Liberals And Conservatives Can Never Stray Too Far From One Another

While reflecting upon something I’d recently written, the thought popped into my head: “By gosh, James, you have brought a new insight into being.”

Of course, most any new insight is just a variation on an existing one. And if I happened to think of it, it only means that it is an idea whose time has come and is being thought at this moment by hundreds of other people. For all I know, the thought popped into the head of some mystic or philosopher a thousand years before Christ, but dammit, I thought the thought all on my own

I suppose it came into my head while meditating on the idea of how societal change takes place as described by Tolstoy in The Kingdom Of God Is Within You. In it, he describes how change at first begins very slowly, then when it hits a tipping point, it happens all at once. Tolstoy described resistance to change as being a ballast, the larger amount of people being the ballast that does not permit ideas that aren’t well-formed to conduct how society functions. But once that bulk of humanity sees the change as both necessary and inevitable, it plunges en masse to support it.

It is no big declaration to think of liberals as the agents of change and conservatives as preservers of the status quo. But for me at least, it is a novel thing to think of them as two aspects of the same vessel, one being what propels the ship into movement, the other that which stabilizes the movement. And while they may be something of opposites to each other, they must learn to work in concert with each other. One can never stray far from the other without throwing the whole ship into chaos.

A terrible comparison I know, but I get the picture of a slinky dog in my mind. The momentum is on the front end to move forward while the back end is inclined to stay where it is. The front end may think it can just pull the back end wherever it wants to go, but if it pulls too haphazardly, it will knock its back end off its feet, making it an even great dead weight. The back end, being stubbornly resistant to the natural inclination of the front end to move forward, risks tipping it over as well, preventing changes that must occur in a world that is ever changing.

The two ends may think they could do quite well without the other, but the truth is they need each other. Both the liberal and the conservative imagine a world where their sort either convinces the other side as to the wisdom of their ways or else is able to utterly smash the power of the other. But balance is necessary, because they are part of the same dog. And we all find it hysterically foolish when we see a dog chase its tail or growl at a back leg that gets too close to its face, don’t we?

The front end, whatever its inclination, must make sure it doesn’t get too far out in front of its opposite. Seeing it is going at a pace greater than the other is willing to go, it is obliged to take a step back in order to urge, lure or coax the other forward. Force alone will not decrease the tension between the two. The back end, for its part, can never afford to grow comfortable with the status quo. Youth must wait for age and consider its wisdom, but age must keep pace as best it can.

If one of the two sides strays far from the other, it strays from balance, and soon, from reason. For balance provides perspective, perspective being the ability to see with both eyes rather than from a single point of view. Liberals straying too far into the unknown and untested lack the foundation which conservatism provides. They are like those who only care about the height of a tower without considering its base. Conservatives, too content in what has been, are soon not merely a dead weight but a force seeking to go backwards into an imagined idyllic past.

It could be said that it was the conservative movement that first created the tension, that it was conservatives which first decided to pull the other by force toward its own aims. I would not disagree except to say that it serves little purpose to say who started it. Because the liberal end of the Slinky Dog did not circle back to see what was slowing its back end down and find ways in which it might urge it forward, but instead saw it as a dead weight that needed pulling. And in placing itself in opposition to something it is forever tied to, the divergence was not resolved but exaggerated.

As it stands, our little Slinky Dog looks like it has been in the hands of a miscreant juvenile. The spring is bent, knotted, twisted, and kinked. But one thing it will never be is broken, because the two ends will always be opposite ends of the same whole. Try as they may, the two ends will never be able to destroy or control the other without destroying the entirety. The sad task we are now forced to face is to find mutually desirable aims and put aside pointless resistance. This won’t be easy, but I don’t think it’s as impossible as repairing a twisted Slinky.

I have always considered myself a front-ender, but time and experience has taught me both humility and tolerance of divergent views. I have met a lot of goodhearted people who are willing to give of themselves in order to help others. That they don’t always agree with me on how that should be done should not be a reason for me to pull mercilessly on the spring. In my desire to move forward, I have learned that it pays to look behind to see what might be learned from others who think a little differently from me. And maybe not to judge them without taking the time to understand them a little better.

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