Several weeks ago a friend challenged me to explain the difference between left and right-wing ideologies.
"Can you do it?" challenged friend. "Moreso, can you do it fairly and without the usual right and left stereotypes and with the history of where these ideological groupings come from?"
Sure. Why not. There's no resolving the esoteric spectra of political ideology - Marxism, communism, socialism, liberalism, classical liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism and fascism, to name just a few - if we can't even tell left from right. If we can't say why we keep leaning either way.
Let's put aside the history of our political divisions, though. History can't explain why people keep slanting left or angling right - while knowing next to nothing about history. In fact? It almost seems like people can't really help their own political inclinations.
That's what research has shown. When it comes to left or right political leaning, people don't just forget their history. They disdain plain facts and otherwise common sense. Both those leaning left and those leaning right will consistently rely on the identical facts when justifying how they lean. Which can only suggest complete disregard for facts. For how consistency gets sacrificed when it comes to political leaning.
Yet more astonishing has been research showing significant, detectable brain differences between people leaning politically left and right. Research so remarkable that mainstream media headlines blared: "Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain".
Could significant brain-differences mean that political inclination is inborn? Genetically hard-wired?
Better not get carried away with that joke. Finding brain differences doesn't mean that political inclination is hard-wired. That it isn't learned. Since learning too, just as well, may account for brain differences. Since we know that learning can and does correspond with presumably structuring events in the brain. Since learning is precisely not inborn or hard-wired. Learning is everything we acquire - albeit not only - by experience.
For the most simplistic analogy, it may be possible to significantly distinguish computers by their operating systems. Would we then conclude operating systems are hard-wired? Of course not. Operating systems are precisely not hard-wired.
What surprises is not that learning or knowing can correspond with variance in people's brains. Rather, it is how deeply fundamental our political leanings must therefore be. How persistent, reliable and robust a division political leaning must constitute. In order to correspond with real, significant brain differences, leaning left or right politically must divide us - how we learn, how we know -- fundamentally.
It would not be surprising to find significant brain differences between, for instance, people who distinguish right from wrong - and people who do not. But we would not expect significant brain differences between people who think it's right to vote for Barak Obama - and people who think it's wrong to vote for Obama. That's what's surprising. How much deeper than just voting choices our political inclinations must go. How political inclination now seems more like being able to tell right from wrong. In terms of the prior analogy, political leaning isn't just elective software. How we lean seems more like a module of our operating system.
Taking a minute to think about it, though? There should be no surprise. Because, in Western societies, political inclination is predicated on our understanding of fairness - and because fairness has replaced god when it comes to telling political right from wrong.
Right and wrong used to be functions of god-given truths. But at least since the American and French revolutions - if not since yet earlier during Western Enlightenment - we have lost every faith in the truths god gave. And absent definitive, pre-ordained, absolute truths to sanctify each social injustice? The alternative has become culturally ingrained in Western societies that humanitarian fairness must decide public morality.
Now, in the West, fairness is the needle in our public morality compass. Fairness has become the vane of political legitimacy. On this much, in the West, we can agree. We have got to be fair.
But fundamental and imperative as fairness has become? We totally can't agree on what it means. When it comes to our understanding of fairness we are utterly divided.
On one hand, there is the belief that fairness must mean relative parity. Such that, whenever observing material non-parity, we have to conclude non-fairness. Any inequality, in itself, must therefore constitute evidence of discrimination, of oppression, of exploitation - of prevailing social injustice.
On the other hand, there is the belief that fairness must mean not only relative parity - but must also reflect relative merit and virtue. Such that we cannot conclude non-fairness from material non-parity alone. Since inequalities could always stem from differences in relative merit - rather than any social injustice prevailing.
The more we believe material non-parity entails injustice - the farther left we have to lean politically. The more we believe material non-parity does not entail injustice - the farther right we have to lean politically.
And when we lean too far - either way? That's when our ideals of fairness turn ideological. Because it is false, absurd and harmful to believe merit has either nothing or absolutely everything to do with people's material circumstances. Sometimes people can shape their material circumstances - whereas, at other times, circumstances can overwhelm anyone.
