There are few trends more idiotic in our times than the need by so many people to identify with political platforms. It seems that nowadays one can't take two breaths in succession without some yokel running by proclaiming himself a conservative or a liberal. This development is especially pronounced at this dear school of ours, and this makes things all the more sad: what hope is there when the so-called "best and brightest" are the most vocal adherents to stupid ideas?
There are quite a few reasons why wholehearted affiliation with a political platform qualifies as stupidity. One such reason is that there is hardly ever such a thing as a logically consistent platform. It does not take much examination to see that both the "liberals" and "conservatives," the two most important political groupings in America, believe in policies which are inherently contradictory.
For instance, one often hears among so-called conservatives a call for the prohibition of materials they have deemed pornographic or indecent. Not uncommonly one also hears the self -same people defending the rights of racists and anti-Semites to distribute hate literature, their defense being that of upholding freedom of speech. It is hard to see how one can hold such opinions and claim consistency with a straight face.
After all, vicious racial caricatures are far more harmful and insulting than pictures and descriptions of consenting individuals engaging in procreation-as -recreation. And how can one reconcile the freedom of private individuals to discriminate with opposition to discriminatory government policies?
On a broader note, I have yet to see how one can reconcile a defense of free-trade under the rights of man to liberty with an advocacy of government as dispenser of morality. No one has come up with a plausible philosophy that can reconcile libertarianism and Pat Buchanan style politics. How then is it that one can group all these views under the single tent of "conservatism?" As far as I can tell, what one actually has under the conservative label is a grab-bag of unaffiliated ideas defined less by relation to each other than by opposition to another hodge-podge going under the banner of liberalism.
For liberalism, at least as advocated today under the Democratic party, is also riddled with contradictions. How can one reconcile an advocacy of tolerance for various lifestyles and mores with an opposition to free trade? How can one, at the same time, believe in the inviolability of free speech and association, and be opposed to the freedom of employers to treat their employees as they please? Liberty is liberty, after all.
Taking these contradictions into consideration, it becomes more apparent why anyone who says "I'm a conservative" or "I'm a liberal" without any reservations should be taken for an idiot. For while someone may have claimed the mark of greatness to be the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory opinions, it was meant in farce. A person who can believe contradictory things at once is not a person to be taken seriously.
But there is another reason to worried about all this fondness for "isms." It is hardly ever the case in the real world that problems have clear-cut solutions, and we almost never have to choose between two polar viewpoints. In most aspects of human affairs it will be found that there are as many correct solutions as there are individuals to hold those stances. It thus should not be the case that large sectors of the population should be in near-perfect agreement on broad ranges of issues. Yet, this is exactly what one finds with most of the politically affiliated.
Certain conclusions can be drawn from this situation. The first is that most so-called conservatives and liberals have not given a great degree of thought to what they should believe, or if they have, lack the courage to resist easy solutions.
The second is that for many politics has less to do with solving problems as with defining one's identity. "I want to be or am rich/I'm white/don't like draft dodgers, so I guess I'm a conservative." "I'm a minority/from a poor neighborhood/retired, so what else can I be but a liberal?" Such nonsensical reasons for choosing sides! For many it is even simpler -- "I'm at Dartmouth (or Brown,) am white (or not.) Dartmouth (Brown) is known for it's conservatism (liberalism,) ergo I am a conservative (liberal)." Now how's that for rigorous thinking?
For individuals who are truly looking for solutions and who are guided by more than desires for affiliation and identity, there is another, better way; don't abide by any "ism," but cast your votes on the particular issues at hand after thinking through the merits and demerits of all the stances available. Always be ready to change your mind, even if means believing the opposite of what you did the hour before. And when you see anybody identifying with a platform, look upon the poor soul with a stern but pitying eye.
