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Thread: The Conservative and Progressive Impulses

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    The Conservative and Progressive Impulses

    I have a take on what underlies our ideological differences, a take that may make it possible for us to look at ourselves as people and how we approach the challenge of change differently. Please take a look at let me know if any of this rings true for you.
    * * *

    The focus on ideology does not begin to explain for me how people actually are, and how they function. If you look at people, I think you will see some have a "progressive" impulse and others have a "conservative" impulse. I would explain what I mean by these impulses this way:

    Some people are very risk averse. Their great skill naturally developed is in mitigating risk and conserving what fruit of labor has already been produced. That to me at root is what the conservative impulse is about.

    Others are naturally very risk tolerant. They see opportunities to expand the good thing that conservative people wish to preserve. They are the folks with the progressive impulse.

    So defined if you think about it, you can both understand the tension that naturally exists between conservatives and progressives, and why they are absolutely both needed - in balance and harmony.

    As Darwin said, survival depends upon the capacity to adapt to change. But for a thinking creature like man, that is not the only capacity required for survival. If people try to change too much over too short a period of time, the enterprise can fly apart at the seams. Without movement to keep the whole enterprise healthy and adaptable, we stagnate and are overwhelmed by the challenges we needed to meet. Without people inclined and skilled at stabilizing the enterprise, it will just as surely expire by dis-integration.

    The most healthy social organisms are those that have the impulses and corresponding forces in balance: Expansion and consolidation. Progressives progress the state of the art. Conservatives consolidate it.

    People say there is a time and a place for every purpose under heaven. That seems true to me: Turn, turn, turn and all.

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    I don't think that the difference between conservatives and progressives is risk tolerance. It is about the role of government in our lives. I would say that the desire for more government is a projection of low risk tolerance.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    I don't think that the difference between conservatives and progressives is risk tolerance. It is about the role of government in our lives. I would say that the desire for more government is a projection of low risk tolerance.
    I would agree with you Pete. The more government is in control of ones daily lives the more chance for that low risk of tolerance. Or the striving for it.
    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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    Good post Dsolo. Very thought provoking. I certainly think we have elements of both in us, and that they wax and wane depending on experiences. Sometimes those who are willing to risk the most are those who have the least to lose, while ones who have met success may be more cautious. I believe that also ties into why the young may be more willing to take that leap of faith compared to those who are more seasoned.

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    Doesn't explain at all why liberals are more intolerant about our environmental future while conservatives are more intolerant about our economic future. We can't live without an environment the one will say and the other we can fix it without an economy. I think too like many you misconstrue what evolution is about, yes, it's about adaptation, but to a changing environment, not a static one towards which we can progress.

    Here is I think a "fair" assessment of differences. Perhaps I'm based because this researcher goes beyond the old political dichotomy and allows for another dimension, libertarian v authoritarian.

    Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist at the University of Virginia.

    Science Asks: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?
    Why do people disagree so passionately about what is right?

    Why, in particular, is there such hostility and incomprehension between members of different political parties?

    ...Haidt calls the system he has built to help answer those questions Moral Foundations Theory.... Along with his colleagues, he posits that the moral appeals upon which political cultures and movements are based can be broken down into six basic categories: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. As he puts in it his Reason story, adapted from the book:
    Political liberals tend to rely primarily on the moral foundation of care/harm, followed by fairness/cheating and liberty/oppression. Social conservatives, in contrast, use all six foundations. They are less concerned than liberals about harm to innocent victims, but they are much more concerned about the moral foundations that bind groups and nations together, i.e., loyalty (patriotism), authority (law and order, traditional families), and sanctity (the Bible, God, the flag as a sacred object). Libertarians, true to their name, value liberty more than anyone else, and they value it far more than any other foundation.
    In an effort to figure out why conversations across the aisle so often degenerate into shouting matches, Haidt (along with colleagues Jesse Graham and Brian Nosek) asked liberals and conservatives to try on each others' ideological shoes, answering a series of questions as they thought their opponents would:
    The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the care and fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives. When faced with statements such as "one of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal" or "justice is the most important requirement for a society," liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree.
    Haidt theorizes that this kind of blindness to the real motivations of others is driving discord in Washington and around the country. Our political personalities emerge from a stew of nature, nurture (which is in part a result of feedback from the world on our natures), and the narratives we build up to explain the progression of our own lives and the working of the world around us. But they also wall us off from others:
    Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects. Morality binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.
    Last edited by Chris; 04-02-2012 at 07:15 AM.

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    Dagny
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    Quote Originally Posted by Conley View Post
    Good post Dsolo. Very thought provoking. I certainly think we have elements of both in us, and that they wax and wane depending on experiences.
    That definitely applies to me. And, it ought to apply to everyone. It demands an open mind....something our polarized nation has lost the ability to conceive of.


    Sometimes those who are willing to risk the most are those who have the least to lose, while ones who have met success may be more cautious. I believe that also ties into why the young may be more willing to take that leap of faith compared to those who are more seasoned.
    I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the 'risk' issue, when defining conservative/progressive political views.

