Megan McArdle was full of wist yesterday:
If you’re like me (and I know many of you are), you grew up reading the science fiction of the 1940’s and 1950’s, promising a quick and rapid expansion into the solar system, and not too long thereafter, the galaxy. …
Four years before I was born, man walked on the moon for the first time, the most magnificent single feat our little tribe of East African Plains Apes has ever managed. Now we don’t even do that. What happened to the dream?
What happened to the dream? Well, I have a little theory I like to call, “It’s all the damn liberals’ fault.” It goes a little something like this:
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the basic difference between liberals and conservatives is, i.e., why do they think so differently? How can it be so obvious to conservatives that taking someone else’s money to mend social and economic injustice is wrong (and futile), while it is just as obvious to liberals that it’s not only right to take that money – it’s morally required to take that money? How can two groups think so differently?
My answer is: The fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is a sense of destiny. Conservatives have one, liberals don’t.
Conservatives believe that man is on a journey to some greater future. That belief may be motivated by religion or by technology or simply by imagination (like Ms. McArdle’s sci fi buffs), but regardless of its origin, conservatives share the common feeling that man has a special place in the universe. They know in their guts that there is meaning to man’s existence, and that tomorrow will always be better and more significant than today.
Liberals don’t share that sense of destiny. They believe that man is just another critter, more destructive than most, whose existence is, in the end, meaningless. Since there is no particular future for man, the highest priority is to make the “now” as fair, just, and comfortable as possible, and to minimize the harm that mankind does during its (regrettable) time on the planet.
Which brings us to the United States. For conservatives, the Constitution and capitalism are the keys to having the freedom and prosperity to constantly improve one’s life. And improving one’s life will more often than not contribute to the advancement of the nation. And conservatives believe (sometimes naively) that what is good for the United States is good for mankind.
Liberals look at that advancement as something needing to be harnessed before it does any harm. Advancement is not intrinsically good, so businesses and individuals should be restricted from doing any damage at either the physical or social level.
So for conservatives, breaking some eggs along the way is just one of those things that happens when you’re taking the eggs on a trip. The point is just to get most of the eggs to your destination. For liberals, the whole point is to protect the eggs, since there’s no place to go.
Don’t buy it? Here’s the first thing MarkinNJ (my pretty dang liberal BiL) said in the comments when I pitched this idea a couple of years ago:
Why can’t “greater social and economic justice” be a valid destiny/meaning for the country? It was good enough to create the New Deal and the civil rights movement…
Yup, he wants to substitute polishing the eggs for taking the trip – he believes that they’re completely equivalent. This is not to pick on Mark – he’s a smart and nice guy. But his first reaction dramatically underscores the gulf between conservative and liberal thinking.
For conservatives, “greater social and economic justice” is nice, but it could never be the point of man’s or the United States’ existence.
Especially when there’s ice cream in the equation.
H/T: Instapundit
July 21, 2009 at 5:21 am
For conservatives, “greater social and economic justice” is nice
For this conservative, “greater social and economic justice” is code for “we’re going to take stuff away from you and give it to other people who haven’t spent their lives working their asses off like you have.”
Anyway, NASA doesn’t have enough money. If you doubled their budget (which, incidentally, would be a drop in the bucket compared to what’s been spent on “stimulus”), NASA could safely extend the Shuttle, accelerate Orion, maybe add another Mars Science Laboratory rover (there’s only one, which I think is stupid, especially since the marginal cost of building a second rover isn’t that high), expand Earth science research, and do all kinds of small business research initiatives. All that would put money directly in the economy and have huge benefits to science and technology and thus to everyone.
But it’s much more important to make sure that Murtha gets his name on a couple more buildings.
July 21, 2009 at 5:46 am
Equal outcomes vs. equal opportunity for sure, but to cut to the chase, the bottom line is about power and how best to aquire it and how best to keep it. This is why, despite all the rhetoric, there is little difference between a Democrat politician and a Republican politician. I am aware there are exceptions to prove the rule but for the vast majority of our elected officials it is more about power than civic duty.
July 21, 2009 at 7:13 am
I’d take Brewfan’s example one step further, there is a difference in motivation between a liberal politician and a liberal (I use liberal in the currently distorted sense, not the classical).
Politicians manipulate the liberal with rhetoric and promises about outcomes and justice, but it’s all crap intended to extend dependence and purchase votes.
The true believer on the other hand, is the person you’re describing. They cannot accept the simple equation of liberty combined with capitalism because the “masses” (i.e. idiots) can’t be trusted to handle liberty and capitalism is just “greed” (not a free exchange between parties who are not compelled to make the exchange). To them it is inherently flawed, and if they accepted the premise of “evil”, they paste it so.
