In today's Arizona Republic's Viewpoint section there was an interesting article by Richard Nilsen titled Reaction to world is fulcrum of politics. His analysis of the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals, while perhaps over simplified, is very astute, but I think it missed one vital aspect. While I agree that the actions and reactions of conservatives and liberals are governed to a greater or lesser extent by their fear or acceptance of change, I think an even more fundamental catalyst is the differing concepts of family.
I would argue that most people have an instinctual drive to protect and provide for themselves, and then their family. The concepts of tribe or nation are, to me, just extensions of family. The other members of the tribe or nation are third or fourth cousins kind of thing. Whether or not a person's concept of family is derived through nurture or nature is for other, much brighter people to decide, but I would not be surprised if it was a combination of the two.
Anyway, it has been my experience that conservatives have very restrictive concepts of family. Things like universal health care and education are an anathema to them because they are busy providing for their family, and don't have time to worry about outsiders. The more conservative the person is the smaller, more strictly defined their family, and by extension tribe. To me this is why Hitler was unable to form deep, lasting relationships. As perhaps the most conservative person to ever live his family was limited to him, and his tribe to a mythical race of supermen he would create. He would be a god, and gods are always conservative. It is interesting to note that Hitler was trying to recreate. He was not trying to change but to strip away the thousands of years of corruptive changes that had debased the perfect beings of the past.
Conversely, liberals seem to have a rather more inclusive concept of family, which is why they are usually more willing to devote personal or national assets to providing things like health care, or less restricted entry into the country. The liberal must protect and provide for his brothers, his family; and he has a very large family.
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Interesting comments concerning conservatives being less open to government involvement in health insurance, etc. because they are busy worrying about just their family.
ReplyDeleteHowever, conservatives are generally far more generous in giving to charities. There are studies that have been done in staunchly conservative areas versus liberal areas and the conservatives are much more generous. If you look at boards of charities they are dominated by businessmen who tend to be conservative. This would seem to fly in the face of the idea that they are not concerned with others.
Conservatives have a very large discomfort with the ability of government to make things better. It is not really complicated - if they felt government could effectively do something (such as building roads or providing for defense), they would be for it. They tend to feel that messing with market forces through government intervention tends to produce very negative long term results.
Mike Huss
Oh, by the way - I have enjoyed spending some time on your site.
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mhuss@att.net