Why Liberals and Conservatives Can’t Understand Each Other
“On Being” is a syndicated radio program on the intersection of philosophy, religion and human psychology that I try to catch every week. The episode linked here was the second in as many weeks on a subject that I believe to be very important to our understanding who we are and how we get along in the world around us.
The thesis is this: each of us tends to believe that we act rationally and scientifically in selecting our positions on political and social issues, where in fact, our viewpoints are informed by our basic personalities and our life experiences; we’re really no more at liberty to choose how we feel about certain things than we’re able to select our height or the color of our eyes.
Liberals view conservatives and mean and stupid, and conservatives look at liberals as weak, impractical, idealists. It’s extremely difficult for either set to escape that mindset, even temporarily, and rational argument never gets the job done.
We also live in a world where both conservative (authoritarian, leader-driven, individually accountable) and liberal (permissive, inclusive, group-minded) modalities are important to the success of our society. The interview contains some terrific examples of all this.
Hope you enjoy.
Recently I asked Dr. Gerald Wright, chairman of the Indiana University Department of Political Science, how powerful he sees an established internal narrative in a person’s mind when presented with data that’s inconsistent with that narrative.
He responded by saying that people in politics rarely try to change a political audience’s internal narrative, but instead figure out how to argue single issues in ways that are compatible with portions of that narrative.
One example of this technique might be appealing to the narrative value of personal freedom as a tactic to support the repeal of prohibition, without addressing the factual data on lives lost and dollars wasted in failed enforcement strategies.
Regrettably, partisans are most often far too attached to their party’s narrative to allow consideration of an idea that has already been thoroughly attacked by a partisan narrative position.
All true. When I speak in favor of renewables to right-wing audiences, I try not to talk about climate change, but rather about national security. And even that normally doesn’t work. 🙂
Indeed – when I talk of spending excess blood and treasure on a military presence in the Middle East, I often here how we now get most of our foreign oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela (true, but beside the point).
Our government’s brutal, longstanding, and continuous molestation of the whole middle east region for the past 100 years is not seen for what it is – a deeply legitimate and enduring grievance that radicalizes and recruits people for misled groups willing to take innocent life to make a statement.
We’re instead told they hate us for our freedoms.
Happy Halloween.