On Liberals and Conservatives: An Analogy

No, not really. Was an anarchist for a decade, obviously not anymore. I am only 31 so there’s that also.

I don’t do anything on a whim or lightly that’s for sure.

At least I try to be loyal to an ideal by comparison.

You on the other hand, aren’t you a democratic civic nationalist that doesn’t really believe in democracy so much as you see it as a form divide and conquering the plebs as you’ve stated in the past? :wink: It’s clear you only care about yourself that’s for sure.

Yes, I’ve found it best to consume reasonably high quantities of alcohol when visiting this “philosophy” site.

Ok, let’s… how we gonna do that?

I think this analogy is focused on the wrong things. 1. It’s more about psychology, not about liberalism qua liberalism or conservatism qua conservatism 2. It seems to be focused on the lowest common denominator, if based at all on any representative sample (i.e. most people are pretty average - simple wimps and bullies). What would be a more interesting question is: what is the strongest possible conception of a liberal and what is the strongest possible conception of a conservative - what analogy illustrates the two?

Here’s one I find intriguing: the omnivore’s dilemma as applied to general human motivation - i.e. let’s say there are two main competing motivations in political life: the conservative desire for order and well-defined boundaries (b/c experimentation with new foods, or ideas, can risk exposure to contamination and potentially deleterious effects) vs. the liberal desire to seek out diversity and push boundaries (b/c new food sources, or ideas, mitigate the the potentially fatal risk of strains that go bad or become depleted) – both historically necessary for a balanced survival strategy.

That’s right. It’s about the psychology of liberals and conservatives.

And? How else you gonna characterize a group than by the lowest common denominator? Most kids in the classroom fall somewhere in the middle of the bell curve–neither wimps nor bullies–but the same is true of politics–most people fall somewhere in the middle between liberals and conservatives.

I think my analogy works just fine. :smiley:

Well, you can conceptualize liberals and conservatives any way you like–seems there are as many different conceptualizations as there are people–but I’m sticking with the classical definitions: conservatives are those who want to minimize government in order to maximize individual freedom whereas liberals are those who want to maximize government in order to maximize security and equality.

Teacher represents the government in my analogy. The nerds and the wimps want teacher to be present, and go to teacher whenever they’re being harassed, because they know teacher is an authority and has the power to keep the bullies and rowdies in line. The bullies and rowdies, on the other hand, want teacher to leave the classroom so that they can be rowdie or pick on the nerds and wimps.

Well, I’m still waiting for an in-depth explanation of your original post for starters.

How 'bout my explanation to fuse:

What about individuals that don’t fall in your classical definition of conservatives and liberals?

Conservatives want very little government within their capitalist ideology in order to exploit as many people that they can. Liberals want more government to have control over all individuals so they can initiate their global communist ideology.

There’s my definitions and two cents.

They’re in the middle.

Perfect! Kinda like my definitions with the added twist of ambitions for world domination on the part of the liberals. I suppose this would be like a nerd/wimp wanting to become teacher (and possibly with the same psychological drives: to have ultimate protections against the bullies and the rowdies). This comes close to my comment about certain “teacher’s pets” except taken a few steps further.

More on your comment about individuals who don’t fall into my classification scheme. This happens in real life as much in politics as it does in the classroom. Not all students are rowdies/bullies or nerds/wimps. You could have a guy who wears geeky glasses and is into science but is also on the basket ball team, putting him in with the jocks. I find high school students tend to be a lot more forgiving of these “in between” types than in real world politics. As you probably can guess, I try to be independent, middle of the road, but in my experience, each of the two extremes wants to classify me in the opposite camp. If I’m not extreme, they figure, I must be in the opposite camp. This would be like both the rowdies/bullies and the nerds/wimps ganging up together against the geeky basket ball player and saying: you gotta pick a side; you’re either a bully/rowdie or a nerd/wimp. IOW, it’s the hardcore conservatives and the hardcore liberals who deliberately try to make the world a place where there are no individuals who don’t fit my categorization scheme.

Typically, I let people’s ideas through their verbalizations and/or their actions classify them. As people express themselves, most often they pick a side without realizing it.

I invented the buckets, you throw people into them. :smiley:

It’s an interesting opinion or perspective to be sure but in the end this would all be addressed as mere over-generalizations of all people politically.

How would you classify national socialist autocratic supporters like me? :slight_smile:

Indulge me, please. :sunglasses:

Ahh, for some reason I was thinking this was supposed to be about liberalism and conservatism.

Ehh seems like just another way to stereotype liberals and conservatives without really explaining much or being very useful. I mean, it’s more interesting and more useful to look at liberals and conservatives in their strongest light - see what the virtues of each are etc. It’s like if you looked into some debate in philosophy, you’ll find loads of dumb arguments/proponents on each side, right? Some people spend all their time re-hashing the common errors. All I’m saying is, wouldn’t it be more interesting, don’t we stand to learn more by focusing on the strongest arguments and the mind boggling crux of an issue?

Heh, okay. I don’t think those are the “classical” definitions.

A teacher is basically a dictator, of course, in the context of the classroom. Maybe you can clarify the analogy?

