Political Camps

Our modern world has a preoccupation with political camps (progressive, conservative, liberal, etc.).

I find this preoccupation problematic because political camps routinely swap positions on issues. What is considered progressive in one generation is considered conservative the next.

Even worse, most people are more atuned to the members of a group than to the ideas behind a group. We see that hip people are progressive, and frumpy people are conservative.

The terms "conservative" and "progressive" have some value as adjectives. Most political debates has one group trying to preserve the status quo. It makes sense to label this view "conservative." Other groups want to change to change the status quo. Generally these people have a goal in mind. It makes sense to call this group "progressive."

Notice, however, that with this use of the terms, the progressive and conservative positions depend on the status quo. Since they depend on something fluid, the positions change.

In recent history, we found a strange situation where "conservatives" in the former Soviet Union argued for state control of industry, while "conservatives" in the United States argued against state control.

One of the really odd things about philosophy is that, in any well developed system of thought, it is possible to argue both sides of most political issues.

One sensational example is abortion. The sanctity of life is fundamental to Christianity. Many Christians say that, since abortion is wrong, it must be illegal. Others may be as dead set againt abortion, but decide that the state is not the best venue for addressing the issue. The actions that we take as individuals is a more important manifestation of morality than the statutes in the law books.

Well developed systems of thought, ideologies, are able to argue both sides of any given political issue. Real world politics is much more fluid than pundits and scholars make out. Most political issues involve both an internal (often private) debate and a public debate.

Unfortunately, most of the analysis we see of issues is about the public debate. This analysis can make political camps appear much more dictatorial than they actually are.

I realized I needed to elaborate on the statement "This analysis can make political camps appear much more dictatorial than they actually are.".

The press often tries to appear "fair and balanced" by presenting issues in terms of a liberal/conservative dichotomy. I find this process unfulfilling as it makes conflicts and dichotomies the center piece of our society and fails to prevent any fully developed ideas.

This notion that there is a conservative and liberal side of each issue is simply absurd because all issues are multi-dimensional and the world of politics is fluid. Political camps routinely swap positions.

In my opinion, pundits spend far too much time analyzing the vagaries of political camps. Such political camps exist within a fluid system. Camps routinely swap positions on issues.

Often the analysis of camps creates false dichotomies that can mislead people in debate. For example, one might conclude that conservatives are inherently prejudiced because the conservative argument during the Civil Rights movement was to preserve the status quo. One might conclude that all Democrats are fiscally irresponsible because they were in the Johnson era.

The Bush Adminstration showed that Conservatives can be as fiscally irresponsible as Johnson. The 2008 Democratic primary seems to show that Democrats are still very much atuned to identity politics.

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