What drives liberalism and what drives conservatism?

[E_Smith]

I was thinking today about the difference between a liberal and a conservative. Often people remark that liberals have compassion, while conservatives do not... that conservatives think with their head and liberals their heart. There is that famous Winston Churchill quote, "if you are young and conservative you have no heart. if you are old and liberal you have no head."

I used to accept these notions. Then it occurred to me that this is not the case at all, and in fact almost the opposite is true. The root of liberalism is found in the values of the enlightenment, that the power of reason is much better than the power of faith--and this is what progressives really stand for. So in truth, liberalism is driven by reason and a constant analysis of the facts, while conservatism is driven by ideology. Edit to add: the resultant compassion of liberals is really the result of reason, or the head, NOT the heart!

Now its obvious today that Bush is incredibly ideological as are the neocons. But notwithstanding Bush, do you see ideology as the driving influence of conservatism and reason that of liberalism, or is there an equal mix on both sides of reason/ideology?

[Nik Jam]

1. hmm

liberalism is love and compassion and conservatism is superiority and the lust for power.

Unelss I read that question wrong..

[ladjf]

29. arrogance is a result of the lack of understanding. Anyone who

sees the larger picture can only be humbled and awed by it and could in no way think of themselves has the rightful Lords of the World.

[devilgrrl]

2. IMHO...

Liberalism - Driven by "justice for all"

Conservatism - Driven by Greed

[ladjf]

30. Yes. Liberals see the larger picture and appreciate it's wonderful

grandeur and are modest but please to be a part of such a tapestry.
Conservatives see themselves as the center of the Universe. The Earth is their for their use. They think in dominionist terms, which are very shortsighted and dangerous.

[SCDem]

3. My simple take

Conservatism or what is now Republican Radicalism - greed, money, me

Liberalism or progressive democrats - wanting a better tomorrow for our children, healthy environment, healthcare, education, civil rights, tolerance etc.

Yes it's a biased take on the divide but I said upfront it was simple :)

[KnowerOfLogic]

4. Rationality and respect drive liberalism; fear and disrespect drive

conservatism.

[InvisibleTouch]

5. Hope and Fear, respectively. n/t

[BuyingThyme]

19. I think that says it nicely.

[brainshrub]

6. Nurturing parent and Strict father. Respectively.

Read Lakoff's book: 'Don't think of an elephant.'

[LynnTheDem]

7. Use the dictionary definition of liberal; the antonyms are conservatives

Roget's Thesaurus

[d_b]

9. That sounds about right.

:)

[trotsky]

8. Your heart leads you to liberalism.

Your head will keep you there - if used correctly. True liberals use both.

And liberalism ALWAYS wins. Liberalism has overthrown monarchs, abolished slavery, secured the right to vote, given us safer workplaces with fair wages, and on and on. Conservatives fought each and every one of these for as long as they could. But they lost.

Conservatives are doomed to lose. They always have, they always will.

[cmf]

10. My take

Liberalism - compassion, selflessness

Conservatism - greed, selfishness

[demosincebirth]

11. I think...

Liberalism - the need to help others

Conservatism - the need to help only yourself

[Czolgosz]

12. Liberalism is principally a belief in reform and activism as a means to

bring about change. Conservatism is principally an antipathy to change and a preference to the status quo.

Both terms are generally misunderstood when applied to most political debates of the day. Generally speaking, when Democrats defend Social Security and the Constitution, they are acting conservative. When Republicans want to reform the civil justice system, reform Social Security, reform the tax code, they are resorting to liberal means to achieve their ideological ends.

Every time someone calls Bush "conservative" she is helping him disguise his motives, goals, and ideology.

[housewolf]

28. Well said...

Good points, thanks for adding to this discussion.

[E_Smith]

34. yes absolutely

yeah no doubt that Bush is NOT a conservative, and there were several conservative writers that came out against him in the election. its funny though how many republicans think that he is one.

So I guess my question is: if liberalism is driven by reason (I like to think so, but is it?), then conservatism is driven by?.....

fear of change?
religion?
superstition?
greed?
status quo?

