Conservative vs Liberal: The Difference is Self vs Other

 Conservative vs Liberal:  What is the Difference?

When I was in college in the late 1950s the terms “liberal” and “conservative” were less burdened with the political baggage that they carry today.  In a generic sense the conservative stood more for the status quo and the liberal was more inclined to pursue change and innovation.  There was not the rigid absolutism of today’s identity politics.  As a college liberal, I could also appreciate some of the conservative sentiments, even if I didn’t espouse many of them.  I did, however find a certain value in them.  No one wants to be in a car going 100 mph with no brakes.   Reasoned discussion and respectful disagreement were possible and happened both in class and in social settings.  That is not to say that discussions did not become heated.  They did.  But they almost never became hostile and/or personal.  We each tried to understand the other.  

In one of my philosophy classes I remember being impressed by a quote from Thomas Aquinas (I think): “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”  It informed the common understanding that socialization and experience largely explained one’s liberal/conservative orientation.  Nurture far outpaced nature as an explanation.

 However, in contradistinction, I remember reading a journal article that tried to establish a connection between human metabolism and one’s philosophical persuasion.  It was over 50 years ago and I don’t remember much about the article and doubt that it had any scientific credibility.  But I wanted it to be possible as a partial explanation for the divergent thinking I was seeking to understand.

            More recently there has been work done at the genetic level.   An article published by the Southern Political Science Association was entitled, “A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes.”  It contained the following abstract: “The assumption that the transmission of social behaviors and political preferences is purely cultural has been challenged repeatedly over the last 40 years by the combined evidence of large studies of adult twins and their relatives, adoption studies, and twins reared apart. Variance components and path modeling analyses using data from extended families quantified the overall genetic influence on political attitudes, but few studies have attempted to localize the parts of the genome which accounted for the heritability estimates found for political preferences. Here, we present the first genome-wide analysis of Conservative-Liberal attitudes from a sample of 13,000 respondents whose DNA was collected in conjunction with a 50-item sociopolitical attitude questionnaire. Several significant linkage peaks were identified, and potential candidate genes discussed.”

            I don’t know if the article was peer reviewed, but the number of documented citations is very supportive of the article’s hypotheses.  But whether one leans liberal or conservative, the factors which explain the differences are far more complex than they were 40 or 50 years ago.

            In the last several years, political events have caused me to reflect on the labels of Democrat/Liberal/Left and Republican/Conservative/Right.  I realize that the terms used by each political persuasion are not synonymous, but they are often use interchangeably.  I am writing this to explore some ideas that have arisen since Donald Trump became president.  One of the results of that election has been to cause the abandonment of the Republican party (in varying degrees) by many of their prominent figures who still adhere to the “Conservative” label. Nearly all of those who have publicly documented their apostasy take great pains to reaffirm their adherence to what they call “Conservative values.”  

One individual who does this quite often is Joe Scarborough of the “morning joe” TV show.  He frequently reassures both himself and other like-minded former Republicans of the fact that, while they are no longer Republicans, they are still Conservative.  However, it often comes across as “I have not become a Liberal.”  

            Another prominent Republican defection was Max Boot, as announced in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post.  It was an interesting article in which Boot took pains to say that not only was he a “former Republican” but also examined whether or not he should be referred to as a “former conservative.”  He was reacting to the words and actions of some prominent Republican conservatives which he determined to be bereft of moral political principles.  He said that if this was now the face of conservatism, he wanted none of it.  He characterized today’s conservatism as being infected with “racism, xenophobia, and general nuttiness.”

Boot went on to explain his past conservative bona fides which began when he aligned himself with Ronald Reagan’s opposition to Communism.  He then enumerated several beliefs, views and principles which he claimed also informed his conservatism.  He said: “I espoused not just democracy promotion but many other conservative views.  I criticized political correctness, judicial activism, tort law abuses, gun control, wasteful government spending, high taxes, and heavy-handed regulation.”  

  These, and similar statements by many former Republicans, set me to wondering about the conservative principles that they claim define them, and how they compare to my values and principles as a life-long liberal.  I want to examine the ideas of these disaffected Republican Conservatives to see how their principles differ from my own liberal beliefs and principles.

1.      When Boot characterizes “democracy promotion” as a conservative principle, I hope he is not laying exclusive claim to it.   I too am against communism and for democracy.   I see this as more “American” than either conservative or liberal.  The principles of self-government, which characterize democracy, are much preferred to totalitarianism, and I don’t know any liberals who believe otherwise.  Thus, I don’t think this principle is the sole possession of conservatives, nor does it distinguish them from liberals.  It cannot be a differentiating idea.

