Three Things #26: July 17, 2022
On how to understand fundamental differences between left and right
It’s hard to believe the year is already half over—and that this is the twenty-sixth issue of Three Things. Time flies when the world is on fire. Also, when we’re intellectually fascinated.
One of the things that fascinates me the most intellectually is dichotomy: the idea that we cannot hope to understand something significant, something big and important, subtle and profound, by examining it from only one perspective. In dichotomy, or perhaps more precisely “dialectical tension,” the truth lies somewhere in between and can only be discovered by considering both sides of the story.
There are of course many examples of this dynamic in everyday life—life and death, light and dark, good and evil, etc.—but the most interesting and salient example is right and left on the political spectrum. Both sides bicker endlessly and relentlessly denigrate their counterparts, but in doing so history, context, and nuance are lost.
We almost always analyze right vs. left in terms of political differences, but I thought it would be interesting to look at what divides them in terms of different historical and societal influences. Here are three lenses through which to understand this perennial divide—that cover quite a bit more than the “big state vs. small state” lens we tend to hear about all the time.
Note: I’m using the terms “left” and “liberal,” “right” and “conservative” interchangeably. I recognize that this is reductionist, but I’m using the terms colloquially to refer only to modern American politics.
Thing #1: Defense vs. Discovery
Humans can operate in war mode and in peace mode. They’re fundamentally different, and this dynamic can occur on many levels. An individual may operate in different modes on different days, or even different parts of a day. Projects and companies may switch between war mode and peace mode over time. An entire society or country can, obviously, be in war mode or in peace mode.
The behaviors and personality traits that suit war mode are different than the ones that suit peace mode. In war mode, when one feels fear, adrenaline flows and tempers run high. This is the classic “fight or flight” response, triggered in the amygdala. In war mode, our vision narrows, both literally and metaphorically, to the bare essentials. We’re on edge and hypervigilant to the slightest provocation. Time often feels as if it speeds up, and we often have only a hazy memory of conflict after the fact.
By contrast, in peace mode, when one is feeling safe, creativity blossoms. Everything slows down and we can stop and smell the roses, figuratively. In this mode, the frontal cortex is more active. We feel open and welcoming to new people and new experiences. Peace mode is associated with feelings of happiness, patience, goodwill, and generosity. Peace mode is what you feel when you go for a long walk in nature and let your mind wander.
These modes apply to big groups of people over long periods of time just as they do to an individual in a particular moment. The conservative tradition traces back to a traditional, defensive, agrarian lifestyle. In this lifestyle, resources are scarce. Farmers value resourcefulness, independence, and self-sufficiency. Help from outside is far away, if it’s available at all. In this lifestyle people need to build deep relationships of mutual trust with those around them in order to survive, and are often distrustful of outsiders, and of outside ideas more generally, because in such a situation experimentation is likely to lead to ruin.
By contrast the liberal tradition arose alongside city life and industry. In the city, opportunity and resources are abundant. You don’t need to rely on traditional social networks like the family and the community because you can instead rely on the market: you can just buy the things you need. All of the infrastructure you rely on is provided for you, and you’re not responsible for maintaining it. You’re not responsible for logistics. Help is just a phone call away (not four hours away over the next mountain). City life fosters diversity, discovery, and creativity, and industry thrives on these. In the city, you need liberal virtues like cooperation, tolerance, and innovation to survive and thrive. The act of moving to a city, of choosing to remain there, is almost by definition the act of throwing off old morals and strictures and the conservative, rural way of life, in favor of something newer and more experimental, with greater potential.
For more: Read this fascinating piece on how brain structure correlates with political orientation.
Thing #2: Maternal vs. Paternal
Another fundamental, universally recognized dichotomy is the mother vs. the father figure. These have deep roots in human society and mythology, and correspond to two universal personality profiles. They represent competing visions of how to raise a family, which happen to map nicely to liberal and conservative ideals—since on some level all of politics can be understood through the lens of the family. As George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't wrote, “Politics is not about neutral rational discussion of issues. It's about what version of family-based morality we are going to have.”
The maternal figure is warm, caring, and protective. She emphasizes values such as nurturance, empathy, fairness, and protection. Her sources of strength are compassion, love, mutual respect, and her key value: generosity. She wants to provide for her child, who is innocent and deserves love, affection, and compassion unconditionally. A motherly figure is one who provides for her child, her family, her home, and her community, expecting nothing in return. The mother protects, shields, and defends, and refrains from harsh punishment.
