First, a retraction. It turns out the story I reported on two day ago, about the woman who had plastic surgery to give herself a 3rd breast, was fake. It sounded plausible to me. Medical science can perform miracles, and there are plenty of crazy people out there. But, more skeptical journalists than I dug a little deeper and found that the woman in question has a history of posting bogus stuff on the internet, and this just got picked up by news outlets quicker than some of her previous stories.
Tonight, I want to discuss this article from Mother Jones magazine in July. In a nutshell, most scientists agree, and there’s been plenty of serious experimental evidence, that conservatives’ and liberals’ brains actually function differently, political feelings are as innate as right or left handedness, eye color or sexual orientation.
Conservatives are motivated by fear of loss. They don’t want the government taking their guns, they resent paying taxes, they worry that the U.S. is going to be over run by foreigners. I think their fears are unreasonable, but, to be fair, that’s partly because I’m a liberal.
Liberals are more motivated by hope of gain. Promise us solar panels, free university tuition, and a higher minimum wage and we’ll vote for you in large numbers.
I hold to the definition that liberals believe we are all in the same boat, and conservatives believe it’s every man for himself.
The two definitions are not the same, but they don’t contradict each other, either, so they could both be true.
And neither definition precludes the possibility of compromise. We might just have to live with the fact that we’ll never think alike, but we can have a world which is acceptable to both of us, where everybody can be happy.
Gain is good. Loss is bad. We need a government, and an economic system, and a system of laws, and a physical infrastructure, which will both maximize our gains and minimize our losses. Every sports team needs to play both offense or defense. Even the team with the most powerful offense in the league (the liberals) will not win the championship if they ignore defense entirely. Even the team with the stingiest, meanest defense in the league will lose games if their offense can’t score.
It’s hard to even talk to conservatives, much less reach a compromise with them. But, with a bit of imagination, we can probably figure out better policies, which appeal to both sides.
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