Sua,
I had completely different bases in mind, you’re all on the same base to me.
I wouldn’t catagorize all ex-Soviets as conservative. I know a few who consider themselves liberal intellegentsia sp?), who voted for Clinton and for Gore, and look up more to Kchrushev and Gorbachev, rather than Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
As for me, I know most of you would say I’m a liberal. Fucked if I know why. I guess just most of how I FEEL about certain things goes into it. There are a few things I don’t feel so great about, like affirmative action (I think it’s too much of a bandaid fix, and often hurts more than it helps).
I think the outline you presented in the OP properly sketched a liberal as someone interested in group measurement and achievement, and a conservative generally being someone more interested in personal achievement and measurement. To me, this is why conservatism is not inconsistent with religious interests, the latter often emphasizing self-interest at its core. This is also why most progressives seek government involvement on group interests, such as environmentalism and healthcare and might explain why most conservatives seek government involvement on a personal level (which to me is an illogical extension of personal issues). What concerns me most is a suspicion I have that a few people might feel more secure with their slight wealth if dire poverty is visible to them to make their personal ahcievement measurement have greater meaning. I have no other explanation for attacks on government safety-net programs (like food stamps) that cost relatively very little, budgetwise, but mean everything to so many people. (These anti-welfare attacks were recently initiated under the guise of a new morality by Newt Gingrich, who came from a wealthy district in Georgia which depended on federal defense contracts to prosper).
Stoid said:
I completely disagree–I had political opinions unrelated to those of my parents before I was 10 years old. Those opinions guaranteed that I would never be a liberal, and probably not a Democrat though my parents were registered Democrats. Granted that my views have evolved over the years, but the basis was in place long before I was old enough to vote.
Let’s see, my personal stances are:
*Against infringing on the right to bear arms.
*In favor of a strong military.
*In favor of capital punishment.
*In favor of tax cuts.
*In favor of school vouchers.
*Generally opposed to government interference in the private lives of the people. (As opposed to liberals who wish to inflict their notions of propriety on everyone else.)
which sounds like I’m a conservative. But I’m also:
*In favor of gay rights, including the right to marry.
*Opposed to attempts to infringe on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.
*Opposed to attempts to inject religion into government.
*Generally opposed to government interference in the private lives of the people. (As opposed to conservatives who wish to inflict their notions of propriety on everyone else.) (This would include all laws designed to regulate the sex lives of consenting adults, and virtually all drug laws.)
which make me sound pretty liberal. (Actually, for the area I live in, it makes me a flaming communist.)
So this leaves me where, exactly? I’m not a liberal, but I’m also not a conservative. I’m a social libertarian, but I can’t be considered a “large-L” Libertarian. Nor can I really be considered a moderate–I believe strongly in my opinions–except in the sense that my views would probably average out somewhere in the center of the spectrum.
My solution? I’m a registered Republican (in Pennsylvania you have to register R or D to vote in the primaries) who voted for Bush because I saw him as the lesser evil compared to Gore, and who would have voted for Browne if there had been any chance he could win anything. I split my tickets as I see fit–this past election, out of eight separate votes, I voted for four Republicans, two Democrats, and two Libertarians.
As for why I have the opinions I do…it’s the same as everybody else here–I’ve decided they are the ones that make sense.
and
Nice “see, I and the wonderful Democrats are better than those evil Republicans!” contrast. When they issue a Saint Stoid medal, maybe I’ll get one for my medicine cabinet–it’d make a fine emetic.
In the meantime, perhaps you can explain to me why I’m pro-gay rights though I’m not gay, pro-choice on abortion though I can’t very well have an abortion, and anti-drug laws though I don’t do drugs.
David B
I’m not sure if it’s either, though the first is closer. It seems (from my conservative vantage point) that on many (though not all) issues, the liberal position is that which focuses on the immediate gratification, while the conservative one is that which focuses on the more abstract larger impact. E.g. welfare, where the liberal might focus on the individual who is suffering and can be relieved, while the conservative would focus on the more indirect ramifications of having a policy that did not punish the lazy and reward the diligent. Same for environmentalism, where the liberal might focus on the pollution of the atmosphere, and the conservative on the more complex cost-benefit calculation of economic impact of a proposed regulation vs. the benefit to be had. There are probably other examples of this as well, and I’ve been struck by this many times over the years, but these are examples that spring to mind.