[Czolgosz]

52. fear of change

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

13. Churchill NEVER said that...in fact he became more liberal....

Here is a link to the official Churchill site/misquotes section:

[E_Smith]

43. thanks, I wondered that when I quoted it if it was real. n/t

[goodboy]

14. kindness and generosity versus hatred and greed...(nt)

[MsTryska]

15. Jsut to nitpick -

Churchill never said that quote.

i found this bit form a real-live book that clears up the quotation:

"Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings,
and Familiar Misquotations" by Ralph Keyes, 1992. He writes:

"An orphan quote sometimes
attributed to Georges Clemenceau is:
Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart.
Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head.
The most likely reason is that Bennet Cerf once reported Clemenceau's
response to a visitor's alarm about his son being a communist:
If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him.
If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then.
George Seldes later quoted Lloyd George as having said:
A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart;
an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.
The earliest known version of this observation is attributed to
mid-nineteenth century historian and statesman François Guizot:
Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart;
to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.
Variations on this theme were later attributed to Disraeli, Shaw,
Churchill, and Bertrand Russell. (I misquoted Churchill to this
effect for years.)"



(just want to clear that up - it's one of those right-wing talking points that irks me.)

[Demit]

16. Somewhere in the definition of liberalism should be the ability to put

yourself in the other person's place--being able to visualize what it would feel like if situations were reversed. The ability to empathize. If you have that, then you are able to truly "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I half-suspect you're born with it...

[E_Smith]

42. good point..

yeah i agree with that one, and you may be right about being born with it. empathy is critical in foreign affairs as well- if you saw Fog of War, McNamara credits one of Kennedy's cabinet members (don't remember which one) with having the empathy to understand where the Russians really stood in the Cuban Missile Crisis- that they would see it as a victory if they pulled out the missiles and the US guaranteed they would not attack Cuba. Also, he credits a lack of empathy for the Vietnam debacle.

[soleft]

17. Same needs drive both - it's how we try to fufill need is where we differ

[E_Smith]

18. I am looking more for the roots...

OK, these responses are mostly the expected ones. I'm looking more for the philosophical underpinnings of each side. I think what DRAWS people to liberalism is often the heart as someone just said. But I'm not looking for the personality traits that tend to characterize liberal/conservatives.

I think that the simple contrast made here is often used to discredit liberals as "bleeding hearts." My point here is that its really NOT what liberalism is all about, and maybe Democrats need to start communicating this better.

[calico1]

20. Liberal--"We"

Conservative-"Me."

[snacker]

36. Perfect.

I was going to say us--people
them---money

[HereSince1628]

21. Read Jost et al Psych Bulletin (129) 339-375, here's my take on it

The paper is titled “Political conservatism as motivated social cognition” ( Psychological Bulletin vol 129, pp 339-375).

Here are my notes on it... obviously the authors haven't approved my interpretation and I accept that my own limitations may result in something of a biased summary of their paper.

(Things that appear in parentheses are notes to myself intended to help me understand the paper)

The authors,Jost et al,reviewed the work of 19 authors (historians, journalists, and political scientists) concerning the ideology of conservatism. From the review, Jost et al derived two features that represent persistent features of conservatism regardless of its geopolitical, or temporal context. They used these to describe the core dimensions that characterize conservative principles:

1. Opposition to change (privileges status quo or urges return to idealized old state)

2. Acceptance of inequality (legitimizes asymmetries of wealth and status).

Other dimensions of conservatism are context dependent and are considered peripheral dimensions. Because of the influence of historic circumstance at any given time what is considered conservative may not be deemed so at another time, and it would seem at times some of these may play more significant roles than others.

(The principle at work here seems to be that peripheral aspects of political conservatism reflect responses to problems that create a psychological need to manage personal or social variables that distress an individuals’ relationships with core dimensions. Such need(s) motivates conservative individuals toward social attitudes whose predictable manifestation characterize day-to-day political conservatism.)

Various theories postulate explanatory correlations between social-psychological variables and conservatism. (Consequently, the paper presents an interesting summary of behavioral and attitudinal orientation that characterize the peripheral dimensions of conservatism. It should be noted that Jost et al don’t fully discriminate right wing from conservative politics.).

Personality Theories–
-Authoritarianism (exploits status inequalities for decision/rule making, and includes acquiescence to authority)
-Dogmatism (opposes new explanation/interpretive models, promotes reliance on tried solutions)
-Intolerance to Ambiguity (emphasizes boundaries/distinctions ,
literal interpretation of rules. This makes conservatives vulnerable to Manicheism–the division of reality into absolute good and absolute evil.)

