John Cole proposes a question:
My question is: is there anything inherent in whatever conservatism is supposed to be that makes it less interested in reality? Anything in liberalism that makes it more interested in reality? Or is this all a historical accident? And is there a big political disadvantage to focusing on governing as opposed to pontificating?
He has some pretty spot-on observations about the differences between conservatives and liberals, mainly that conservatives are focused on philosophy and liberals are more focused on results and outcomes. He goes on to make this observation:
Honestly, though, I don’t see how it is possible for a movement to govern effectively with a focus on theory and fantasy. That’s not to say that conservatives can’t do a good job governing at the local level, where the issues are too concrete and boring to be dealt with by John Galt. But at the national level, I just don’t see how conservatives have a chance of being effective, given that their base, their media, and their intellectual infrastructure is more interested in rhetoric, “philosophy”, and fantasy than in any kind of policy specifics.
You see discussions like this almost daily on this blog. Conservatism in general seems to be more focused on individuals while liberalism is more focused on community. Actually, I think that would be a healthy balance if the discussions were actually balanced. Modern conservatism has turned into “this is what I’m afraid of” and “this is what I don’t like,” but doesn’t really have an answer for exceptions.
You could see this in the discussion of same sex marriage. The objections to same sex marriage from conservatives fall into two general categories: “it’s against my religion” and “I don’t like it because it’s different.” These objections don’t really conform to real life though, I mean, how do you handle the fact that some people are gay and that not everyone believes in the tenets of your religion? Their theoretical argument is basically “don’t be gay.” You see this same dynamic with abstinence-only eduction, there is nothing other than “don’t have sex” with no acknowledgment that people will have sex eventually (more than 95% pre-maritally), what then? The same thing happens with abortion – “don’t have one” does not cover all the possible real life situations that people face.
The Balloon Juice discussion was quite interesting.
Commenter WereBear:
I once heard it explained something like this:
Liberals believe that people are inherently good and society should be structured to maximize their opportunities towards goodness.
Conservatives believe that people are inherently bad and society should be structured to minimize their opportunities towards badness.
I still like it because it covers so much ground. Liberals like to come up with ways to get masses of people education, health care, food, and other basics so that they can contribute to society. Based on the fact that liberals think people want to contribute to society, if they have a chance.
While conservatives think that without laws and harsh punishments against each and every thing they don’t like, people will lie around and eat Cheetos all day.
Though I don’t know where they get that idea from…
(Durn this commenting system! Durn it to heck!)
I don’t actually believe Liberals believe that people are inherently good and society should be structured to maximize their opportunities towards goodness. I would probably describe my philosophy more as people are essentially fallible and we should accept that, so we should structure society to encourage the behavior we want and discourage behavior we don’t want. I don’t think we can legislate morality and I don’t think shame works very well. Take abortion as an example. I believe we prevent abortions by having comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education and increase access to birth control. But I also recognize there will be situations when abortion should be available, like in the cases of rape, incest and health of the mother.
This comment, by jrosen really made sense to me:
Xanthippas:
“Just off the top of my head, I’m not really sure why that is, though some historical research could probably answer that question.”
As someone who began on the then far-left (I am a Red Diaper baby, i. e. a child of old-left CPUSA’ers) and lived as an aware adult through the chaotic 60’s, I can suggest a few things.
The Old Left, both the Communists who idealized (and ideologued) the USSR —- my 95-year-old mother still does—- and Socialists who hated it, were guided by ideology, basically Marxist, however convoluted and the interpretations (and rationalizations) became. (Indeed, that many of their best thinkers and writers came from a Jewish background might account for the Talmudic complexity of the arguments that raged). But reality marginalized them at best, and really injured some of them—- my family went through the Mccarthy treatment when I was in my teens and although we came out OK, there are still some scars that throb when the political weather gets threatening. And then: the Secret Speech, the Hungarian and E. German uprisings (which did it for me), put serious doubts in play and, lo and behold, the most successful progressive movement of the century, the civil rights movement, came out of the Black Christian Churches, confounding some of the most deeply held ideological positions of the old Left.
Add to that the total ‘60s confusion of positions according to old schemes: the Vietnam War, which became the focus of so much anguish and desperation was escalated by Democrats (until Nixon). LBJ launched that war and the “War on Poverty” almost in the same breath, while supporting the civil rights movement with practical action (exploiting the death of JFK for the purpose!). JFK himself campaigned as an anti-Communist Cold warrior and initiated the Test-Ban Treaty, and seemed to be moving left when he was gunned down, by a self-styled man of the Left (yes, I do think, after decades of consideration, that Oswald was a lone gunman). I watched some old friends move from the traditional right (Ike-like) into SDS when it was mildly progressive and then farther and farther left into the insanity that ended with Kent State and the “Days of Rage” (I helped to start at least one of Weathermen on his trajectory. And some of the internecine bickering of the New Left was almost a caricature of the polemics that raged in the ‘30s, as if the radicals were trying to re-enact the whole experience, complete with pathetical calls for armed revolution—- Trotsky at the Smolny Institute was a favorite trope—- while the ones who used clubs were hard-hatted men of the working class, on them!)
Surveying this fiasco from a distance, it seems clear that an ideology that was born in a very different time and place was inappropriate (that’s polite!) to the problems of our day.And it is easy to see how the best of intentions can result in the worst of outcomes when human beings try to coerce reality—- here the Orwell text is “Animal Farm”—- into an ideologically predetermined cast. Thus caution, pragmatism, incrementalism seem better suited to deal with real difficulties then grand prescriptions.Today’s Right might take note, if they cared about reality at all. But it’s a lot more fun to hold extreme positions when you know somehow that there isn’t a chance they will ever be realized. Until the nuts start shooting, of course.
This makes a lot of sense. The 60s was the end of the New Deal/progressive era and the rise of the new conservative era. Did years out of power make the Republicans into the party of ideas while Democrats collapsed under the weight of their own ideology? I’m not sure but it does feel to me like we’re in a bit of the reverse of the 60s. In the 60s it was the far-left extremists that were more dangerous and violent and their activity tainted the rest of the movement. I know that years out of power did make liberals hungry for change and conservative mis-administration made the rest the country eager to give liberals a chance.