For some reason, until recently after having read two excellent books, George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, the truism that most people act rationally most of the time, given a particular framework which shapes their worldview, had eluded my conscious attention. This is important because it is all too easy to impugn the motives of others that have radically divergent viewpoints from our own, or to simply write them off as crazy and ignorant.
So, given that most people act rationally most of the time, how do we overcome resigning ourselves to relativism and effectively critique their philosophies? What should serve as a standard for determining who is right and who is wrong?
I’d like to suggest three methods that can be applied to test the veracity of a given worldview.
- Challenge its axiomatic principles
- Challenge its explanatory/predictive power
- Challenge its ability to explain competing worldviews
1 and 2 typically get a lot of attention in political discussions, so in this post I will briefly introduce an instance of number 1 as a springboard to discuss number 3, in this case with respect to the ability to explain how the conservative worldview can co-exist with an irreconcilable, conflicting liberal worldview, without resorting to ad hominem attacks toward those with conservative viewpoints.
One of the axiomatic principles of conservative thought is that the free exercise of an individual’s freewill is the alpha cause, catalyst, and explanation for that individual’s situation at any given point in time. Liberal thought recognizes that this axiomatic principle is false to the extent that it is typically assumed by conservatives. Conservatives ignore the fact that "free" will is not free any more than the "free" market is free. And they ignore the role that society at large plays in determining the bounds within which that freewill is exercised. Liberals realize that freewill is constrained by a myriad of factors: physics, cultural, societal, and economic constraints, genetics, etc.
The liberal worldview incorporates, extends, and broadens the myopic conservative worldview, placing it within a wider context, and thus modifying its diagnosis and recommended prescriptive measures for alleviating the deleterious effects of the system’s deficiencies. Liberalism is simply a rational response to broadening the context within which our society operates.
The interesting thing about this realization is that it allows us as liberals to explain how the conservative worldview, a competing worldview, is able to operate within a broader context which they largely ignore, without resorting to baseless accusations that they are simply selfish, crazy, power-hungry, or the like.
Conversely, conservatives cannot explain how the liberal worldview, a more robust worldview, operates within the confines of their understanding of how the world works. This is, of course, because liberal philosophies reside within a broader context than conservative philosophies, which are highly dependent on the primacy of individual freewill and autonomy.
Conservatives are left with few choices for attacking liberalism:
If they critique the liberal analysis of the broader context, they unwittingly destroy the axiomatic principles and assumptions that serve as the foundation of the conservative worldview, by tacitly accepting that society, and more importantly individuals, do indeed exist and operate within a broader context, one in which conservatives had previously ignored.
All too often, what they choose to do is to instead resort to name-calling, casting aspersions, or even questioning the sanity of liberal thought. This is a sign of the ultimate failure of the conservative worldview. It simply cannot comprehend a broader, more robust philosophy. It cannot explain the proliferation of liberal thought without assuming that a significant minority, if not majority of the world is certifiably insane.