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Liberals vs. Conservatives
In most western countries, people can be politically divided roughly into two groups—liberals and conservatives. This division is hardly perfect; the liberals also include moderate socialists, the conservatives also include fascists, and libertarians and centrists divide according to the country’s political climate and most important issues. Further, the liberals and conservatives are seldom truly liberal and conservative respectively (in the United States, the so-called liberals are patriotic whereas liberalism is humanistic and the so-called conservatives are ideological whereas conservatism is pragmatic; in Continental Europe, conservatives are mostly true to conservative principles, but liberals are not true to liberal principles).
This of course is an oversimplification, but it captures one important point, namely that debate takes place mostly between these two groups. The blogosphere, or at least the American blogosphere, is similarly divided, but even more sharply—on one side of the aisle we have Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Atrios, and so on, and on the other we have blogs such as Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan. Hence, liberals do a lot to try and discredit conservatism and conservatives, and similarly conservatives do a lot to try and discredit liberalism and liberals.
The problem here is that neither of the sides will debate fairly. Words are raped rampantly, and each side uses rhetorical terms (e.g. pro-worker and anti-worker, which are identical in meaning but opposite in connotation to anti-business and pro-business, respectively). Each side attempts to win the debate not by proving that its ideas are true and beneficial, or by offering better solutions, or even by showing that the other side’s ideas are bad, but rather by trying to define terms. In a debate between politicians before an election, the debaters will obviously rape words and use non-sequiturs, although the moderators should nevertheless press on and ask questions such as “Define ‘freedom’”; but in publications of think tanks, on blogs, and among intellectuals, this is simply inexcusable.
One rampant problem is that people try and define the other’s agendas and ideas. Liberals and conservatives both engage in vicious comparisons between liberals and conservatives, which rarely even try to be fair; one example of such rampant bias comes from fellow OSP writer Kenneth Quinnell whose The Difference Between Conservatives and Liberals is an excellent example of how not to compare political groups or philosophies.
The first step of solving this gridlock is to let each side define its own philosophy, but no one appears to be willing to do that. There are some definitions of liberalism online given by liberals—I would recommend my Liberal Manifesto for obvious reasons, but a brief search on “Liberal Manifesto” on Google will give you some real gems; however, I know of no similar conservative manifesto that details the basic ideas of conservatism, for after all reiterating the doctrines of tax cuts, social conformity, and increased military spending that are of course based on unstated assumptions gives hardly any insight to what principles conservatism is based on. Still, it is important to let conservatives define what philosophical conservatism is, or, failing that, to define conservatism based on the principle of giving the strongest possible argument in favor of conservative positions.
Another common problem, which is evident also in popular debate, is talking past each other. Conservatives talk in length about declining morals, self-reliance as opposed to welfare, a strong military, and so on; liberals talk in similar length about poverty, international cooperation, and so on. No one will explain why these matter; when asked for explanation, all that is given is rhetoric and raping of words—liberals justify international cooperation on the grounds that it “protects us from terrorism” and “promotes national sovereignty,” rather than more rationally by outlining the failure of military solutions to curb terror campaigns over the last fifty years. Historical facts cannot be reduced to short soundbites; empty rhetoric can.
George Lakoff’s two models of government—the strict father approach, representing conservatism, and the nurturant parent approach, representing liberalism—is a prime example of this. Lakoff identifies the way in which American conservatives have switched from coherent philosophy to public relations, but rather than explain how to bring down this house of cards, he advocates that liberals build a similar house of cards based on the nurturant parent model of government. The strict father model has several inconsistencies, not just with reality but also within itself (the theme of self-reliance, for instance, makes no sense once one realizes that a dependent person is still better off than a dead person); the nurturant parent model is even worse. Rather than talk in a more constructive way, the mainstreams of both groups choose to deliberately use empty words and irrational arguments.
Now, one would expect that given the fact that liberals and conservatives talk past each other, they would at least use different terms. However, they don’t. Politicians more than thinkers and bloggers, but thinker and bloggers too, display the distinct ability to talk past one another while raping the same words anyway. Liberals don’t talk much of “declining morals” and conservatives all but ignore poverty, but beyond that, both sides rape the same words. Both sides rape freedom; that’s a given. They also rape religion (every side claims that it is truer to Jesus’ teachings than the other), “Our way of life,” the theme of “strength on defense,” justice, and populism. Accusations of elitism, being out of touch with the people, treason, being weak on defense, and anti-freedom fly across the chasm that divides liberals from conservatives more freely than bombers and rockets flew across the English Channel during World War Two.
By now, you’re probably wondering, “What is your solution, then?” The good news are that there is a fairly easy solution: liberals and conservatives need to debate more intelligently, discard irrational models such as strict father and nurturant parent, and just stop the pointless accusations. The bad news are that hardly anybody is going to do that; some intellectuals might, few bloggers will, and no politicians are going to even contemplate doing that.
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