![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
While watching my clothes tumble around a dryer -- yes I have things to do, I just wasn't doing them at the time -- I began thinking about the differences between social conservatives and social liberals.
A half-baked theory is forming. :)
Social conservatives generally have a strong moral code based in their history, their religion and their personal experience of the world. And they feel safer when their environment aligns with that code. They are afraid of the unknown. They fight against uncertainty as if their lives depend on the outcome. This makes them dangerous adversaries. They feel their backs are up against the wall. They will be capable of any and every means to protect themselves. They routinely betray their stated beliefs not because they are hypocrites but because they feel threatened on a survival level. Maslov suggested that morality goes right out the window when one is fighting for the most basic necessities of life.
Social liberals, on the other hand, aren't fighting for survival. They are fighting for a different morality. A future that is "better" rather than a future that is "safe." Yes, there are some of us who feel our fight against the social conservatives is more a survival issue than a moral one. Liberals come in many shapes and sizes. We are not easily mobilized. We find it difficult to find a precise language (for sound-bite purposes). We haven't a common picture of what that better future looks like.
We are socialists, communists, anarchists. We are for strong central government and for not government at all. We believe everyone should have a decent, at least acceptable, standard of living regardless of their contribution. And we believe that each dog is responsible for his own bone. Liberals are all over the map on every single issue.
Liberals are looking social evolution. We have a vague picture of what better looks like. We just know that what we have isn't it. :) The conservatives, on the other hand, also are interested in better, but they believe we have had it and let it slip away.
I think this is a pretty good model to describe the left and the right in the USA. Maybe a bit simplistic, but I'm beginning to think most people are pretty "simple" about things that are a couple of steps removed from their day to day dealings with life.
From such beginnings revolution is born. When it becomes a sense of survival against a sense of survival. Then the blood flows. The Moralists had been be careful. They will eventually wake up the tiger whose tail they are tugging.
A half-baked theory is forming. :)
Social conservatives generally have a strong moral code based in their history, their religion and their personal experience of the world. And they feel safer when their environment aligns with that code. They are afraid of the unknown. They fight against uncertainty as if their lives depend on the outcome. This makes them dangerous adversaries. They feel their backs are up against the wall. They will be capable of any and every means to protect themselves. They routinely betray their stated beliefs not because they are hypocrites but because they feel threatened on a survival level. Maslov suggested that morality goes right out the window when one is fighting for the most basic necessities of life.
Social liberals, on the other hand, aren't fighting for survival. They are fighting for a different morality. A future that is "better" rather than a future that is "safe." Yes, there are some of us who feel our fight against the social conservatives is more a survival issue than a moral one. Liberals come in many shapes and sizes. We are not easily mobilized. We find it difficult to find a precise language (for sound-bite purposes). We haven't a common picture of what that better future looks like.
We are socialists, communists, anarchists. We are for strong central government and for not government at all. We believe everyone should have a decent, at least acceptable, standard of living regardless of their contribution. And we believe that each dog is responsible for his own bone. Liberals are all over the map on every single issue.
Liberals are looking social evolution. We have a vague picture of what better looks like. We just know that what we have isn't it. :) The conservatives, on the other hand, also are interested in better, but they believe we have had it and let it slip away.
I think this is a pretty good model to describe the left and the right in the USA. Maybe a bit simplistic, but I'm beginning to think most people are pretty "simple" about things that are a couple of steps removed from their day to day dealings with life.
From such beginnings revolution is born. When it becomes a sense of survival against a sense of survival. Then the blood flows. The Moralists had been be careful. They will eventually wake up the tiger whose tail they are tugging.