2.     As for Boot being opposed to “political correctness,” I'm not precisely sure what this means.  As a liberal I want to be free to think any thought and to express my views without undue censorship.  But what is held as politically correct or incorrect is definitely dependent on the politics of the holder.  I fully object to any unnecessary restrictions on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.  Again though, this is more American than either conservative or liberal.  What constitutes unnecessary restrictions is usually left to the courts to decide.  Thus, I also would oppose judicial activism and it follows that I would oppose any court holding that it is illegal to take a knee during the National Anthem.   

3.     And in this same vein, those regulations that one considers “heavy-handed” depend on who and what is being regulated.  I’m all in favor of not imposing heavy-handed regulations on reproductive rights, civil marriage, or humane immigration policies. Both liberals and conservatives can oppose heavy-handed regulations.  It’s not that principle which defines the difference; it’s who and what is being regulated and who benefits.

4.     As a liberal, I too oppose wasteful government spending, and don’t know any liberals who feel otherwise.  I fully support getting the “fat” out of the budget.  This is not an exclusively conservative value.  But one person’s fat is another person’s muscle.  I would submit that there is more waste in the Defense budget than in Medicare.  But conservatives may disagree with me.  Not being wasteful is therefore not a strictly conservative value.  What differentiates the conservative from the liberal is what is considered “wasteful government spending.”  Once when I asked a state legislator why he didn’t expend more effort trying to eliminate waste from the budget, he replied, in a moment of uncharacteristic candor, “It’s of more value for me to make waste in my district than it is to eliminate it in some other guy’s.”  I too oppose wasteful spending.  This doesn’t make me a Conservative.

5.     Similarly, liberals are also opposed to excessively high taxes.  This is not a purely conservative value either.  The differentiation comes in determining what constitutes adequate taxation.  In the past, a true conservative would say that “adequate taxation” means sufficient to avoid deficit spending.  A balanced budget (when liberals were in the majority) was a critical conservative goal; not so much when conservatives held the purse strings.  I would add that for liberals it is also important to emphasize paying one’s fair share of taxes, whether the taxes are deemed sufficient or not.  There is probably a real liberal/conservative divergence on thinking here as to what percentage is considered “high.”  Thus, opposing high taxes is not a purely conservative value.  But can we agree that we should at least try to collect sufficient taxes to avoid prolonged deficit spending?

6.     The one issue Boot lists that might be a real differentiating principle is gun control.  He lists opposing gun control as one of the conservative principles that defines him.  That’s probably not accurate.  I suspect that he does support some controls on guns.  It would be highly irresponsible to hold that the Second Amendment is an unlimited right.  Not even free speech is without its limitations.  If, however, he does believe in no gun control, and if that is a position held by rank and file conservatives, then that does become a defining difference between my liberalism and conservatives.  That would mean that all but one of the principles (gun control) which Boot claims to be conservative, are just as important to liberals and so cannot be claimed as exclusively conservative.  It is probably worth noting that between 72 and 83 percent of gun owners favor background checks for anyone wanting to buy a firearm.  Though Boot didn’t specifically mention them in his recent article, I have heard many conservatives cite as basic conservative principles, smaller government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.  

7.     Regarding “smaller government.” I would ask, “smaller than what?”  I think they mean smaller than it currently is.  As a liberal, I would advocate for a “right size” rather than smaller government.  That could mean smaller, larger or about the same.  Like taxation, the question is what is adequate?  There was a time when government was the most powerful institution there was.  But that was before the rise of unfettered crony capitalism and multi-national corporations.  It was a time when it was clear that the right to incorporate was also a privilege and was granted by the government. “Business” is now the most powerful institution in society.  I would submit that the sizes of the federal, state and local governments have grown to their current size to provide the citizen with a countervailing force to protect against the tyranny of business and the bottom line.  This, of course, is in keeping with Adam Smith’s view of the need for sufficient government regulation to protect consumers from the ultimate concentration of capital.  A different view by my conservative friends is that the growth is the result of bureaucratic empire building.  I don’t believe so, unless you consider the Congress as part of the bureaucracy.  The functions and size of the government bureaucracy are dictated by the legislature.  When operating properly, the functions they perform are largely legislated at the behest of citizens wanting to be protected from pollution, high cost medical care, pharmaceuticals, predatory lenders, unsafe transportation devices, food of questionable quality and a myriad of other business “products” and practices.  In our current situation, much of the legislation is written by lobbyists working on behalf of business.   I submit that the size of government is a response to the size of the unfettered growth of “business power” throughout the world and the powerful forces they deploy within our government (lobbyists).  I do not claim to know what the “right size” of government is, but I don’t think the cause of the current size is the result of megalomaniacal empire building.  Thus, I don’t automatically default, as many conservatives do, to the automatic downsizing of government.