Are we talking about some kind of representative government with separate and empowered branches that must share power, or are we talking about a dictatorship? Are you saying that conservatives are really anarchists who want to get rid of government so they can be “rowdy” and go around picking on people?
These aren’t directed at your analogy, but discussing these would help me make more sense of it: why are liberals the ones who care more about security and equality vs freedom if the word liberal shares its root with liberty, or freedom? Has the meaning of liberalism and conservatism changed over time? What makes someone a liberal or conservative (besides self-declaration) ?

I know, because I omitted words like “most” or “on average”.

A nazi I guess. Aren’t you guys far-right?

Oh, no, no, no. Why would I eeever want to touch on conservatism and liberalism by bringing up the psychology of conservatives and liberals.

Makes no difference to me whether you think it’s a stereotype or you find it useful. If you don’t think it explains anything, you don’t get the analogy (TBH, I’m kinda shocked how few people are getting it). It’s meant to highlight what I think is a fundamental truth about human nature.

They have virtues?

No.

It’s what I learnt in school.

The teacher represents government. She has enough authority to come down on the bullies and the rowdies when she catches them bullying or being rowdie. This is true even in democracies or republics. The government has enough authority to come down on those breaking the law (rowdies) or abusing others (bullies); and liberals will often go to government in order to legislate new laws in order to control behaviors they don’t like (smoking bans for example).

We’re talking about human nature. In any society, there will be those who want freedom from government in order to do what they want, and those who want a more powerful government in order to provide security against the latter… and of course, there’s everyone in between. The analogy is more than an analogy. Bullies, rowdies, nerds, and wimps are real people. Just go to any high school and you will find them (…and everyone in between). They are real because this is a real phenomenon. And it doesn’t stop once they graduate… it just moves into politics.

Conservatists call those guys “libertarians” (at least Ucci did). You can consider them radical conservatists. But the moderate conservatists (from what they tell me) only want to minimize government (to its proper roll), not get rid of it (that would be silly :confused: ).

Don’t be fooled by the names. They don’t mean anything. The only answer I have is from what a few conservatives told me: that the conservatives used to call themselves liberals but then the other guys appropriated the name just to make themselves sound like they’re all about freedom… or so I’m told. I’m also told liberals do this all the time: borrow terms for window dressing, like calling themselves “progressive” in order to make it sound like the liberal agenda equals progress. But “isms” are just a label for identifying a group of people. I’m constantly amazed at how little a group’s actually ideology and value system matches the “ism” they attach to themselves. And I really shouldn’t be amazed. It’s to be expected. A group’s ideology and values will go wherever group-think takes them. A group’s ideology/values might start out at a certain position but then over the years migrate to a completely different position. It’s like a herd of “northerners” who migrate to the south and still call themselves “northerners”. And why shouldn’t they? No one really cares about changing the name until it starts to become detrimental.

Somebody else’s declaration.

To Gib:

Well, it is good that you know what over generalizing is, nazi is a derogatory term by the way.

It depends what you mean with your definition of far right. We prefer to call ourselves socialist or social conservatives. Another way to describe ourselves would be paternal conservatives.

A national socialist is a fascist, right? I know, another derogatory term, but it’s an authoritarian dictatorship, which I suppose is another derogatory term. Everything is done for the good of the people as per the judgement of a benevolent leader who favors strong borders and division of people by tribe, strong family values for building a strong population, and elimination of democratic ignorant opinions from decision making processes. It doesn’t seem so bad when I say it that way, but the risk is having a tyrannical maniac at the helm which I think explains the derogation of the former nomenclature as per history. Monarchies and dictatorships never seem to work that well and it was that impetus that formed the US.

Why did George Washington turn down an offer to become a king?

Washington once said “I didn’t fight George III to become George I.” He didn’t believe the office of the president should resemble a European monarchy. He became president with some vision of what the country and the office of president should and shouldn’t be. He set one precedent even before becoming president when he resigned his commission as General instead of turning it into a springboard for political power.

Democracy is run by the mob and a majority of uneducated idiots or bozos that should have no power to make political decisions for everybody else. To hell with democracy, the constitution, and the founding fathers. The modern United States is a sick decadent nation that needs to simply die which is why I am a crash enthusiast. You could call us fascist but I prefer the term authoritarian in that fascism is more in line with Italian corporatism and I don’t consider myself a corporatist either. No, I define myself as an authoritarian. Yes, there is the threat of maniacal dictators but the same could be said about maniacal presidents or prime ministers also. I am very aware of the abuse of power and believe it should be avoided at all costs.

At any rate I’m a firm believer in a benevolent dictatorship through a nation state.

Oh, excuse me Mr. Fascist Prick.

(kidding! kidding! kidding! :smiley: )

With all the different terms people like to use, it’s hard to keep track of what one really is. Now I need to know what you mean by social conservative.

Paint me a picture of your perfect world, and then I will see where you stand.

Well technically I admit being a prick so that is actually a factual statement.

A socialist conservative merely means I am a conservative that is a socialist that believes economically and socially that socialism should prevail over society.

A big part of my conservatism of course is ethnocentrism and ethnic nationalism.