I often wonder if there is anything more than wishful thinking behind leftist philosophies. It often appears to be little more than a dissatisfaction that the world is not a nicer place.
Welllll, Laz.... I'd say that both conservative and progressive thinkers appreciate that there are unnice things about the world. The dividing line between the two schools of thought rests partly on attitude...
The extremes of conservative thought do seem to resemble Nietzsche's amor fati, ie an absolute embrace of the world as it is, no matter how dreadful it may at times be, and even when a particular horror could in fact be ameliorated by human effort. The chilling casualness with which some conservatives on SI have responded to the unimaginable suffering the Bush administration is causing to AIDS-orphaned third world children by its birth control policies there is one example of this.
Liberals can frequently be faulted, imo, for not making a sufficient distinction between wishes and reality, and confusing a projective identification with victims or sufferers with rational, potentially productive, policies; and for pretending that self-interest is an illegitimate and unnecessary national interest.
But this is similar to RW reflexive flagwaving in circumstances in which doing that may hurt this country in the long run. So there's a lot of essentially masturbatory image-pursuing going on among the right and left, both, now that I think of it.
Leftists are obviously more exercised by inequality per se. And they tend to lionize victims of anything, even voluntary irresponsible sex. And this can produce the kind of image-determined sentiment that leads them, for example, to deny the advisability at this time of more closely regulating immigration from Muslim countries.
Conservatives may focus more on issues of individual autonomy, at least, and often at most, economic autonomy. A cartoon of RW thought has it that conservatives are against government intrusion into private life, and against big spending. That's a joke!
Just because I think that critique of RW thought w/o one of LW thought was silly enough so that (for the fun of it) I produced one myself doesn't mean I buy the notion that conservatives have an intellectual basis for their thinking and leftists don't -- I've read this thread, Laz! |
