An interesting video from Bill Whittle on defining ideologies of two different parts of the Political Spectrum. Obviously, not everybody falls specifically into these two mindsets, but I think arguments can be made that the dominant political narrative on the left and right more or less fits into these descriptions.
Thoughts?
I used to think that this kind of broad categorization was useless, and that individual political opinions fall under a spectrum. But lately, I've begun to realize that there are a number of binary categories that people fall into, and these categories correlate fairly well with each other.
Either you think that people are rational enough to make their own decisions, or you think that people are generally stupid and someone needs to make their decisions for them.
Either you think that an individual's failings are his own fault, or you think that an individual's failings are the fault of the group that produced him.
Either you think that individuals are broadly capable of helping themselves, or you think that groups need protection from more powerful groups that will prey upon them if given half a chance.
Either you believe in time-tested and broadly agreed-upon rules being applied fairly to everyone, which is known as proceduralism, or you don't.
I think Bill Whittle went a little too far in some places if the video is anything like the speech he delivered on his podcast, but he got it fairly right.
Oh, and something important he pointed out: Blue America is always looking backwards. It obsesses with history. Some might say that Red America is more obsessed with history since they want statues kept around and they care about what a bunch of old white men born hundreds of years ago had to say, but Red America looks to that history because it wants to learn the lessons it needs to build the future.
Blue America is always looking to the past because it obsesses over the evil and wrongdoings in the past. Blue America can't help it, because Blue America has been raised to believe that obsession with past wrongdoings and the guilt that comes from that obsession is a moral good. But this is wrong. What's done is done, and nothing that we can do can change something that happened years and years ago. By obsessing over past acts of evil, Blue America is tapping into an eternal wellspring of guilt and rage, because those acts of evil will still be there no matter what they do, no matter how they abase themselves.
This is what drives them to topple statues. Because when all you know how to do is to obsess about the past, then the only way to stop the guilt and the rage is to destroy history.