I’m aware that it’s not as cut and dried as I’ve presented it - there are many conservatives who might be focused on “those lazy welfare cheats” etc. But I believe it is true of much of the difference between conservative and liberal thought.
Also, SuaSponte’s point about the difference between “morality” issues and other issues is very well taken. In the specific example of abortion, my feeling (again, reflecting my own vantage point) is that the driver behind the pro-abortion movement is a combination of feminism and the sexual revolution - outlawing abortion would put a damper on both of these.
It’s difficult to find any one underlying basis for the entire “conservative” or “liberal” philosophy - there are too many disparate issues, and indeed - for this very reason - too many people whose set of beliefs cannot be fit into any particular slot. But I do think there’s enough in my theory to make my position, in the manner that I presented it, true.
I think whether you tend liberal or conservative has much to do with how you see an individual’s role in society.
If you tend to follow a more conservative tack, it often is linked to the religious idea that God created the Earth and then gave man dominion over the world. You see the world as made up of individuals each responsible for themselves and answerable, ultimately, only for how they survived.
Since you are responsible only for yourself, it doesn’t matter that drilling oil in Alaska could decimate wildlife there. Since you’re not responsible for the poor, it easy to say that they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps - without your help and despite obstacles.
If you tend toward a more liberal bent, you often hold the idea that the Earth, and all life on it, are intimately linked. You believe that the actions you take affect others and therefore you are responsible for yourself and the effects of your actions.
The “web of life” view leads to more Green positions and the more liberal ideas that support a social safety net, and trickle up economics.
I remamber reading an article many many years ago by Thomas Szas (I think) in which he argued that a maternalistic/paternalistic thread carries through the liberal/conservative philosophies. Liberals saw government as a mother figure, conservatives saw it as a father figure.
So liberals would be more nurturing, forgiving, tolerant, etc. while conservatives would be more focused on success, ambition, personal responsibility, etc.
I think the maternal-paternal phenomenon also has layering. Perhaps maternal-liberalism can be directly explained by women being socialized or expected to care directly for infants and the elderly, hence more liberal on social issues by immediate necessity, not necessarily instinct. However, the male instinct may be an issue for conservatism, if we assume that males follow a genetic tradition of eliminating the competition. I have personally noticed, for instance, that environmentalism tends to be masculine in tone, and I think environmentalism is completely misunderstood by conservatives, who seem to react to the issue in an emasculated way towards it (overly-domesticated or “wimpy”).
Some fascinating discussions here. I think the basic answer in that in modern-day America, there is no common thread that runs through liberalism or conservatism because as has been pointed out several times, both include a central contradiction about the role of government.
It’s interesting to think that economic debate as we know it is relatively new. It only began when Adam Smith defined the system that Western society was using, and then Karl Marx offered an alternative to that system. Because of the way that the debate started, all of the economic conservatives were in one camp, and all of the economic liberals were in another, and both groups had a clearly stated set of principles. It might well have been otherwise, if other economists and philosophers had been able to reach wider audiences at different points throughout history.
**
That’s not really a valid question since liberals and conservatives are just the opposite side of the same coin. Conservatives go on about individual rights while at the same time crushing them when they get the chance. Liberals go on and on about diversity but it only applies to things that they like.
**
Perhaps tree huggers and gun control advocates dislike and don’t trust other human beings? Tree huggers are more interested in protecting planet earth then in protecting human beings. Gun control advocates don’t think that individuals are responsible enough to be trusted with firearms. Simplification, sure, but what else can you expect from this thread?
I think it is bad form to start a thread in great debates without stating your own beliefs in the opening post. But that’s just my opinion.
Marc
I see the conservative/libertarian mindset as similiar to teaching a man to fish, and the liberal mindset as feeding him for a day.
As a conservative/libertarian type, I take a little offense to the suggestion that I choose a position on an issue by the sole standard of what benefits me the most.
I don’t ask myself, “What is best for me?” I do ask: What gives me the right to make this decision for someone else?
I see the liberal mindset as just making excuses to set an agenda. Citing concern for the children and the world’s downtrodden look like nothing more than trite excuses to “get your way.,” and force it onto the rest of the country without any rational debate.
It’s funny that you say this, Izzy. Not because it isn’t a well-reasoned position – it is – but because on another message board not too long ago, RTFirefly said exactly the opposite. That is, when you see a person attempting to apply reason, logic and fairness to an issue, and calmly considering all approaches, they’re probably a liberal; whereas when you see a person worked up into righteous indignation and appealing to emotion, they’re probably a conservative.