It comes down to this. Western ideals of fairness are most admirable. Absent such ideals - had we kept faith with god-given truths or just relied on might determining our relative rights - there could never have evolved even partly free and democratic Western societies. But Western ideologies of fairness are turning uniquely absurd - and damaging.
Right-wing brains believing only merit can truly determine what's fair ought to remember that no society can thrive which turns its back on those most overwhelmed by circumstance through no fault of their own. Whereas left-wing brains believing merit has no bearing whatever on fairness had better remember that societies collapse and fall when turning blind eyes to how enduringly only human self-determination and free-enterprise can improve, enhance, augment and ultimately transcend every possible circumstance. That's right - ultimately transcend. Because circumstance and human conditions hinge not only on potentially alienable means of production - but yet more so on potentially inalienable productions of meaning. Because absent comprehensive appreciation for human production of meaning - there can be no real conception of human productivity.
Ideologies of fairness are absurd artifacts produced by genuine cultural ideals of fairness. Ideals of fairness but for which there could never have emerged even partly free and democratic Western societies. And our most extreme ideologies of fairness are also uniquely Western.
Could left and right-wing brains have preceded our ideals and expectations of public fairness? Could there have been left and right-wing brains prior to left and right political alternatives even existing? Even now, can there be left and right-wing brains in the totalitarian Middle East or North Korea? Of course not. There can be no meaningful left or right political alternatives in totalitarian societies. No political alternative can have coherent totalitarian meaning. Since the meaning of totalitarian is to deny all alternatives.
Our ideals of fairness are at the cultural roots of relatively free and democratic Western societies. Yet our ideologies of fairness - ideologies at the expense of real fairness - like rot, are beginning to erode Western societies from inside out. Can Western societies recover - or will left and right political ideologies continue dividing us until we can no longer work and live together?
That's the real question the survey was meant to address. Not whether Bush or Obama hatred has been worst - responses to which, either way, likely reflect only prevailing ideological devotions. Rather, whether any significant proportion of respondents might indicate some rejection of ideology by choosing the third option: "Ideologues left and right are all a pestilence on democracy." Unfortunately, to date, the third option accounted for merely 8% of responses. Meanwhile, the first two - ideologically divisive - options accounted for over 85% of responses.
By way of bad news, these numbers shout for themselves.
"Can you do it?" challenged friend. "Moreso, can you do it fairly and without the usual right and left stereotypes and with the history of where these ideological groupings come from?"
Sure. Why not. There's no resolving the esoteric spectra of political ideology - Marxism, communism, socialism, liberalism, classical liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism and fascism, to name just a few - if we can't even tell left from right. If we can't say why we keep leaning either way.
Let's put aside the history of our political divisions, though. History can't explain why people keep slanting left or angling right - while knowing next to nothing about history. In fact? It almost seems like people can't really help their own political inclinations.
That's what research has shown. When it comes to left or right political leaning, people don't just forget their history. They disdain plain facts and otherwise common sense. Both those leaning left and those leaning right will consistently rely on the identical facts when justifying how they lean. Which can only suggest complete disregard for facts. For how consistency gets sacrificed when it comes to political leaning.
Yet more astonishing has been research showing significant, detectable brain differences between people leaning politically left and right. Research so remarkable that mainstream media headlines blared: "Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain".
Could significant brain-differences mean that political inclination is inborn? Genetically hard-wired?
Better not get carried away with that joke. Finding brain differences doesn't mean that political inclination is hard-wired. That it isn't learned. Since learning too, just as well, may account for brain differences. Since we know that learning can and does correspond with presumably structuring events in the brain. Since learning is precisely not inborn or hard-wired. Learning is everything we acquire - albeit not only - by experience.
For the most simplistic analogy, it may be possible to significantly distinguish computers by their operating systems. Would we then conclude operating systems are hard-wired? Of course not. Operating systems are precisely not hard-wired.
What surprises is not that learning or knowing can correspond with variance in people's brains. Rather, it is how deeply fundamental our political leanings must therefore be. How persistent, reliable and robust a division political leaning must constitute. In order to correspond with real, significant brain differences, leaning left or right politically must divide us - how we learn, how we know -- fundamentally.
