{"id":1501,"date":"2003-10-15T13:24:43","date_gmt":"2003-10-15T17:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2003\/10\/15\/1501.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:43:28","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:43:28","slug":"the-left-and-the-right-two-vie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2003\/10\/15\/the-left-and-the-right-two-vie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Left and the Right, two views"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your Humble Blogger has, as my Gentle Readers will be aware, recently spent a good deal of time attempting to understand the conservative mindset. I don't really know how well I succeeded, but I do feel I understand it a lot better than I did before. Fundamentally, the point is (a) simply to understand people, which is always a Good Thing, and (b) to guard myself against falling into the trap of arguing against Straw Men.\n\n

Dennis Prager<\/a>, on the other hand, evidently loves to argue against Straw Men. And that's interesting, too, as the Straw Men he constructs are his ideas of what I believe. If they aren't what I believe (and they are not), that's an interesting gap right there. Of course, Mr. Prager might not be honestly protraying his understanding, but at least he is presenting Straw Men he expects his listeners to find substantial, and even that difference, between what I believe and what he wants his listeners to thing I believe, is interesting.\n\n

Anyway, I'm going to do a close reading of his most recent Townhall column<\/a>; he lists \"the major differences that are tearing America apart\" with the view of both the Left and the Right. I will, by the way, be assuming that he more or less accurately portrays the view of the Right. I will be quoting more from the original source than I really feel comfortable doing under the Fair Use exemptions, so please, if you are going to read the rest of this, follow the above link and read the original. Then not only can Your Humble Blogger feel better about his position vis a vis the laws governing intellectual property, but you can correct me if I smash the context too much.\n\n

Church and State<\/b>: \"The Left believes in removing America's Judeo-Christian identity...\" I, for one, have no problem with the Hindus, Atheists, or Animalists in this country, and feel that they have as strong a claim on its identity as I do. So to that extent, he's right. On the other hand, I recognize that the Christian cultural roots are so deep and so firmly embedded into the society that nothing is ever likely to uproot them. I do not feel, as he seems to think I would, that a strict separation of Church and State—far stricter than the one we have now—would uproot our society's Christianity, nor would I want it to (most days).\n
\"The Right believes that destroying these [Christian] symbols and this identity is tantamount to destroying America.\" Oh, come on. America was culturally Christian before the Pledge of Allegiance even existed, and well before it contained the religious reference. Tantamount to destroying America indeed. Hah!\n\n

America in the World<\/b>: \"The Left regards America as morally inferior to many European societies ... and it does not believe that there are distinctive American values worth preserving.\" Hm. I think that this is one of those places where the Left is in wide disagreement. I do not think that American society is morally inferior to that of, say, France, but I find the whole comparison extremely difficult to make. I do think that there are distinctive American values worth preserving, and among those are democracy, the safeguarding of civil rights, and a sort of Yankee can-do-it-ism that often expresses itself in technological advances. I do find many aspects of American culture troublesome from a moral and ethical standpoint, but I expect I would find that true of Utopia as well. I'm that way.\n
\"The Right regards America as the last best hope for humanity... \" Well, and despite everything, so do I, in a lot of ways. Of course, I recognize that the feeling is irrational, and that good ideas (and foodstuffs) are as likely to come from South America as anywhere else, but I can't help feeling that the richest society in history has to be the best hope for the world.\n\n

The worst threat<\/b>:\"The Left believes that impersonal companies, multinational and otherwise, with their insatiable drive for profits, have a profoundly destructive effect on the country.\" I agree with this entirely.\n
\"The Right believes that the legal system, particularly trial lawyers, lawsuits and judges who make laws, is the greater threat to American society.\" If that is what the Right believes, they are welcome to believe it.\n\n

Diversity<\/b>:The Left believes multiculturalism should be the ideal for American schools and for government policy.\" Yep. Of course, I have trouble defining multiculturalism to my satisfaction, but I do think that America is better when it encompasses and celebrates both cultural differences and overlaps than when it suppresses the differences in favor of the overlaps.\n
\"The Right believes that the Americanization of all its citizens is indispensable to the survival of the United States.\" And welcome to that belief, as I want none of it. Unless by Americanization Mr. Prager means something like Due Process of Law, etc., but I don't think he does.\n\n

The Boy Scouts<\/b>:\"The Left believes that the Boy Scouts as currently constituted pose a moral threat to society.\" Er, when I think about the Boy Scouts (which I rarely do), I think of them as being largely a force for good, but having the potential for being more of a force for good than they currently are. There is a nasty exclusiveness to the entire endeavor, of which the furor over gay scoutmasters (to which I assume Mr. Prager refers) is only one example.\n
\"The Right believes the Boy Scouts continue to be one of the greatest moral institutions in the country.\" Ok, I'm not going to rank them, but I suspect I would have a hard time thinking of twenty-five better moral institutions. And if I did rank them, I'd undoubtedly still think that the top five moral institutions could improve their moral standing as well.\n\n

The whole liberty\/equality thing<\/b>: \"The Left believes in equality more than in liberty. ... For example, the Left believes that for the equality's sake, men's clubs must accept women.\" Well, I do believe in equality before the law, and I don't think that liberty is an acceptable reason for discriminatory practice. On the other hand, I draw a distinction between fundamental liberties and secondary ones, often at great length<\/a>. I don't think that the liberty to exclude women from a forum where business deals are being made is all that fundamental, but I do think that the freedom of association is fundamental. In other words, I'm conflicted about this issue, and would want to view the cases individually.\n
\"The Right believes that for liberty's sake, associations must be free to choose their own members.\" You know, I find this argument appealing, too. Of course, associations are also free to avoid exclusion, and I am free to find distasteful any association whose main purpose is exclusionary.\n\n

Condoms<\/b>: \"The Left believes that when schools give out condoms to teenagers, they are promoting safe sex.\" Yes, I do.\n
\"The Right believes that when schools give out condoms, they are promoting more sex.\" Well, and there's a good deal of truth to that, too. Of course, I am not particularly bothered by 17-year-olds or even 16-year-olds having protected sex; I think it’s a short-sighted choice that is more on the level of smoking than drunk-driving. Unprotected sex, for a 16-year-old, is a ghastly error, and in this case I am willing to accept the trade-off.\n\n

Crime<\/b>: \"The Left believes that poverty, racism and psychopathology cause violent crime.\" Cause? No, I don't believe that they cause crime. I believe that they contribute to it, in much the same way that horseshit contributes to roses. The criminal impulse may flower anywhere, but we sure fertilize it.\n
\"The Right believes a lack of self-control, lack of religious practice and lack of good values are the primary causes of violent crime.\" Hm. Even if I were to accept these, what are the primary causes of a lack of self-control, lack of religious practice and lack of good values? I would say that racism and psychopathology, where they exist, are incompatible with religious practice and good values, and detrimental to self-control. Poverty is, in my opinion, detrimental to self-control, and in our current society is often associated with conditions detrimental to religious practice and good values.\n\n

War<\/b>: \"The Left believes that 'war is not the answer.'\" Much of it does, depending on the question. Some of the left thought that war was the answer in, for instance, Central Europe, or Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. Some of the left still believes that worldwide proletarian revolution is the answer to all questions. And, of course, many believe that war is never the most perfect solution.\n
\"The Right believes that war is often the only answer to governmental evil.\" Often? Again, if that's the belief of the right, they are welcome to it.\n\n\n

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your Humble Blogger has, as my Gentle Readers will be aware, recently spent a good deal of time attempting to understand the conservative mindset. I don’t really know how well I succeeded, but I do feel I understand it a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16849,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions\/16849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}