"Conservatism" vs "liberalism": Different values, or different emphasis?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Conservatism: A respect for existing/traditional norms, institutions, ideas, and values. Supportive of incremental and minimal change in society, at the most.

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

In America, I would venture to say most people are mixtures of both "liberalism" and "conservatism." For all the partisan rhetoric, there's remarkably little difference between the two parties when it comes to values, it's more a question of emphasis and relatively small differences that are exponentially divisive, to the point where people forget how much in common they have with the "other side."

[CultureKing]

I have always thought of conservatives placing the emphasis on individual rights and respecting tradition while liberals favor collective welfare.

[TJ in Oregon]

I've always thought of the difference as how people respond to others making, for lack of a better phrase, "bad choices". The "bad choices" include poor resource management, drugs, sex, getting scammed, dropping out of school, etc.

Liberals want to deal with this by mitigating the consequences: if you go bankrupt, they'll give you money; if you have sex, they'll let you have an abortion. If you are addicted to drugs, they want you to be rehabilitated rather than punished. They see these actions as negative only in so much as they produce negative consequences. If we can remove the consequences, we can redefine "bad choices".

Conservatives want to deal with this by providing people an incentive not to make "bad choices" in the first place. In some cases this incentive is prison time. If you have sex, you're stuck with having the kid (or at least up until birth). If you do drugs, you should go to prison. If you lost all your money, that's your problem. Maybe we'll help you individually, but as a government, there will be no mitigation. We don't want to redefine "bad choices", we want people not to make them.

[CultureKing]

I've always thought of the difference as how people respond to others making, for lack of a better phrase, "bad choices". The "bad choices" include poor resource management, drugs, sex, getting scammed, dropping out of school, etc.

Liberals want to deal with this by mitigating the consequences: if you go bankrupt, they'll give you money; if you have sex, they'll let you have an abortion. If you are addicted to drugs, they want you to be rehabilitated rather than punished. They see these actions as negative only in so much as they produce negative consequences. If we can remove the consequences, we can redefine "bad choices".

Conservatives want to deal with this by providing people an incentive not to make "bad choices" in the first place. In some cases this incentive is prison time. If you have sex, you're stuck with having the kid (or at least up until birth). If you do drugs, you should go to prison. If you lost all your money, that's your problem. Maybe we'll help you individually, but as a government, there will be no mitigation. We don't want to redefine "bad choices", we want people not to make them.

No. As a liberal I completely disagree with your caricature of us basically rewarding 'bad decisions', that is not the goal in any way. Instead I believe that we try to focus on addressing the root causes of problems in recognition that not everyone starts at the exact same point. For example provide greater support for urban youth through education programs, access to basic services such as health care and financial assistance in college. In that way we prevent some of the "bad choices" that you are talking about. Remember liberalism does not equal communism; people are responsible for their actions, just as society as a whole is responsible for working towards greater equality of opportunity.

[RI]

I've always thought of the difference as how people respond to others making, for lack of a better phrase, "bad choices". The "bad choices" include poor resource management, drugs, sex, getting scammed, dropping out of school, etc.

Liberals want to deal with this by mitigating the consequences: if you go bankrupt, they'll give you money; if you have sex, they'll let you have an abortion. If you are addicted to drugs, they want you to be rehabilitated rather than punished. They see these actions as negative only in so much as they produce negative consequences. If we can remove the consequences, we can redefine "bad choices".

Conservatives want to deal with this by providing people an incentive not to make "bad choices" in the first place. In some cases this incentive is prison time. If you have sex, you're stuck with having the kid (or at least up until birth). If you do drugs, you should go to prison. If you lost all your money, that's your problem. Maybe we'll help you individually, but as a government, there will be no mitigation. We don't want to redefine "bad choices", we want people not to make them.

No. As a liberal I completely disagree with your caricature of us basically rewarding 'bad decisions', that is not the goal in any way. Instead I believe that we try to focus on addressing the root causes of problems in recognition that not everyone starts at the exact same point. For example provide greater support for urban youth through education programs, access to basic services such as health care and financial assistance in college. In that way we prevent some of the "bad choices" that you are talking about. Remember liberalism does not equal communism; people are responsible for their actions, just as society as a whole is responsible for working towards greater equality of opportunity.

Well, you sort of touched on another difference: "conservatives" more readily attribute blame or credit to individuals, whereas "liberals" are more willing to take into consideration broader sociological factors. As such, they may not agree on what a "bad choice" is to begin with.

Also, under TJ's model, what would libertarians be? There are only choices, neither good nor bad, and people must accept whatever consequences come? And communitarians? All choices impact both yourself and others, so you shouldn't make bad choices, and you shouldn't have to be impacted by others' bad choices or something? I'm not sure exactly.

[TJ in Oregon]

I'll admit my model is oversimplistic in many ways. My quick definitions of conservatism and liberalism are not necessarily true on every level (I couldn't completely say I agree on my conservatism description on every point). Clearly liberals do assign blame to individuals in many circumstances and conservatives try to mitigate consequences in many cases. There is also some vagueness to the conept of "bad choices".

In my model, the libertarian vs. communitarian dimension ends up more a measure of how involved one thinks society ought to get in terms of mitigating consequences and providing incentives. A communitarian would likely want to do both and a libertarian would likely want to do neither.

