangerous time for you and the safest time for me. You have your back turned, you probably have cast away your weapon and shield, and I am flushed with victory and armed to kill. Ancient battles were generally fought to this point. One side fled, the other side butchered; and there were massive casualties on one side and minimal casualties on the other.

Whatever. You have a decision to make: run and die or turn, and maybe die, maybe become a slave. You turn. Now I have a decision: kill and keep killing or take you prisoner and have to protect you from my blood crazed comrades. What to do? What to do? Here comes one of my messmates now. There’s not much time. He’s ready to stab......Hands up, down on your knees, clasping my legs and begging to be a slave, “I serve you! I’m your slave!” What to do? “O.K. This one’s mine. Get your own. Don’t worry I’ll preserve you.” Servire/Servare. Two sides of the same coin named slavery (servus).

Remember that Prisoners of War had no legal rights until the Treaty between his Majesty the King of Prussia and the United States of America was signed by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and the King’s minister in 1785.

CONSERVATIVE, n. [from the Latin conservare meaning to watch over, from the Latin con+servare or servire, from the Latin servus meaning slave]

LIBERAL, n. [from the Latin liberalis meaning of freedom, from the Latin liber meaning to free]