Interesting how each side views the other as emotional rather than rational, I guess. It just made me laugh because it was nearly the same thing said, with the political positions reversed.
I think we’re trying to define something along a one-dimensional scale than really has at least two dimensions. Or three.
For one thing, I think there is a distinction to be made between the disparity between liberals and conservatives and the disparity between liberal and conservative partisans. A liberal or conservative partisan (someone committed to a political party, not a guerrilla) is going to be inclined towards agreement with a party line. With all due respect to anyone who belongs to a party, I get the sense that belonging to a political party frequently involved assuming a position of “my party is right and yours is wrong, and the politicians who represent my party are patriots and the ones in your party are evil fascists/communists.” This requires a lot of rationalization and at least grudging acceptance of a fairly homogenous list of positions. If I’m absolutely bound, bent and determined to support the Democrats because I like their position on Issues A, B, and C, I might convince myself, or at least grit my teeth and bear, Positions D and E. And many people will enthusiastically support EVERY position the party holds because, well, that’s their party, go team!
So it is for partisans. NON-partisans - people who will vote for anyone depending on the situation and issues - might have substantially more flexibility. (I have to admit to a level of bias here; I’m a devoted agnostic in terms of faith with any one party, and the extent to which people will support their own party and demonize others, even on this message board, amazes and horrifies me.) Being free of a party line to toe might give someone the flexibility to be both liberal and conservative. I know it’s true for me, and int’s true for most people I know, that my range of opinions defies the liberal-conservative classification system.
pldennison makes an outstanding point when he states that we’ve got conservatives claiming they’re rational and liberals are emotional, while liberals claims THEY’RE rational and conservatives are emotional. The truth, IMHO, is that they’re both emotional, and the “we’re rational, you’re irrational” stuff is essentially equivalent to “Yankees rule/suck - Mets suck/rule!”
So what we might have here is not that a substantial number of people buy into a shopping list of conservative or liberal beliefs, but that an influential and visible minority of people (e.g. politicians and their lackeys) are rah-rah football-fan types supporters of “My Team,” while the majority doesn’t really believe in a right-left world and votes according to a dizzying array of personal beliefs, opportunities, and sheer whimsy.
pldennison
It appears that we are not discussing the exact same issue - my point concerns the underlying reason for adopting a particular position, and RTFirefly, the tactics used in defending it to others. But I do agree that our positions seem to be mutually exclusive - either liberals are more or less emotional. Of course, I’m right. 
What I would note about the RTFirefly argument is that there is a inherent natural tendency for anyone participating in or watching a debate to feel that he or his side is getting the better of it, and that the other side is being irrational and obfuscatory. So his observation may merely be an extension of that phenomenon. (By coincidence, at this time RTFirefly has a Pit thread going, in which one of his main complaints about a conservative poster is that he is “repeatedly resurrecting arguments that have long since been refuted”. Of course, they have “long since been refuted” in the mind of RTFirefly, not in any objective sense).
RickJay
Do you acknowledge that there is some inherent correlation between the various issues that define conservatives and liberals? Is there any reason, in your view, for the fact that there seems to be some degree of correlation between people’s views on these various issues? You seem to be dismissing the entire phenomenon to some sort of happenstance - not a tenable position, IMHO.
This idea was spread to me in church, via Mormon Sunday School manuals I heard from growing up in ultra-conservatism, over and over and over (note allusion to Christ, “I’ll make you fishers of men…”. The fish story, it’s called. I have yet to meet an ultra-conservative who can get past this mental block. Nevermind that most “liberal” policies are solidly pro-education and preventive healthcare. Now if we could just get those idiots who write those church manuals to teach everybody about creel limits, and how to throw the little ones back.
I choose most of my political positions piecemeal, by individual consideration as the issue arises, but I suppose there must be some underlying thread to help me make that decision. Let’s see.
I suppose my political positions boil down to the idea of citizenship and social justice. I think citizenship is useful for something other than being protected in order to drown or swim on your own. The fact is that there are social inequities and disparities in our society that are larger than we are. When we band together as citizens it is to attack problems that are larger than we are, rather than abandoning one another to our respective fates.
