Liberalism and Conservatism: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Why There’s Constant Cultural Advancement
Do you ever get so many things on your “Things to Worry About List” or lists that you just throw up your hands in despair? I think everyone does, but for the last few years, we’ve all upped our game regarding how much intensity we burn to worry about all the things that need our attention. I suspect that for some folks having to worry about things so intensely is cause to begin to act a bit contrary. I do think that folks who like to have things just as they always were are highly susceptible to becoming ever more contrary when things in life begin to be chaotic. In the last five years, we have had a lifetime of worrying events.
Whenever there are worrisome events there are some folks who are more affected than others. Sometimes it happens that a person or two may become unattached to reality for a period of time. It isn’t that they disappear, it’s that they begin to imagine annoyances and they tend to blame the annoyance on whoever is nearest the trigger for the current annoyance. We all do these things. We generally do them with inconsequential things like someone interrupting our concentration on a game or a video or even a DM. I think at that moment we have a large portion of our thinking machinery dedicated to that endeavor and to take away thinking resources is annoying and we often react by being contrary.
If we consider the effect the pandemic has had on our national discourse, I think we can see that a number of folks just did not want to acknowledge that we were experiencing a pandemic. I understand that the media has pretty much written that all off on The Lord of the Manor from down there in Florida. But I don’t think you can lay all of that at his feet. I suspect that he also fell victim to information overload. If you remember, he could not bring himself to admit that people were going to die on his watch. That’s sobering and might tend to make one a tad on the contrary side of the ledger.
But we expect our leaders to be able to address catastrophic events in stride. We don’t understand when they do not. We have an idea that leaders are supposed to represent our societal ideals. When they do not, we become confused and maybe even a bit cranky or contrary. We probably don’t notice the low-level annoyance, but it’s there all day long. We all worry about what will happen with the next elections, we all worry about if a new strain of covid will come along, we all worry about if we should or if we shouldn’t wear a mask. The list goes on. Then we have catastrophic weather events like hurricanes and drought. And we multiply that stress by selectively applying voting rights and doubling down on a political tug of war over who owns any woman’s body. Does she or even her family have rights over the woman’s body or does she belong to the state? Now that set of circumstances could nudge nearly anyone toward the dark side of contrariness.
Consider the plight of folks who are by nature conservative. They’re the tethers that keep the rest of us anchored to reality. Conservative thinkers are the ones who define what we have learned from our past mistakes. While more liberal-minded thinkers could agree to that certain history, they could also seek a different future even at the risk of failure. Maybe that’s the attraction for the more liberal-minded. Maybe they’re destined to fly in their dreams of a different future, just as it’s the attraction to a more conservative-minded person to keep the dreamers tethered to what we think we know.
If I could use this kind of movement toward/movement away as a kind of abstract way of calculation, which I could use as a key to opening a door to understanding thinking other than my own, perhaps I could then also use that understanding to build a trust that would allow me to bridge issues of political and racial divides. I think that overall it really doesn’t make any difference what color your political underwear is. Both red and blue undies serve the same function. When we get right down to it no one really cares what color you’re most intimately associated with, we all depend on you.
That’s the nature of democracy, I suppose. Voting doesn’t always go the way I want it to. Sometimes it does and sometimes it goes another way, but overall democracy as known by the citizens of the United States has always moved forward. Democracy has moved from sailing ships to ocean liners. From wagons drawn by draft animals to trains, trucks and planes that can move merchandise from and to nearly any point on earth in a day or two. From Paul Revere riding a horse to announce the arrival of British guests to watching the British guests’ every move on Facebook. That’s not to say that every advancement did not require that we pay the dues to adjust to the new advancement. Some advancements are easier to adopt than others it seems. Very few people still opt to live life without electricity, for example. It would seem that electricity makes any lifestyle more enjoyable.
This idea of people choosing a more enjoyable lifestyle over a less enjoyable lifestyle seems to escape many of today’s prominent Republican leaders. It’s likely that democracy does not lend itself well to attempts to turn back the clock on cultural advances. People of all manner of color of their most intimates benefit from cultural advances. I rather imagine that more people fancy purple than fancy either blue or red. Surely we can all recall numbers of violent historical events which were rooted in fanatical intimacy with a color a man deemed so important that in his view all the world should be painted in his color of adherence. More often than not, those events did not end well. I think that democracy provides safeguards to guarantee the advancement of the culture simply because the culture is not mine nearly as much as it is ours.
The midterms are just around the corner as you all know, but I want to remind everyone that the reason democracy works is because it allows everyone to express his or her opinion. For example, do you think that kids should be given military grade weaponry without finding out how fit a kid is to own such a weapon? It doesn’t matter which way you see this issue. What matters is that you think about the issue and vote with the person who you think best represents what you want a government to do. Do you want a Governor who decries federal aid to another state but begs for it for his own? That couldn’t be because of his affinity for a particular color of his most intimates, could it? I doubt that kind of information really does affect many people, but for folks with a modicum of practicality, voting is the most efficient method of correcting errant behavior. You know that old saying about it taking a village, right?
Make your vote count. Visit vote.gov to register to vote, check your registration, find voter registration deadlines, and more.
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