By most accounts, the polarization of Congress is at an all-time high. If you’re a generation Y’er like me, you’ve witnessed an increase in lawmakers voting along party lines, making the debate over issues fervently one-dimensional. The Atlantic Wire provides a chart illustrating how, from 1982 through 2011, the Senate (remember that Senators are supposed to be the reasonable ones) has “no remaining ideological overlap between the Democratic and Republican parties…as the vote ratings, for the first time, were divided neatly by party line.” Albeit the chart ends in 2011, we are arguably witnessing the same intensity of partisanship surrounding the topics of the day: government spending and the debt ceiling.
As if the absence of overlap between party ideologies isn’t enough, voting against one’s own party ideology can be political suicide. As of late, this cannibalistic temperament appears to be most prevalent in the Republican Party. Just think of the infamous Grover Norquist pledge against raising taxes. For over 20 years, this pledge hijacked the republican caucus’s ability to negotiate on tax rates and Norquist vowed to drive Republicans out of office if they refused to oppose tax increases. Or simply, read Arlene Specter’s farewell speech to congress in 2010. Specter, who spent three decades in the senate as a republican from Pennsylvania, complained that GOP senators had helped tea party challengers beat incumbent Republicans like Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Mike Castle in his Delaware Senate primary. Turns out colleagues didn’t appreciate their willingness to negotiate on health care reform and tax rates. “Eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism,” Specter said.
Given the anthropophagy taking place in today’s political arena, it behooves us to take a moment and map out some of the overarching differences between liberals and conservatives. After all, we apparently have to pick sides. Granted, subjectivity is inevitable (at least I’m willing to admit it) and “generalizations” / “stereotypes” have their limitations but, nonetheless, given the cacophony resounding from the chambers of congress and the channels of mass media, I hope you find the following exercise fruitful and thought provoking:
Source: Author
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General Differences : “Liberals” and Conservatives” |
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| Liberal | Conservative | |
| Underlying Social Values | more relativistic; more inclined to be sympathetic with cultural relativism and accommodation of minority cultures. | more absolutist; more associated with belief in immutable or essential truths that are universal. |
| Individual relation to the State | focuses more on the state’s responsibilities to create a level playing field politically and economically. | focuses more on the state’s role facilitating individuals to purse “rational self-interests” in the economic and political arena. |
| Government | more associated with advancing and expanding democratic forms: majority rule; universal suffrage, mass participation, popular sovereignty, etc. | more focused on restraining the domain of government powers and on preserving the role of political, social and economic elites in government leadership. |
| Human Welfare | more concerned with mobilizing State powers to protect vulnerable members: Welfare State. | more committed to “survival of fittest”; wealth is a sign of something good being done; poverty is a sign of failing behaviors: Social Darwinism. |
| International Relations | more commonly advocates for multilateralism and role of international organizations. | more commonly committed to unilateralism and patriotic nationalism. |
| Economic | more concerned with how the state regulates the economy and markets to protect social welfare; protecting individuals from the threat of overpowering economic groups. | more concerned with the “invisible hand” in economic process and supporting the “free market” unfettered by government interference. |
| Religion | focuses more on individual moral responsibility and toleration for religious minorities | focuses more on the role of established religion and religious leaders: clericalism: |
| Crime | focuses more on rehabilitation | focuses more on punishment and retribution. |
| Individual’s responsibility | more sympathetic to the need for people to help the lesser accomplished and less able. | more attracted to the idea that individuals should lookout for themselves. |
| Primary Constituency | more popular among intellectuals and the economically or socially vulnerable | more popular among those who are economically well-off and people of “fundamentalist” religious faith. |
| References | more focused on the results of scientific studies and “expert” or academic opinions. | more inclined to reference historical documents and authors (e.g. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bible, Adam Smith, etc.) |
| Philosophical Orientation | more oriented with what is practical and pragmatic | more focused on what is consistent with “principles” and theoretical orientations. |
Viewpoint Terrace 