Principle 35: We Need Both Political Sides

Look at the big picture

We live in such a polarized world that even stating this principle gets people upset. “Whaddya mean deal with the other side?! They’re traitors!”

Uh, no. As stated in Principle 29, we need to avoid extremes in all areas of life, including politics. If you think the other side is literally made up of traitors, I suggest you have found yourself on the extreme edge of society.

In fact, most people you meet, in every country on Earth, want basically the same things: a decent job, a family, recreation, time to think. Not everyone has that, but in general that is what most people want. Where they disagree is on the policies that will get them that life. When you talk about policy differences, you are at least at the same table, not facing each other with guns.

So let’s back up and look at the big picture. Let’s first of all abstract it from the American side and make it universal. We are not going to talk about Republicans and Democrats, we are going to generalize into two basic sides:

1. Conservatives

2. Progressives

What does a conservative do? She conserves. She “protects from harm or destruction.” In societal terms, a conservative sees the good results of a policy and seeks to preserve it, to cultivate it, to make it long-lasting:

That’s a conservative above. They have a nice plot of land, and they cultivate it. No need to pave it over with something new, it already serves its purpose perfectly. Just tend to it and society will benefit.

But if all you had were conservatives, you would be limited to the land you already knew. So you also need progressives. Someone who moves onward toward a destination:

How does land get found? Someone had to scout it in the first place. If all you had were farmers, you’d never get new land. Conversely, if you only had explorers, you’d have lots of uncultivated land.

A progressive should always be asking what else can we do, or what are we doing that isn’t working as well as it should. Society needs such people to question current practices and suggest new ones.

A conservative should always be protecting what is already good, what works well, and should be cultivated. Society needs such people to question new ideas and suggest some of them are bad ones.

It has oft been noted that, in general, young people are progressive and old people are conservative. Why is that, and why does that actually make sense?

When you are young, you live in a world that was made for those who came before you. So you chafe at the policies that don’t help you, but do help the older ones. You don’t like the dominant culture, so you rebel. Over time, your generation grows up and takes power, and now you are in position to change society’s culture to suit you. And once you do, you now wish to preserve what you worked so hard to change.

Your kids, on the other hand, will chafe at a world made not for them. And so it goes generation after generation, and it will be ever thus.

That doesn’t mean you can’t hate a policy or a particularly cruel or hypocritical politician. Watching the sausage made is gross. But if you step back and look at things generationally, it usually makes sense.

So while we may dislike certain politicians or policies, in general we need people to explore new ideas, and other people to protect already good ideas. We need some to progress, and some to conserve. We need both political sides, and we need them to both act in these sensible ways.