Liberals and Conservatives

Politics has revealed basic human tendencies that require understanding. The question is: “Why are their democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives?”  Why doesn’t everyone have the same preference and come to the same conclusions, given most of the facts?  Why isn't everybody nice? 

The conventional view of political opinion recognizes as spread of political preference from left to right. The main arguments between the left-socialist and right-conservative are about the distribution of wealth and resources, the use of force and the regulation of individual activity. The dialectic can be traced back to root group dynamics and the ever-changing balance between self-interest and group interest, between belligerence and peaceful negotiation.

In most countries with political parties, the moderate left is equated with liberal and socialist and the moderate right is equated with “free-enterprise” and conservative. The liberal left involves a tendency to associate, forgive and share.  The right-wing tendency is toward self-serving strategies, punishment and hoarding. The extremes are populated by authoritarian humans who tend to use intimidation, coercion and punishment to achieve domination. They want to become dictators if they achieve political power. Moderates tend to be more conciliatory and will use the threat of force but avoid combat unless attacked.

In Canada the liberal party formed most of the federal governments during the 20th century. One man, Mackenzie King, ruled as prime minister for 21 years. His rein was followed by three other liberal prime ministers. King created a liberal-socialist country with old age pensions, a national broadcast agency (CBC) a national airline and a national film board. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the fifteenth and ultimate Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1984. As a young MD, I felt more at home in Canada with Pierre as the leading man. He was brilliant, well educated, well travelled and courageous enough to be his own man rather than a political puppet. Under Trudeau, Canada’s social policies advanced in the direction of an intelligent and generous country that suited me. Trudeau advanced national unity and established a Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada's constitution. He came from a wealthy French Canadian family and was educated in Roman Catholic schools. He became a lawyer, a law professor, a champion of workers’ rights and he promoted religious freedom. He met with John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono on their tour for world peace. Lennon described Trudeau as a beautiful person and suggested if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace."

A conservative government interrupted the Liberal hegemony after Trudeau, but lost all but one seat in parliament in a subsequent election mostly because the conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney became very unpopular. The Canadian electorate can be congratulated for annihilating a political party that betrayed their trust.

In the USA in 2004, political differences were described as “cultural” and political rivalry was renamed ‘culture wars.” Democrats were on the left and Republicans on the right. Republicans under President Bush supported a paranoid, militaristic approach to international affairs, voting for a military occupation of Iraq based on systematic misinformation. Democrats tended to be more conciliatory; some opposed the war, emphasized fiscal responsibility in domestic affairs and wanted the restoration of a free, civil society.

The depredations of the Republican Bush administrations have been described and deplored in detail.  More sordid details will emerge if democratic administrations follow and pursue formal inquiries into the Bush boys’ corruption. The US itself has been left with a long list of serious problems and the US victim, Iraq, is in ruins with a death toll that ranges from 50,000 to 1 million depending on who you believe.

A tendency toward the center represents, hopefully, an evolution in political processes. Traditional political polarization is unstable and new approaches to democratic governments are desirable and may be possible. In the both the USA and Canada, reform parties have emerged to offer alternatives to dichotic political choice and "reform" refers to almost any point of view that does not fit into a neatly divided liberal-conservative dichotomy.

Political theories, especially the revolutionary ones have always been wrong. Humans have innate tendencies that will not change. Any political-economic theory that proposes to fundamentally change the way humans operate will fail.  The only lasting way to change political and economic systems is to allow them to become more congruent with human nature. Successful political systems must work with and not oppose human nature to become stable over a long-term measured in hundreds of years and not four-year terms of office. Stability will require relative autonomy for local groups and tolerance for diversity among these groups. 

Humans tend to follow patterns evident in other primate groups who move toward the center when things are going well. Food scarcity and threats from the outside are stresses that disturb the status quo. There is a mixture of group and individual mandates and a healthy primate group is flexible, rearranging priorities and ideology as circumstances demand. Groups are larger and more egalitarian when resources are abundant. Larger groups divide into smaller groups and become edgy and competitive when resources are scarce. Groups always compete with one another, but temporary truces and coalitions keep the peace most of the time.

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Group Dynamics

Group Dynamics is part of the  Psychology & Philosophy series, developed by Persona Digital Books. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Group Dynamics published online and expect proper citations to accompany all derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason and the publisher is Persona Digital Books. The most recent date of publication is 2010.  The URL to the book description is http://www.personadigital.net/Persona/groupdynamics/