The main idea is that liberalism is rooted in the belief in individual autonomy, which is, essence the ability to engage in self-creation.
What if you're a liberal who believes in this? What is your political aim?
Your aim will be to remove impediments to individual autonomy. Whatever defines us in important ways that we do not choose for ourselves will be thought of negatively as something limiting and oppressive that we must be liberated from.
...
What [...] are the impediments to autonomy which liberalism seeks to abolish? They are those aspects of our own self and existence which we do not get to self-determine. And there is a lot that we don’t get to self-determine, including what we inherit as part of a tradition and what is given to us as part of an inborn human nature.
In the comments, there is a discussion about liberals being "blank statist". In effect, they treat human nature as entirely malleable.
They deny that human beings have, at their core, a hardwired nature.
That's why many thought communism could work. It was believe that if you could only re-shape people's thinking, they'd buy into that. Stalin is quoted as saying that he wanted to become the engineer of men's souls.
Liberals continue that legacy, albeit in less oppressive forms. For now. :)
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