I read these great articles on Al-Jazeera about the future of conservatism and liberalism as philosophies and what the future holds for both sides. Sure, life is more diverse and complicated than putting people into two camps, but as major forces in American political life, it was refreshing to look at how both have evolved and what both sides should think about as they interface with an ever changing demographic and as the future brings us new problems that will require new paradigms in thought.
To begin, for those on the left, they have to be proud of our successes and look forward to thinking outside the spectrum.
We won on the Social Security, Medicare, Welfare State front in terms of public opinion. This is evidenced by the fact that the right has to create insane memes that somehow Democrats want to cut Medicare and Medicaid to turn them against us. People want these programs protected. It's not really our fault that the public sometimes doesn't realize that cutting "government spending" translates to cutting some of their favorite programs. Double think is human no matter how much we wish it wasn't. We've won on the idea of public schools, public services, having nature that is cordoned off from private interests, and a host of other ideas that demonstrate our dedication to egalitarianism. Sure, we are often made out to be villains, trying to spread mediocrity, but we have won on the idea that average people are indeed average and people are not necessarily lumps of coal waiting to be squeezed by the philosophy of kill-or-be-killed to turn into diamonds while the waste fades into oblivion. We understand context. We understand the effect socioeconomic status has on people and if anyone wants to change theirs, even average people of modest means, they have the avenues by which they can do it. We do not tell people to fade away into the horizon, and it is for that reason a lot of what we have worked for is here to stay.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we have had stunning victories on every front and we can just sit on our laurels. We still suffer from horrible messaging and an inability to control framing. A lot of our power has slipped beyond public consciousness except in those rare moments where we can articulate our views. We still suffer from being all to willing to fall into the trap that everyone agrees with our opponent. This is made all too clear when our opponents do things, like for example, exclude us by inference. Whenever we hear "Republicans are all about the second amendment and gun rights," a Democrat is the first to put on an orange vest, grab his/her shotgun and run into the forest to kill a deer in a manly fashion. Any other response would imply that somehow we weren't just as much for the second amendment, defending ourselves against an unfair inference, instead of politely saying "So what?"
The future, then, is to streamline what it is we've already done, accept our victories, and move on. Medicare doesn't have to bankrupt our country if it's done efficiently and we concentrate on providing goods for our people instead of spending a larger and larger part of our budget killing people. That's something we can push, and it rings true on many levels. We have an in bred idealism that when articulated correctly can truly move people. We know that Horatio Alger is both a myth and a sick joke. A life where pride, honesty, and frugality are not a means to a greater expression of self, but are instead a silent surrender to the excesses of society and private interest is a life I would never want anyone to live.
We don't want people to be unable to express or fulfill themselves. We don't want the only option for people to have is to sustain themselves by surrendering to life circumstances in quiet servitude. It's not socially sustainable. Conservatives see success as spiritual, an inner landscape that remains static and firm despite intervening external variables. This is unrealistic. Pure atomistic individuals have psychological problems that compound as time goes on. They develop counterfeit emotions that are comparable to positive ones, but their basis is fear and self abasement. Refusal to deal with the group, refusal to deal with what environment we engender, is inescapable, but we lose sight of that if we use a microscope to solve every social problem. Every time I read about people working at Wal-Mart for less and less pay, fewer health care benefits, and with little hope of mobility, I don't see someone that's found their place in a constellation of society by ruggedly overcoming all obstacles, but instead people who will eventually succumb to the stresses of a society where the entrenched powers have created a system to crush them for self aggrandizement, and offer small outlets for their inevitable frustration while making a buck in the process. One need only look at the mobs of shoppers at Wal-Mart, practically killing each other over a $2 waffle iron, to see that people are searching for an emotional outlet or some type of fulfillment that their daily lives are not providing them, and that they could have if they had more freedom. And in America, freedom and economics go hand in hand.
Our journey into the future will be to maintain our sights on the golden isle where the individual and the group reach a wonderful balance, where the realization of one doesn't have to come at the destruction of the other. We need to jealously guard the public space, as we have let so much come under private hands at great cost (privatized prison systems for example). We need to make the case for collective action and truly celebrate our successes instead of thinking that much of what we've done advertises itself. We swim against the tide of cultural myth and a past of rugged individuals which never really existed, but is perpetuated in story and has made us feel the sting of its inevitable realization and failure every time. For us then, we go beyond partisanship to a realm of our own ideas, and from that perspective, the future is bright.