As an alternative we could also argue that communitarians favor mitigation on economic issues but incentives on social issues, but that's also probably too simplistic. Libertarians don't really fit if we take that approach though.

[tpfkaw]

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

lol

Especially the "multiple viewpoints" part, given that they openly try to censor anyone who even pretends to disagree with them.

[Хahar 🤔]

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

lol

Especially the "multiple viewpoints" part, given that they openly try to censor anyone who even pretends to disagree with them.

Oh, those big bad liberals.

[courts]

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

lol

Especially the "multiple viewpoints" part, given that they openly try to censor anyone who even pretends to disagree with them.

It gets better.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

lol

Especially the "multiple viewpoints" part, given that they openly try to censor anyone who even pretends to disagree with them.

Troll.

[Free Palestine]

Liberals and conservatives still tend to embrace the same core social norms. 

[TJ in Oregon]

Liberalism: Viewing freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all people as essential. Supportive of free and fair elections, multiple viewpoints, and broad, pluralistic diversity in society and in the political process.

lol

Especially the "multiple viewpoints" part, given that they openly try to censor anyone who even pretends to disagree with them.

Troll.

Not entirely. There are some elements within liberalism that openly reject any ideology besides pluralism (which becomes hypocritical in and of itself). For example, I have a friend acquaintance who is in charge of some liberal religious pluralism campus movement (I think the student body paid for him to go to a conference on it. Yay…). The entire premise of the movement is that mutually exclusive ideas are all equally valid. Yet, this idea of open-mindedness does not extend so far as to include the opposite idea as equally valid. I’ve had plenty an argument about this before. I mean, while we’re in the business of double-think, apparently some cannot go far enough to accept the views of those who’d call it double-think.

Open-mindedness as an end rather than a means can be rather intolerant of those who disagree.

[Person Man]

I've always thought of the difference as how people respond to others making, for lack of a better phrase, "bad choices". The "bad choices" include poor resource management, drugs, sex, getting scammed, dropping out of school, etc.

Liberals want to deal with this by mitigating the consequences: if you go bankrupt, they'll give you money; if you have sex, they'll let you have an abortion. If you are addicted to drugs, they want you to be rehabilitated rather than punished. They see these actions as negative only in so much as they produce negative consequences. If we can remove the consequences, we can redefine "bad choices".

Conservatives want to deal with this by providing people an incentive not to make "bad choices" in the first place. In some cases this incentive is prison time. If you have sex, you're stuck with having the kid (or at least up until birth). If you do drugs, you should go to prison. If you lost all your money, that's your problem. Maybe we'll help you individually, but as a government, there will be no mitigation. We don't want to redefine "bad choices", we want people not to make them.

You're actually pretty close. I would say that conservatives believe that your behavior alone defines who you are and that liberals believe that your behavior can be changed. A conservative would say "you smoke pot or got that girl pregnant. You're a bad person. You should go to prison." A liberal would say "you smoke pot, but isn't there something else that you could be doing?"  The economics behind liberal ethics is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste and that maximium efficiency of society is only achieved when all of our resources are fully exploited. On the other hand, the economics of the conservative ethics model is that the cost of foregoing rehabilitating these inefficiencies in society is lower than trying to save these people. Its cheaper to not deal with certain people instead of investing in them. Basically, in economic terms, the liberal-conservative dichotomy is a marginal analysis issue.

Knowing this helps pro-lifers appeal to left-of-center twentysomethings on abortion and helps fair-traders and unionists appeal to conservatives on corporate welfare issues.

[courts]

I've always thought of the difference as how people respond to others making, for lack of a better phrase, "bad choices". The "bad choices" include poor resource management, drugs, sex, getting scammed, dropping out of school, etc.

Liberals want to deal with this by mitigating the consequences: if you go bankrupt, they'll give you money; if you have sex, they'll let you have an abortion. If you are addicted to drugs, they want you to be rehabilitated rather than punished. They see these actions as negative only in so much as they produce negative consequences. If we can remove the consequences, we can redefine "bad choices".

Conservatives want to deal with this by providing people an incentive not to make "bad choices" in the first place. In some cases this incentive is prison time. If you have sex, you're stuck with having the kid (or at least up until birth). If you do drugs, you should go to prison. If you lost all your money, that's your problem. Maybe we'll help you individually, but as a government, there will be no mitigation. We don't want to redefine "bad choices", we want people not to make them.

You're actually pretty close. I would say that conservatives believe that your behavior alone defines who you are and that liberals believe that your behavior can be changed. A conservative would say "you smoke pot or got that girl pregnant. You're a bad person. You should go to prison." A liberal would say "you smoke pot, but isn't there something else that you could be doing?"  The economics behind liberal ethics is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste and that maximium efficiency of society is only achieved when all of our resources are fully exploited. On the other hand, the economics of the conservative ethics model is that the cost of foregoing rehabilitating these inefficiencies in society is lower than trying to save these people. Its cheaper to not deal with certain people instead of investing in them. Basically, in economic terms, the liberal-conservative dichotomy is a marginal analysis issue.

Knowing this helps pro-lifers appeal to left-of-center twentysomethings on abortion and helps fair-traders and unionists appeal to conservatives on corporate welfare issues.

Interesting, so by your standards I'm a liberal?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

http://www.mrbauld.com/conlibsoc.html