So, post dinner with Luke, Chad, and Ro I was on my way to Raleigh’s for the dean meetup/berkeley students for dean meeting which was on Chad’s way home, and we were talking about dean and liberals in general. And specifically how liberals tend to be less coherent than conservatives. And further, how this is completely logical given that, using the original meanings of the words, conservatives wish to maintain the status quo, while liberals wish to change it. Maintaining something is a singular goal. Change does not, however, specify what sort of change one desires, and hence, the lack of uniformity in those desiring change. Even agreement on the goals doesn’t imply agreement in methodology.
Ro put an interesting spin on it at work today. He suggested the conservative motivation was love and the liberal motivation was hate … for the status quo. And that love is inherently more unifying than hate.
It’s a sign of how liberal I am that it is difficult for me to conceive of love for the status quo. But the notion does reframe things in a very different perspective. (not that it changes my politics in the slightest, just my attitude. More like ‘poor lost little doves’ rather than ‘selfish raging assholes’).
Actually, I think the incoherence of liberals is just a symptom of being in Berkeley (or the Bay Area, or generally any deep blue area of the country). In these areas, liberals don’t get practice defending their views, just getting annoyed that the country isn’t listening to the views of everyone around us. Meanwhile, conservatives around here actually have to defend their views every time they turn around, so if they manage to stay conservative, it’s because they’ve got pretty cogent explanations. I imagine in rural Nebraska, or suburban Houston, or any place of the like, conservatives are the incoherent ones (Fred Phelps, anyone?) and what liberals there are have impeccable argumentation.
Enh
No offense, but this all sounds like verbal shadowboxing. I could reframe the question by saying that a liberal’s love is humanist at heart and love of the status quo is actually hating one’s fellow man by valuing present comfort over the good of the whole. But that wouldn’t be any more true than Ro’s spin. It’s all just effective rhetoric that rolls off the tongue nice and easy.
Sometimes the status quo resembles the best solution we have at the moment for some given societal problem, sometimes it doesn’t. Conversatives and liberals give me the same uclers usually… except in this election. GW is less conservative and more the figurehead for a cynical big biz and fundie powergrab. He’s more of a symbol than a human being, and as such I have zero problem loathing him unconditionally. My vote this election is simply against “Bush Redux”. All else pales in comparison. In a perfect world I’d care very deeply about the differences between Dean and Kerry, but given the amount they can accomplish they’re pretty much the same tool in my eyes.
Re: Enh
My fundamental point (unity of ‘conservatives’, disunity of ‘liberals’) is based on the self-perception of the groups, and is separate from the ‘love/hate’ bit. I think it holds logical water.
The ‘love/hate’ bit is purely a tool to develop the aforementioned empathy with ‘conservatives’ and the ‘my country, do or die’ types.
I’m definitely voting on the anti-bush ticket. I may even campaign for it. =)