8.     As for individual liberty, as a liberal, I too support my conservative brethren's concern for it.  But I don’t believe that liberty entitles me to do whatever I want without limitations or regulation, and that includes private property (however I do think that home-owners’ associations are a bit out of hand).  That’s why a government “by the people” is so essential; we need agreed upon limits on personal freedoms in order to flourish in a society of over 300 million people.  I suspect that the differentiation between conservative an d liberal comes from the extent and areas of restriction.  I don’t believe that corporations are people and I don’t believe that money is speech. 

9.     This brings me finally to personal responsibility.  This is hardly a strictly conservative principle.  All the liberals I know really believe in individual responsibility.  But they also believe in a commensurate level of social responsibility.  Echoing the ideas of Aristotle, Karl Popper said, “The individual doesn’t exist alone, but as a member of society.  We are social creatures to the inmost center of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.”  When individual and societal responsibilities appear to conflict, we can have a rational debate about which should prevail; and that preference will vary depending on the issue.  However, it is my observation that the conservative principle of individual responsibility is really a thinly veiled disguise for selfishness.  It is “America First” reduced from the national to the individual level (me first).  As John Kenneth Galbraith observed, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

So if liberals and conservatives value most of the same principles, what ultimately differentiates us? I think the idea that really separates liberals from conservatives is the individual versus society.  That’s why President Bush found it necessary to coin the term “Compassionate Conservatism.”  It was necessary to distinguish it from generic conservatism which most often prioritizes self over other.  I would use the term “selfish,” but this connotes a moral inferiority which I don’t mean to infer.  Similarly, I use the term “society” with reservation because some choose to read it as “socialism” – which it isn’t.  The same reservation holds true for the term “community” (which I prefer) because it is often heard as a precursor to communism.  

But the concepts underlying the values of the individual and the values of society need not be an either/or proposition.  Society is an aggregate of individuals; but the individual cannot survive for long outside of society.  That is why banishment was tantamount to a death sentence in primitive societies.  The original settlers of this country were deeply community- oriented beginning with the Mayflower Compact.  That same spirit was a necessity for survival in places like Jamestown and Plymouth.  It endured through the American Revolution.

But during America’s frontier days marked by the concept of Manifest Destiny, the “rugged individual” became a hero of sorts, epitomized by the mountain men and the cowboys who survived largely alone and outside of society for long periods of time.  In fiction we have further lionized the loner operating outside of or on the fringes of society in characters like “The Lone Ranger” and “Batman.”  But even these figures had companions upon whom they could rely and who frequently saved them from an untimely demise.  Ultimately, their purpose and value could only be realized within the constructs of society.  Whether they were good or evil, ethical or unethical, depended on the extent to which they sought to build up or tear down society. 

I have therefore concluded that the main differentiating principle between Conservative and Liberal is the liberal’s preference for a balance between social responsibility and individual rights as opposed to the Conservative’s preference for the primacy of individual responsibility over social responsibility.  The conservative most often places personal freedom ahead of social responsibility; the liberal, as an individual, is more often in service to social values, to other vs self.  This is exemplified in the differing choices which frame the liberal and conservative understandings of the “principles” enumerated above in such areas as taxation, governance, regulation, wasteful spending, and judicial activism.

            If we are to move beyond divisive polarization, we must recognize that many of the values claimed by Conservatives are actually common American values held by both Conservatives and Liberals. The main differentiating principle between Conservative and Liberal is how we carry out those principles.  The Liberal prefers a balance between social and individual responsibility as opposed to the Conservative’s preference for the primacy of individual responsibility. 

            We may find a better future for our entire country, Conservative and Liberal alike, if we focus our arguments on challenging each other’s assumptions and plans for solving our greatest problems, given these differences. This would be a vast improvement and worthy advance from the fear-based strategies that have been used by President Trump, who is neither liberal nor conservative, for he has no bed rock principles that fall in either camp.