#22 - On the challenges of holding conservative views in liberal hegemony
Note: Many of these criticisms likely also apply to conservatives as well. I just happen to have always lived in a liberal bubble, and am liberal myself, meaning that my criticisms are focused on liberals.
Note 2: For Australian readers, the term "liberal" refers to someone who is left-leaning in their views, rather than a supporter of the Liberal party (the ruling conservative party in Australia).
Note 3: As always, these views are my view and my views alone.
I am someone who loves discussing ideas with friends, especially controversial ideas and thoughts. I genuinely believe that we cannot make the world a better place unless we consider and discuss some of the crazier things that happen in our world. One of the challenges I often face is that my views are not exactly black and white. While I am very liberal in some areas (I am a member of the centre-left Australian Labor Party), I also hold some very right-wing, conservative view points. I have often found my discussions with friends on these conservative views to be especially challenging, especially in the liberal circles that I live in. I believe there are four main challenges to holding conservative views in the liberal hegemony of my life.
1. People equate liberalism with intelligence
Among the circles I move in, especially at business school, people think of their liberal views as an outcome of their intelligence. They view liberalism as the inevitable outcome of logic and education and that people who hold other views are simply less intelligent, uneducated or ignorant. This often shows up as a liberal friend feeling incredibly frustrated when I do not agree with a logical argument that they have made, because I either don’t agree with the logic of the argument or the assumptions/evidence on which it is based.
I personally think this approach to conservative opinions is deeply ignorant and condescending. Instead of blaming the conservative viewpoint on ignorance, liberals should try and consider how the other person has come to that view point. In the case of some arguments (such as those against climate change being real), the person you are talking to may indeed be completely wrong. However, for many other cases, having a more open-minded approach to a discussion of conservative issues may help liberals understand how conservative view points are actually constructed. This is invaluable information if you, as a liberal, actually want to change the world.
I’ve discussed this before in a previous blog post about disconfirming information where one of my friends claimed that he could not possible understand how people could vote for Trump as my friend claimed to be “very logical".
2. Liberals equate conservative views with a lack of morality and compassion
One of the viewpoints that I most often get flak from liberals for is my view on immigration and refugee policy. I am a strong believer in the Australian approach to immigration and refugee policy. Australia decides which skills it needs as a country, in order to develop our economy, and allows in immigrants based on these skill requirements. My parents moved to Australia because Australia needed software development skills in the early 1990s, a skill that my father was able to provide to Australia. At the same time, Australia maintains a strict but generous refugee policy. While Australia does accept allow asylum seekers who arrive by boat, Australia has the second highest per-capita refugee intake, after Canada.
Liberal friends have often criticised me as being heartless for having this view on refugees and immigration. They often wonder how I can be so dispassionate about denying access to Australia for asylum seekers who arrive by boat and how I don’t feel shame for my opinions. When I explain to them that Australia does more for refugees on a proportional basis than almost any other country in the world, they claim that I don’t care and that we should do more. When I explain to friends that letting in a refugee who arrives by boat means that someone who in on the UNHCR resettlement program (and has done the right thing) misses out on a spot in Australia, they ask me if I could look a child refugee in the face and tell them that I am crushing their dreams and not letting them in to Australia.
This equating of immorality and a lack of compassion extends to many conservative views. Many liberals hate hunting but are happy to eat factory farmed meats. Many liberals hate guns and violence but are happy to consume recreational drugs that fuel violence in other countries. Many liberals view support for the military and wars as a love of killing, violence and warmongering.
Instead of viewing a conservative view as inherently arising from a lack of morality and compassion, try and consider the second and third order implications of someone’s viewpoint and why there may be more to their view than first meets the eye.
3. Liberals cannot/will not empathise with a conservative viewpoint
On many issues, such as why people voted for Trump or why people want to own guns, many liberals will simply not even consider how someone could hold another view. Liberals will always project their own life experiences (which are privileged and atypical - in the case of me and my liberal friends) onto conservatives, without considering what their lives are truly like.
During a recent discussion about gun violence, a friend asked me how the NRA could possible defend their position on guns. When I gave my friend some logical view points (e.g. that we should arm teachers, have more security guards in schools), my friend could not accept these viewpoints at all. My friend didn't even claim these viewpoints to be illogical. They just viewed these responses as completely unacceptable and impossible to use. As expected, the NRA came out with very similar speaking points and the Trump administration is now working to make "hardening schools" into real policy.
I could give you countless examples of situations where my liberal friends are just not willing to accept conservative arguments that I, or others, have made. Liberals need to be better at empathising with the people who hold conservative views and the life experience that may lead to those people having those views. Instead of immediately rejecting a conservative view or opinion, try and put yourself in the feet of the person that hold the conservative view.
4. Unwillingness to accept the realities of the world
In many of the more heated discussions that I have on conservative viewpoints, my liberal friends will inevitably start an argument/attack with “In an ideal world…” or “In a perfect world”. This is when I want to roll my eyes and groan.
The unfortunate reality is that we do not live in an ideal or perfect world. We live in a flawed world, with flawed people who aren’t able to do things perfectly, While it is good to be idealistic and change the world, a healthy dose of pragmatism could go a long way. It might not be moot for you to argue about what utopia should look like, but if you can’t argue against a conservative viewpoint in the context of the real world, is that even a good argument?
This inability to accept the realities of the world, and potentially compromise your views and ideals, has real life consequences. In Australia, the far-left Greens voted against the first Emissions Trading Scheme in late 2009 because it wasn’t good enough relative to their ideals. This refusal led to the downfall of two centre-left governments and the election of an ultra-conservative government who then repealed Gillard’s carbon tax and continues to restrict progress in Australia to this day. A parallel in America would be liberals who voted for Jill Stein or abstained from voting for Clinton, simply to allow Trump to be elected.
The world is unfortunately not an ideal place, and we as liberals need to navigate pragmatically through that.