Our founding documents, which describe a model by which liberty is woven into a society, was a mere construct by “rich white men” intended to prevent the enlightened class of bureaucrats from exercising their benevolent control to guide the dumb. Not a document which recognized the inherent tendency of power to exert its control over the individual.
The individual is crap to a liberal, incidentally. Except individually themselves. This misguided sense of altruism in face of real oppression leads to muddled thinking and headaches.
July 21, 2009 at 7:56 am
the bottom line is about power and how best to aquire it and how best to keep it.
Yeah, I think politicians and hardcore money-makers are in a different category altogether. They don’t care which political philosophy is in place as long as their personal success is assured. For the money guys that’s normally not a problem – they are, after all, operating within the capitalist system. But when they start manipulating the system itself to increase their gains, it perverts the system.
July 21, 2009 at 8:07 am
All that would put money directly in the economy and have huge benefits to science and technology and thus to everyone.
When NASA was started, the technological byproducts were only an afterthought, not a major justification for NASA’s budget. It was enough that we were pushing forward and making our mark in history. Now that vision is usually outvoted by people who don’t share it, so we have to make the economic argument (all the fallout technology) in order to fund the program.
I think that’s sad.
July 21, 2009 at 12:28 pm
It was mostly about the Russkies.
July 21, 2009 at 12:37 pm
It was mostly about the Russkies.
Yeah, but the Space Race was driven by the desire for advancement as much as for advantage. The fact that it was a race didn’t change the incentive. We wanted to be the first humans on the moon because it would be the most magnificent thing mankind had ever done.
Couldn’t let the Russkies lay claim to that.
July 21, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I do agree it was a marvelous achievement, and you know the program was a big part of my life growin up. I’m just saying the funding was driven by the competition, and the flat out fear that the Sovs were gonna park nuclear bomb platforms over Cleveland and stuff.
I’ll add that Alan Sheppard, God bless him, one of my heroes, could not have made a bigger PR blunder than hitting a golf ball on the moon.
July 23, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Been waiting for a break at work to enter a few thoughts…
I have to admit I’ve never really gotten this lib/destiny argument – maybe it’s the analogies to cars, coaches, eggs, etc…my brain needs real-world examples. And I’m not sure the Race to the Moon is such a good one. Wasn’t it initiated by a Kennedy and nurtured by LBJ? (Johnson Space Center, anyone?). And if we’ve failed to follow that tremendous arc in the years since, it can’t be ALL because of those liberals; in the 40 years since the last man on the moon, there’ve been Republicans in the WH much more than 50% of the time. So where was the pro-destiny conservative leadership during all that time?
And when your argument moves to capitalism, destiny gets downgraded from the highest sort of scientific achievement (hey, I loved the moon race, too!) to man’s natural right to accumulate as much stuff as possible, without being restrained by liberal shackles like environmental impact or disproportionate consumption of resources. We do have a disagreement here, but do you really want to call that destiny?
I actually have an example for this one: everyday driving home on over-developed Rt 1, I pass a lone patch of woods — or actually, I used to, because I’ve watched it get ripped up and replaced by a new Audi dealership. I know I’m supposed to say, “Hooray! Another car dealer gets to fulfill his destiny of selling more overpriced cars!” But I liked looking at the woods and I feel bad for the animals that were displaced. And if an initiative comes up that makes that kind of thing illegal, I’ll definitely vote for it. I say I’m choosing aesthetics and quality of life — you say I’m thwarting man’s destiny. But do we also disagree on which one (woods vs. another concrete monstrosity in NJ) makes the world a better place to live in?
And finally, I think my overall discomfort with your concept of man’s destiny has more to do with religious agnosticism than my liberalness…here’s a clarifying Aristotelian question: do all animals have a destiny, or just man?
July 23, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Wasn’t it initiated by a Kennedy and nurtured by LBJ?
We’ve moved quite a bit to the left since then. Those guys were to the right of some GOPers.
And when your argument moves to capitalism, destiny gets downgraded from the highest sort of scientific achievement … to man’s natural right to accumulate as much stuff as possible
My take on capitalism’s role in all this is here.
But do we also disagree on which one … makes the world a better place to live in?
Sort of, but it’s more a matter of emphasis than kind. Obviously the journey must be tolerable, so some attention must be paid to keeping life pleasant. But it should never preempt the journey. So continually increasing the penalties on entrepreneurship, innovation, and progress via taxation and regulation should be viewed as a stifling, self-defeating philosophy, no matter how much social good it brings.
do all animals have a destiny, or just man?
Their destiny is to get in mah belly. Almost seriously. Only those who can dream of a destiny get to have one.