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The map of red states and blue states from the 2000 presidential election night showed more than a geographical split of the two coasts and Great Lakes region versus the heartland, more than a division of parties or of interests. It showed a division between two ways of understanding the world. In politics, this division is called conservative versus progressive (or liberal). The the political division runs much deeper than that. It is a moral division. It is about what you think makes a “good” person and what is the “right” thing to do. And it goes even deeper than that; it is ultimately a family-based division, about what you think the right kind of family is—whether your parents were good parents, whether you are a good parent to your children, and whether you were raised right. The political division is personal. It has to do with what kind of a person you are.
The conservative/liberal division is ultimately a division between strictness and nurturance as ideals at all levels—from the family to morality to religion and, ultimately, to politics. It is a division at the center of our democracy and our public lives, and yet there is no overt discussion of it in public discourse. The reason is that the details are largely unconscious, part of what cognitive scientists call the Cognitive Unconscious—a deep level of mind that we have no direct access to. Yet it is vitally important that we do so if Americans are to understand and come to grips with, the deepest fundamental division in our country, one that transcends and lies behind all the individual issues; the role of government, social programs, taxation, education, the environment, energy, gun control, abortion, the death penalty, and so on. These are ultimately not different issues, but manifestations of a single issue; strictness versus nurturance.
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