Existential Needs Theories–

-Closure (provides release from anxiety of ambiguity, promotes adoption of available solutions above wrestling with uncertainty and confusion )

-Regulatory focus (emphasizes stability , promotes cravings for security)

-Terror management/Fear of Death (promotes and protects systems that provide avenues of death denial/transcendence)

Ideological Rationalization–

-Social dominance (promotes legitimizing myths (such as divinely chosen people) that support personal or group hegemony and enables/endorses identification and punishment of deviants/minorities)

-System justification (resolves conflicts about personal status/treatment by rationalization of the system’s worth, promotes defense of the system against threats even at high social or personal cost–as required for justifying death in war)

The authors evaluated 88 published studies (some of these are European so the paper is not only about conservatism in the US) to determine if correlations between political conservatism and expectations derived from the theories...they found the following correlations:

death anxiety ( r =50)
system stability (.47) (not surprising since opposition to change is a core dimension)
dogmatism/intolerance to ambiguity (.34)
openness to experience (-.32)
uncertainty tolerance (-.27)
needs for order/structure/closure (.26)
integrative complexity (-.20)
fear of threat and/or loss (.18)
self-esteem (-.09)

(Consequently, these correlates represent how political conservatives orient to some social/psychological variables that had been previously successfully used to characterize the peripheral dimensions of conservatism. Sorry, comparison of political liberals and political conservatives along these same variables is hampered by the lack of studies of political liberalism.)

[E_Smith]

45. interesting stuff here... you have a link to this? n/t

[HereSince1628]

47. I'll look for a link...but Psych Bull is an e-journal you can google

and find it...

Meanwhile, I know I have the link to the yahoo archived version somewhere I'll see if I can find you a link..

[HereSince1628]

48. I don't know if this link works but here is a link

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:JwWRyIlymigJ:www.apa.org/journals/bul/503ab.html+political+conservatism+as+motivated+social+cognition&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Extend a Hand]

22. Have you read any of George Lakoff's work on morality and politics?

In is book, Don't think of an Elephant: Know your Values and Frame the debate, George Lakoff uses family models (strict father and nurturing parent) to describe the differences between liberal and conservative values. I think he is right on target. I've also read that this book was required reading for Dean campaign staffers.

Here is a link to some of his work.
http://www.wwcd.org/issues/Lakoff.html

[E_Smith]

23. thanks I'll check that out. n/t

[libertypirate]

24. Too many things driving perception

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3093490

[Hugin]

25. From what I've been told...

Liberalism is driven by a Volvo.

Conservatism is driven by a Hummer.

Seems kind of backwards tho...

[ultraist]

32. LMAO! Good one

I don't think it's backwards. Competition (conservative) vs. Cooperation (liberal) Liberals share, conservatives are greedy

[Hugin]

39. But, all I really want is a pink Cadillac...

Better slow down a might here or before you know it
I'll be singing some Grateful Dead...

Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz...
all my friend have Porsches and I must make amends..


Lalalala!

[jedr]

26. great thought!

it explains the saying that "liberals just don't get it"...as an example: if someone robs a store , a liberal would ask why did they do that? ...were they abandon as a child? is the answer a program like head start?....the conservative answer would be , they did wrong ; put them in jail...both are government answers to the problem...but head start cost a lot less..I know this is an over-simplification, but never the less a point

[ladjf]

27. Liberals rely on their senses for information in order to establish

their hierarchy of values. Conservatives base their values on unmeasurable, unverifiable gossip, fantasy, rumor and superstitions.
Conservatives fear and resist change. Liberals see change as part of the ongoing process of existence.

The current apparent success of the Conservatives in wresting control of the U.S. Government can only be short lived as Nature has only a limited amount of tolerance for fanciful life strategies. The biggest problem is that the rest of us may "go down with the ship".

[ultraist]

31. Interesting and really good responses!

Conservative: oppression, coercion, and blind loyalty
Liberal: justice, peace, and equality

If you are looking for roots, read works of Stuart Mill, Kant, Rousseau, Thomas Green and Bernard Bosanquet

The earliest roots of course of Western philosophy include Aristotle and Socrates.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/

"This moral ideal of human perfection and development dominated liberal thinking in the latter part of the nineteenth, and for most of the twentieth, century: not only Mill, but T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, Bernard Bosanquet, John Dewey and even John Rawls show allegiance to variants of this perfectionist ethic and the claim that it provides the foundation for a regime of liberal rights. (Gaus, 1983a). And it is fundamental to the proponents of liberal autonomy discussed above as well as ‘liberal virtue’ theorists such as William Galston (1980). That the good life is necessarily a freely chosen one in which a person develops his unique capacities as part of a plan of life is probably the dominant liberal ethic of the past century..."

[ladjf]

33. This is a great thread. I've read all of the posts and everyone

,in their own way, has done a fine job of defining the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. We need to spread this discussing far and wide. It is very illuminating. Thanks for the original post.