    Socially, it's possible to be a conservative liberal. At least, if we're discussing risk.

    I guess political labels are nothing more than gross generalizations, that are rarely accurate?

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    I agree with Peter that it's more about the role of government, in fact I've come to see "statist" as more descriptive of political opponents than "liberal." As a self described libertarian I find areas of agreement with liberals, but seldom with statists who may well be conservatives or republicans. But I realize that I'm out at the fringes in my philosophy.

    I sometimes wonder if the biggest reason for the strife between the left and right is ego, a desire to be correct and an inability to have been seen as wrong or having an epiphany in another direction. I remember years ago on forums seeing and saying that a poster has made good points that have altered opinions. Today you're more apt to see no response, or worse, a name calling fest.

    But I also think its frustration due to the polarization that's taken place in our politics. Maybe we've come through a political awakening with some embracing statism, and others seeking to turn back to the direction intended by the founders. Twenty years ago the real difference between Democrats and Republicans was minimal. Today the Independents are still there, but the left and right have drifted further and further apart.

    This should be a good thread.
    "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

    "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."

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    Given the actual performance of government these days, I'd suggest that having more of it is a lot riskier than downsizing it.

    I think the difference between conservatives and liberals is simple: Liberals view everything through an emotional filter like little children. Most of us grew out of the "that's not fair" stage of life and got focused on taking care of ourselves and viewing things from the standpoint of whether they achieve the desired result or not. Liberals retain this child-like insistence on feeling good and being treated fairly, which in the real world means it is OK to steal the work of others to try and make the world "fair."

    I say "try" because by any measure, just about every liberal ideal of the last 50 years has failed or is failing. All of the entitlement programs are insolvent beyond rescue. The "War on Poverty" basically destroyed the underclass without reducing poverty. "Self Esteem" in education has resulted in a nation of dumbed-down narcissists who can't think or communicate clearly and logically.

    The nation is polarized now simply because people in very substantial numbers are rising up to confront the failure of progressivism and the progressives don't like it at all. So, from their bully pulpits in "higher" education, they crank out junk science and pop psychology since they really can't respond with substance when asked to show why their failed ideas shouldn't be junked. Very much, this response reminds me of how the communists used mental hospitals to get rid of their questioners, at least the ones they didn't send to the Gulag.

    Look at the typical response of a liberal when called on their failed ideas these days: It is to resort almost immediately to angrily calling their opponents "racists" or far worse. And we are seeing more and more of the kind of blatant manipulation of the media such as the deliberate misrepresentation by NBC of the 911 call by Zimmerman. Or the constant whining and slandering of Fox News, which certainly has its flaws, but the real problem is that it doesn't toe the leftist party line.

    Liberals hate free speech other than their own and are constantly trying to restrict it. Unfortunately, there is this thing called the Internet on which their media is rapidly and regularly exposed when it tries to lie to the public. It is no accident that liberals are in the forefront of attempts to impose government control on the Internet.

    Some claim that liberalism is a mental illness. I think it is much simpler. They weren't raised very well and just never grew up. Unfortunately, we who did spent all our time working for success for ourselves and our families and weren't paying attention as the inmates took over the assylum. As a result, we have a failed educational system full of unionized idiots who can't pass simple proficiency tests, a government full of overpaid, largely useless and counter-productive bureaucrats led by career politicians, largely leftist, and an unelected court system that has basically tossed the Constitution.

    Since I didn't sleep through history nor have the "privilege" of being taught a bunch of liberal-rewritten nonsense in the guise of history, I am all too painfully aware that when great nations or civilizations enter the declining stage (and they all do) there is no turning back. It will be up to some future civilization to resurrect the timeless brilliance that the Founders wrought. The dumbed down population of whining entitlement junkies that largely populate the U.S. today sure isn't going to do it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dagny View Post
    That definitely applies to me. And, it ought to apply to everyone. It demands an open mind....something our polarized nation has lost the ability to conceive of.




    I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the 'risk' issue, when defining conservative/progressive political views.

    Socially, it's possible to be a conservative liberal. At least, if we're discussing risk.

    I guess political labels are nothing more than gross generalizations, that are rarely accurate?

    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dagny View Post
    That definitely applies to me. And, it ought to apply to everyone. It demands an open mind....something our polarized nation has lost the ability to conceive of.




    I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the 'risk' issue, when defining conservative/progressive political views.

    Socially, it's possible to be a conservative liberal. At least, if we're discussing risk.

    I guess political labels are nothing more than gross generalizations, that are rarely accurate?
    I was expanding on the labels of liberal and conservative, going beyond politics and looking at it more as a way of approaching life.

    I do think political labels are not particularly useful and whenever possible, we should look at the individual, their words and deeds to determine their beliefs. Even the word conservative politically can mean anything from someone who is frugal with taxpayer money to someone one who believes evolution is the lie. Where is the overlap there?

    The labels are a great way of spreading dissension and discouraging a look at the big picture. It's much better for the powers that be to have us each pick a banner and then go to war with the other side rather than stopping to examine the folks running the puppet show.

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