4 ms·

It's often clear that one ideological disposition relies on laughably untrue rhetoric more than the other, but on their best days, the left and right both agree

It's often clear that one ideological disposition relies on laughably untrue rhetoric more than the other, but on their best days, the left and right both agree on facts, they just disagree on their interpretation of them and what that means we should do. Debate doesn't work because the idea of the right is to restrict resources to the "deserving" (individualism, tax breaks, etc) and kick around everyone not in the in group. The left says that we can make a more equal society and so we should try to solve our problems by redistributing resources. This is not a gap you can bridge with logic, it's a fundamentally different moral interpretation of reality. This is sharing vs defending. EDIT: However, Noam Chomsky gave a very interesting talk about how moral senses develop and change. There is some flexibility in our moral systems. For instance, until like, a year or two ago, casual homophobia was acceptable in public, now it isn't amongst a growing swath of the population. It's kind of fun to look at old Tweets by media personalities and see how much they've changed their positions (something very desirable) either because their beliefs changed or because their audience did.

beaconstudios 8y ago
this doesn't strike me as a fair assessment of the left vs right. I'd be inclined to rephrase the comparison (based entirely on my own mental model of fiscal left/right politics) as "the left wants to prioritise economic equality over incentivisation, where the right wants to prioritise incentivisation over economic equality". The fiscal right is at least theoretically about allowing market forces to dictate the movement of resources, where the left uses the state to redistribute resources when it deems the market to be unfair.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Do you think somebody on the right would describe their position as "Yeah, we like to restrict resources to the deserving and kick around everybody else!" When you start with strawmen as a fundamental basis, then of course you're not going to be able to have any sort of debate. And this is perhaps an ironic example of why debate in contemporary times is quite futile. As we segregate ourselves off into ideologically aligned groups, we begin to fall further from reality both in terms of our own views but even more so in terms of understanding views of those whom we don't agree with.
pwinnski 8y ago
Or, for a more reasonable description of the differences: the American right is interested in equality of opportunity, while the American left is interested in equality of outcome. There are good points to be made for both positions, although 2018 sees both parties skewing heavily from these historic emphases, one more than the other.
- tunesmith 8y ago
  Just a data point, as a lifelong democrat I definitely view the American left as being more interested in equality of opportunity than equality of outcome. Although that's gotten a bit muddled in recent years, since I see a split between the center-left Democrats and the more "progressive" wing. (Not sure there will be much of a home in the future for people that believe an expanded EITC is better than a massively-increased minimum wage.)
tunesmith 8y ago
I'd argue that the tragedy of the commons points to a way through that. When it becomes clear that a group optimum (via regulation) can (over a period of time) be better for an individual's self-interest than a Nash equilibrium, anyone reasonable would probably have more tolerance for some forms of regulation than they would before realizing this.

beaconstudios 8y ago

this doesn't strike me as a fair assessment of the left vs right. I'd be inclined to rephrase the comparison (based entirely on my own mental model of fiscal left/right politics) as "the left wants to prioritise economic equality over incentivisation, where the right wants to prioritise incentivisation over economic equality". The fiscal right is at least theoretically about allowing market forces to dictate the movement of resources, where the left uses the state to redistribute resources when it deems the market to be unfair.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Do you think somebody on the right would describe their position as "Yeah, we like to restrict resources to the deserving and kick around everybody else!" When you start with strawmen as a fundamental basis, then of course you're not going to be able to have any sort of debate. And this is perhaps an ironic example of why debate in contemporary times is quite futile. As we segregate ourselves off into ideologically aligned groups, we begin to fall further from reality both in terms of our own views but even more so in terms of understanding views of those whom we don't agree with.

pwinnski 8y ago

Or, for a more reasonable description of the differences: the American right is interested in equality of opportunity, while the American left is interested in equality of outcome. There are good points to be made for both positions, although 2018 sees both parties skewing heavily from these historic emphases, one more than the other.

tunesmith 8y ago
Just a data point, as a lifelong democrat I definitely view the American left as being more interested in equality of opportunity than equality of outcome. Although that's gotten a bit muddled in recent years, since I see a split between the center-left Democrats and the more "progressive" wing. (Not sure there will be much of a home in the future for people that believe an expanded EITC is better than a massively-increased minimum wage.)

tunesmith 8y ago

I'd argue that the tragedy of the commons points to a way through that. When it becomes clear that a group optimum (via regulation) can (over a period of time) be better for an individual's self-interest than a Nash equilibrium, anyone reasonable would probably have more tolerance for some forms of regulation than they would before realizing this.