By contrast, the paternal figure is stern and demanding. He emphasizes values such as strength, obedience, authority, self-discipline, and his key value: personal responsibility. His source of strength is self-discipline, strong morals, and appeal to authority. He’s not afraid to punish his children when they behave poorly and fail to live up to these ideals, and he rewards them when they meet or exceed his expectations.
The father has high expectations for his child. Rather than coddling him, he expects his child to boldly face the world. He doesn’t overly protect the child. He wants his child to learn self-reliance and perseverance in the face of adversity by making mistakes and experiencing life. The father figure acts in a responsible manner and expects the same of his child. He may lend a helping hand from time to time, but not unless asked, and even then he makes sure that his child knows that next time he may be on his own, and he’ll therefore have to be strong.
Think about how these two opposing profiles map to the political spectrum. Liberals are more motherly, emphasizing generosity, patience and compassion, cooperation, and tolerance. In this worldview, everyone deserves a helping hand unconditionally. It’s the role of the government to act like a good mother and make sure that the citizens are good to one another and treat each other fairly. It’s also up to the government to protect people, especially those who have been treated unfairly.
By contrast, conservatives are more paternal, emphasizing personal responsibility and self-reliance. In this worldview, there’s a notion of “the right kind of person”, someone who is moral and disciplined, who can set and execute on his own goals. By contrast, policies that give unconditionally are viewed as immoral because they lessen the incentive to be self-disciplined and self-reliant, i.e., they lead to spoiled children. Conservatives emphasize “individual moral strength”, and as a result, have trouble seeing how groups of people can become a “source of discrimination.”
For more: Read this article, summarizing the views of George Lakoff (also the source of the above quotes).
Thing #3: Optimism vs. Pessimism
A third useful lens that helps us understand the difference between liberalism and conservatism is that of optimism vs. pessimism. As with the previous two, it applies at different times and scales, to individuals but also to groups: the sentiment of an organization, a community, or even an entire country can be optimistic or pessimistic. The mood of society at large can swing one way or the other, and often does.
Optimism has something in common with the “discovery” mode described above in Thing #1. When one is feeling good about how things are going and positive about the future one is more open to novel ideas and experiences. One is more likely to feel compassion and generosity towards strangers. By contrast, pessimism is related to “defense” mode. When one feels fearful and pessimistic about the future one is more likely to attempt to conserve what one has, to “circle the wagons” and protect friends and family, and to demonstrate less compassion and generosity to strangers: classical conservative behavior patterns.
It may seem silly to classify liberals as “optimistic” and conservatives as “pessimistic” since the mood of the moment probably has more to do with the current occupant of the White House than it does with anything else. And liberals today are anything but optimistic given the state of the government, the Supreme Court, etc.. But I do think these fundamental personality profiles map meaningfully to the political extremes. There is something fundamentally optimistic about the liberal worldview in the abstract. It’s a feeling that we live in a time of abundance and that we can and should share with everyone (not just with those that are closest to us, literally and figuratively). It’s a feeling that human society is improving over time towards some singular purpose or destination, and that we need to keep marching forward together to get there. It’s a feeling that success is just over the next hill—that there is a shared narrative to the arc of human history and society. The power and importance of the individual is a part of that story: humanity has collectively graduated from an age of kings and empires and the next age is about the sovereign individual.
By contrast, Conservatism feels fundamentally pessimistic to me. It feels predicated on ideas like original sin: that man’s fundamental nature is violence and selfishness, and the only way to control that nature is to impose order from above. Or, the only way to succeed socially is through self control, or control by an authority or father-figure. Rather than recognizing the abundance of modern life and the power of modern technology and looking optimistically towards a brighter collective future, conservatism looks backwards towards a past “glorious age” when things were simpler and purer (and why choose to look backwards if you’re not pessimistic about the future?). Conservatives perhaps feel less inclined to be open and share with strangers because they feel that the future will be worse than the present, and that we live in a time of scarcity (rather than abundance).
The point, of course, isn’t that either side is right or wrong. Both sides have a valid perspective, and the opinion of the majority of people will tend to swing back and forth over a long enough time period. The point is, the next time you meet someone from the other side of the aisle who has an opinion you disagree with, try examining it through one of these three universal lenses. You might be surprised how much it helps you empathize.
For more: Consider: is society making meaningful forward progress? Towards what end? If we do live in an age of abundance (which feels a bit less obvious today than it did a few months or years ago) why has this failed to improve living conditions in much of the world?