[E_Smith]

38. thanks, I think that another aspect of Liberal thought

is introspection. not being afraid to ask why?

and as I have moved from the center to the left, a big reason for that is being pushed there by Bush. so part of this political evolution was reactionary, and when I realized that I didn't really like it. so I want to justify my liberalism as much more than "because bush sucks!" And, it pisses me off that conservative ideology appears stupid, yet the purveyors of it are often very smart, and damn good at what they do. So then yet again, you have to ask WHY do they cling to this ideology.

thanks for the all the posts.

[applegrove]

35. Liberals are open to new ideas; conservatives closed and represent the

Liberals are open to new ideas; conservatives closed and represent the elites (no matter what they say).

When conservatives realize the days of elites winning the election are over - they morph their party into another one. This new conservative party is still for the elites - it just hides in the guise of being a patriotic party (get power without promising anything but vanity). And accuses liberals of being internationals. Then when communism failed the hawkish liberals came up with a new plan. They decided that hawkishness was good because it esteemed pride and aggression rather than pacifism and guilt (empathy). Both conservatives and liberals had been pacifist, but the pride required for hawkissness fit better with the selfishness of elites & patriotism. So neocons wanted pride without empathy but the openness to world markets that capitalism & economics had proved were good. Liberals were into open markets because they had undone the control the elites had had over the economy (feudalism). So neocons took the open capitalism of liberals and matched it with the phony patriotism of the conservatives and called themselves a new party. Then they tried to make the liberal be the opposite: the party not open to the world economically, but the party open to outside ideas and interference. The liberals also had to be the party not of empathy but of shame. This way they tried to make Hitler a Liberal problem by claiming he was more about the shame the Germans felt after WWI than about using phony patriotism to control the population. Apparently anyone who had come into power in Germany in the 1930s would have killed 6 million Jews. And it was all President Wilson's fault.

So neocons are the party of Roosevelt. Liberals are the party of Hitler. Liberals are not really empathetic - they just enjoy making neocons feel guilty (?). Patriot christians now know that they are good and Liberals are evil. And that nobody, but nobody cares about the average American like Republicans do.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!

[jus_the_facts]

37. it's all about those that have and those that have not......

...same ol' struggle since the dawn of civilization...only the names have changed...to protect the guilty and the innocent.

"..and on we row..boats against the current..borne ceaselessly into the past..." said someone famous once

[JohnnyCougar]

40. Liberalism = love; conservatism = fear

[Hugin]

41. "Liberalism = tolerance; conservatism = fear"

Also. :)

[housewolf]

44. JFK on being a Liberal

"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies.

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)

--------------------------------------


Conservatives are driven by a desire to conserve what is good, traditional, what they know, what has worked. It's urge is to maintain stability and tradition. It's individuastic, regimented and controlled. To hold and protect, so what they are concerned with is "me and mine".

The urge in liberals is to expand, to break down barriers that stand in the way of progress, more and more expression of freedom and creativity. It's urge is to break down the boundaries. It's communal so is concerned with "us and ours."

There is nothing in the roots of conservatism or liberalism about such ideological positions as taxes, the size of government, the role of religion in government, federal funding of programs or other such constructs that have been staked out by the parties.

Bush is not a true conservative, and that is driving the traditional conservatives nuts. The New-Cons grew up as liberals but switched to the Republican Party after Viet Nam because they saw the left as too soft on Communism. They are not natural conservatives, which is why they named themselves "neo-conservatives."

The Bush Administration is a radical administration. It picks and chooses its policies based on political points rather than any true loyalty to ideology. Some of its policies come from the right, some come from the left. This is true even with things like "tax cuts" - they do it for the political points it makes, not because it's the right thing to do even within an ideology. The one exception to this rule might be the agressive use of the military (I mean that they are "pushing" the political points with it rather than being the natural recipient of political points) - that's being driven by something else, I'm not sure what.

[E_Smith]

46. thanks.. JFK rocks. but-

I'm not sure i agree with you that Bush is merely trying to score political points and is not driving an ideological agenda. Cutting taxes for the wealthy is ideological, as is trying to starve the government budget in order to force cuts in social programs. The use of the military aggressively is also ideological- straight out of PNAC. This is probably the most ideological thing about the administration. So, conservative no, ideological yes.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

49. I think it can be expressed in two words

Liberal = acceptance
Conservative = fear

[Zhade]

50. Co-worker put it best: love and fear, respectively.

NT!

[Quixote1818]

51. Liberal - facts and science Conservative - what's familiar/superstition

I actually truly believe both liberals and conservatives mean well but conservatives are just wrong.