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The nature of language is that it is constantly developing new meanings. Moreover, different dialects exist between different levels of society within one language group. Indeed, language, and linguistics are probably the most influential school of though in terms of post-modernism. different languages can produce different realities simultaneously. the instability of language and its meanings is a testament that there can be overlapping layers of understanding which exist in opposition but not in conflict.
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A very strong point, TheIronMaiden.
Human beings are singularly defined by our ability to use speech - we are the creature who makes contracts. That is, we do not use words just as signals, like macaques use different shrieks to signal the group, but we use them also as symbols.
Our words have qualities that create worlds, and indeed, with some natural limitations, appear to have an almost liquid quality - transforming and being transformed by different cultural and physical circumstances.
I think that this is a great place to begin a genuine critique of liberalism, while being so simple as to attack the entire enterprise for it stands among the greatest of things Western culture has given the world.
So, contrary to statements made these days by evolutionary psychologists or sociobiologists that liberalism is in some kind of way our human ant nest - that is a perfect phenotype of our natures - it is best to remember that liberalism had its roots as a construct of words.
The state of nature - created by Hobbes and Locke - to justify the political and social structures of liberalism is purely a symbolic and rheotrical flourish.
In the case of the Anglo-American sphere, that construct was very cleverly applied to coopt traditions and norms in a way that recognized distinct types of living within a single nation and culture. Everyone has to believe the lie that liberalism fits us uniquely in order to enjoy the benefits of living in a liberal and free society that allows for a limited distinction among individuals.
You can begin an adequate critique here. Liberalis understandably cluster around the mean because that is what liberalism needs to survive. However, the language of radicalized individualism is precisely what has lead to the nihilistic identity politics of today. Liberals want to find their way back to the mean, and radicals want to continue the process of fragmentation.