30 million heads are better than one when it comes to solving problems. Since everyone is an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses, when citizens work together they tend to do better work than each single person working independently. Medicare is more efficient at ensuring that the sick (and the healthy) have access to medical care than a host of private systems. Society is more than the sum of its parts. To that end, when a citizen is in trouble, it is the job of society to help them.
There’s a hard-nosed aspect to this, too. Let’s take an example I’ve been thinking about recently. A society in which, for example, children are provided with free early childhood development and care, will benefit from this care. It’s not just a matter of a handout, but rather an investment in the future. Children with better childhoods will be less of a strain on the health system, the education system, the welfare system, and the justice system. They’ll tend to be more productive citizens with fewer social problems, and in general live longer and healthier lives.
The fact is that, things being equal, some children will simply not have the benefits they ought to. Rather than dealing with only the crises as they result from this (malnutrition, poor health, unemployment, crime), it’s preferable both from a fiscal and an ethical standpoint to provide for it in advance.
The society has every right to decide that it’s preferable to deal with problems at their source than at their ends. True social justice combines this with the ethical duty to help thy neighbour.
I would rather pay my taxes and live in a society with fed citizens than starving ones, healthy citizens than sick ones, well-educated citizens than stupid ones, whatever the ideological position one might take as to whether so-and-so deserves aid or not.
That’s why I’m a social democrat.
I should also suggest that a fairly good chunk of my left-wingness comes from my Canadian heritage. As Saul suggests in Reflections of a Siamese Twin, the confluence of cultures, the cruel and vast terrain, and the abandonment by our colonial metropoles, combined to make a Canadian society which is more solidaritous (is that a word?) than the US, born out of libertarian revolt.
Many moons ago, I posted this:
No, it isn’t happenstance. I’ll go on a limb, however, and state that I completely disagree that there is a common “liberal” thread of values and a common “conservative” set of values. The assumption in Stoid’s post is that there’s a common reason for holding “liberal” (Read: Democratic Party) values, or “conservative” (read: GOP) values. Unless you’re actually the kid of a staunch GOP/Dem member, I don’t buy it; in fact, I’m not sure we could all agree on what constitutes the grocery list of “liberal” and “conservative” values.
There are, however, many factors that could cause a correlation of positions. (Sorry for the alliteration.) Religion would be an obvious one; being a fundamentalist Christian would seem to strongly push one into certain political positions, although those positions are not universally what I’d call conservative. Living in urban or rural settings has an obvious impact on political beliefs, though again those beliefs don’t abide by easy definitions; a lot of rural GOP voters seem to have no trouble with agricultral subsidies, for example.
A matt_mcl points out, there are substantial differences in political opinions between Canadians and Americans; what Canadian conservatives believe in is vastly different from what American conservatives believe in, simply because we have a different history. Clearly, in that case, national identity and history have more to do with beliefs thana simplistic liberal/conservative scale, even on similar issues. I’m a conservative, I guess, but I’m sure matt_mcl and I will agree on many things that I would disagree with a U.S. conservative on. Similarly, Matt and I will disagree on other things not because of the liberal/conservative difference, but because Matt lives in Quebec and I live in Ontario.
Similarly, you can find regional differences between U.S. states and regions in terms of the specific sort of political beliefs that are embraced.
So are there common thread behind political beliefs? Absolutely. Are those threads “liberal” and “conservative”? I don’t buy that at all. Unfortunately, political debate in our countries is too often simplified to that dichotomy.
RickJay
I have failed to understand your last post. Try this example.
Do you agree that someone who is a strong believer in laws to protect the environment is more likely* to also be a supporter of an HMO “Patient’s Bill of Rights”, than is someone who is not as strong of an environmentalist? (To emphasize: not that everyone is either pro or con on both issues, but that there is some correlation). These are issues that are not obviously related, and if one accepts that there will be some correlation, then there is apparently some factor which tends to push people in the same direction on both issues. The question in this OP is what those underlying reasons or themes might be. If you do not accept that there is a correlation, than you can dismiss the OP entirely, but I do not find that believable, as mentioned. If you do accept it, there is room for a discussion on what causes people to tend to adopt values that fall on one part of our spectrum.
I’m afraid I have to take issue with the statement that people who are “tree huggers” care more about trees than people.
It is precisely BECAUSE we care about people that we care so much about the environment, because the state of the environment has an effect on people.
As for the rest, I’m really NOT very good with abstracts, unfortunately. I’ll bail out.