Do you believe that Traditional conservatives and progressives are two sides of the same coin and tend to agree with each other more than disagree?

Question

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Well, the terms as used in the United States don't quite mean what they have meant historically. In fact, the imprecision of such terms in a contemporary context have tended to lead not to fewer misunderstandings, but many more.

To start, what Americans call conservative and liberal are not, historically speaking. American conservatism having its' origins in the 18th century Enlightenment and thus classical liberalism, but with a strand of social traditionalism rooted in the Protestant Reformation. Thus free markets - except in, for example, abortions.

American liberalism is actually "radical liberalism" with a strand of early 20th century progressivism. (Note, "radical" here does not mean the contemporary usage, i. e. extremist. Rather it means as the ancient Greeks used the term, "to the root of.") The radical liberals agree with their classical liberal counterparts, hence pro-choice to use that example again. However, they argue that inequalities of wealth and power in society make freedom problematic and therefore argue for a popularly elected but presumably disinterested welfare state to compensate for those inequalities to maximize freedom. The progressive strand adding in an element of social engineering that presumes that man is perfectible and that, with the proper allocation of state power, society can be improved and freedom perfected.

There is nothing in either of these two strands of thought - elements of which would tend to put them at odds with libertarianism - that is dishonorable. Mistaken in some aspects perhaps, but honorable persuasions all the same. In an American context then, they bear some relationship to each other but, in point of fact, historically speaking, they start out with a commitment to human liberty, but with a very different sense of human nature and what government does.

razelove · Accepted Answer

Not quite, but I do think there is more we agree on than disagree, like living with dignity, hard work being rewarded. More recently probably the border and debt as well.

Where we disagree is how to solve some of those problems, what issues are important, if they're important at all, and for the differences our political class creating massive divides between us so they can stay in power as mediators and representatives of the "right" and "left".

Though supposedly all our elections aren't so cut and dry (rigged) because of swing voters who aren't defined by right or left within those narrow issues. I think as politicians the right and left are equally corrupt, compromised, and apathetic about American citizens.

WhitneySnow · Accepted Answer

I never thought of that, but I’m willing to find common ground with anyone. Can you give an example?

GuyAnswersGirls123 · Answer

I'm not sure. To me it evokes a similar response to when my feminist sociology professor taught us that men and women are nearly identical behaviorally to each other absent social conditioning. How do we quantify "nearly identical"? Compared to what?

The thing to me about conservatives is that they rely on what has historically been demonstrated to work in the past. In my field as a software engineer, we have a similar type of split between conservative engineers and progressive engineers.

At the extremes, the most conservative engineers never want to try anything new in favor of keeping the system and product appealing to the same customers, failing to see what's desperately in need of improvement with a "If it ain't broke, don't fix it mindset", while the most progressive engineers will throw the baby out with the bathwater and try something very innovative but with an extremely high risk of failure and will generally bankrupt the business by failing to appreciate what made it successful in the first place.

Some balance in between those two extremes tends to be optimal. I tend to be characterized as a conservative in many people's eyes yet I'm actually a slow progressive. I'm willing to try new ideas always, but only ones where we have -- at the very least -- a very successful prototype which has been rigorously tested. Many people who want to try untested ideas at the heart of the main system think I'm conservative as a result when I'm willing to try the most radically new ideas, but only insist that they're tested on a small scale off to the side first before implementing them into the heart of the system (whether political system or main codebase or culturally or anywhere else).

goaded · Answer

No. I think that reasonable people tend to agree with each other on many things, but they're distracted, intentionally, by people who will try to pretend that problems are existential, when they're not, and simultaneously block any attempts to fix the non-existential but important problems, like the border.

OtterMan68 · Answer

most want safe streets, good schools, good paying jobs, etc. They just sometimes have different ways to go about it.
Most want fewer unwanted pregnancies too, but won't work together to find ways to prevent them.

Drewtate · Answer

They want to maintain the status Quo.

Do you believe that Traditional conservatives and progressives are two sides of the same coin and tend to agree with each other more than disagree?

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