It would not be surprising to find significant brain differences between, for instance, people who distinguish right from wrong - and people who do not. But we would not expect significant brain differences between people who think it's right to vote for Barak Obama - and people who think it's wrong to vote for Obama. That's what's surprising. How much deeper than just voting choices our political inclinations must go. How political inclination now seems more like being able to tell right from wrong. In terms of the prior analogy, political leaning isn't just elective software. How we lean seems more like a module of our operating system.
Taking a minute to think about it, though? There should be no surprise. Because, in Western societies, political inclination is predicated on our understanding of fairness - and because fairness has replaced god when it comes to telling political right from wrong.
Right and wrong used to be functions of god-given truths. But at least since the American and French revolutions - if not since yet earlier during Western Enlightenment - we have lost every faith in the truths god gave. And absent definitive, pre-ordained, absolute truths to sanctify each social injustice? The alternative has become culturally ingrained in Western societies that humanitarian fairness must decide public morality.
Now, in the West, fairness is the needle in our public morality compass. Fairness has become the vane of political legitimacy. On this much, in the West, we can agree. We have got to be fair.
But fundamental and imperative as fairness has become? We totally can't agree on what it means. When it comes to our understanding of fairness we are utterly divided.
On one hand, there is the belief that fairness must mean relative parity. Such that, whenever observing material non-parity, we have to conclude non-fairness. Any inequality, in itself, must therefore constitute evidence of discrimination, of oppression, of exploitation - of prevailing social injustice.
On the other hand, there is the belief that fairness must mean not only relative parity - but must also reflect relative merit and virtue. Such that we cannot conclude non-fairness from material non-parity alone. Since inequalities could always stem from differences in relative merit - rather than any social injustice prevailing.
The more we believe material non-parity entails injustice - the farther left we have to lean politically. The more we believe material non-parity does not entail injustice - the farther right we have to lean politically.
And when we lean too far - either way? That's when our ideals of fairness turn ideological. Because it is false, absurd and harmful to believe merit has either nothing or absolutely everything to do with people's material circumstances. Sometimes people can shape their material circumstances - whereas, at other times, circumstances can overwhelm anyone.
It comes down to this. Western ideals of fairness are most admirable. Absent such ideals - had we kept faith with god-given truths or just relied on might determining our relative rights - there could never have evolved even partly free and democratic Western societies. But Western ideologies of fairness are turning uniquely absurd - and damaging.
Right-wing brains believing only merit can truly determine what's fair ought to remember that no society can thrive which turns its back on those most overwhelmed by circumstance through no fault of their own. Whereas left-wing brains believing merit has no bearing whatever on fairness had better remember that societies collapse and fall when turning blind eyes to how enduringly only human self-determination and free-enterprise can improve, enhance, augment and ultimately transcend every possible circumstance. That's right - ultimately transcend. Because circumstance and human conditions hinge not only on potentially alienable means of production - but yet more so on potentially inalienable productions of meaning. Because absent comprehensive appreciation for human production of meaning - there can be no real conception of human productivity.
Ideologies of fairness are absurd artifacts produced by genuine cultural ideals of fairness. Ideals of fairness but for which there could never have emerged even partly free and democratic Western societies. And our most extreme ideologies of fairness are also uniquely Western.
Could left and right-wing brains have preceded our ideals and expectations of public fairness? Could there have been left and right-wing brains prior to left and right political alternatives even existing? Even now, can there be left and right-wing brains in the totalitarian Middle East or North Korea? Of course not. There can be no meaningful left or right political alternatives in totalitarian societies. No political alternative can have coherent totalitarian meaning. Since the meaning of totalitarian is to deny all alternatives.
Our ideals of fairness are at the cultural roots of relatively free and democratic Western societies. Yet our ideologies of fairness - ideologies at the expense of real fairness - like rot, are beginning to erode Western societies from inside out. Can Western societies recover - or will left and right political ideologies continue dividing us until we can no longer work and live together?
That's the real question the survey was meant to address. Not whether Bush or Obama hatred has been worst - responses to which, either way, likely reflect only prevailing ideological devotions. Rather, whether any significant proportion of respondents might indicate some rejection of ideology by choosing the third option: "Ideologues left and right are all a pestilence on democracy." Unfortunately, to date, the third option accounted for merely 8% of responses. Meanwhile, the first two - ideologically divisive - options accounted for over 85% of responses.
By way of bad news, these numbers shout for themselves.
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