If We All Want Something Good... How Come We Can't Agree?

Years ago I tried to think of the most important value pursued by each of the major political worldviews in the United States. Of course these values have to be GOOD things because everyone believes their side IS good and right. I came up with these:

• Principles - for the Conservatives
• Brotherhood - for the Progressives (I called them Liberals when I did this)
• Freedom, for the Libertarians.

The author of "The Three Languages of Politics" did a similar analysis and came up with three axes:

• Conservatives support civilization and oppose barbarism
• Progressives support the oppressed and oppose oppressors
• Libertarians support liberty and oppose coercion.

Each of the three axes moves from good to evil. Civilization is good while barbarism is evil; the oppressed are good (or at least we have no reason to think otherwise given the mere fact that they are oppressed) while oppressors are evil; liberty is good while coercion is evil.

This analysis is very important for at least two reasons: First: it can help us to understand what people believe and why. Second: it might help us to communicate more effectively and reach more productive compromises by trying to give each side something that it wants.

Think about police shootings of minorities, for example. According to this book conservatives support the police because the police defend civilization; Progressives support the victims because they are oppressed; Libertarians oppose the multitude of unnecessary coercive laws that "create" too many criminals and too many police-civilian interactions.

Everybody wants something good: defending civilization is good, defending the oppressed is good; opposing unnecessary laws is good, and yet, we still disagree and seem incapable of reaching an agreement or even a compromise.

But maybe, understanding better what each group wants could help us put together a successful compromise position. As an overly simplified example maybe we could:

• Punish more harshly criminals who assault cops (for the Conservatives),
• Punish more harshly cops who violate the law (for the Progressives),
• Reduce the number of unnecessary laws (for Libertarians.)

Would that work? Could we get all sides to agree? Would a similar approach work for other issues?

Might be worth a try!

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[This great book can help us understand how our political opponents think, which could help us finally to really communicate and even compromise.]

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Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Wayne Gadway