I was recently at a Christmas party where the conservation turned to politics. A person joked that if all the Canadian conservatives moved to America and all the American liberals moved to Canada we would have happiness and harmony for the Christmas season. It’s a funny joke, but what a terrible thought.
A recent survey in the UK found that since 2008 the number of people who would be very upset if their child brought home a spouse of a different political persuasion had more than doubled from 4% to 10%. Yet, another indication of our increasingly partisan societies. That is troubling.
My wife and I are an interracial couple. In 1959 only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. Today that number is 87% in America. Come north to Canada and that number rises to 92%. When we look at Canadians under 35 that number jumps to 99%. It would be sad that after all this progress in learning that race was a ridiculous way to divide ourselves we’d invent an even more ridiculous way to divide ourselves – over our political affiliations.
What we don’t seem to realize is that conservatives and liberals need each other. Democracy is founded on the competition of ideas and it is through this push and pull, this contest of persuasion, that we make progress.
Let’s use the issue of poverty as an example. People from both sides of the political spectrum understand that poverty is a social ill. The people and families in poverty not only make less money, they suffer from poorer health, are more likely to be involved in crime, have higher divorce rates, have lower rates of educational attainment, not to mention the attendant fiscal costs borne by the larger community. So how do we solve this issue?
Liberals would say that those in poverty need more support through collective action aka through government programs. They’ll point to the need for early childhood literacy programs, to better healthy nutrition education, to college tuition support and job training, to childcare assistance and affordable housing. They’ll point to the forces that work against poor people—that the systems that control our lives always favour the rich.
But there is another side. Conservatives believe in the values of self-reliance, personal responsibility, fair competition and limited government. They would say it is the individual’s responsibility to improve their lot in life. If this was the whole truth the only social service we would need to end poverty is a modern public library.
After all, almost all of human knowledge is now freely available with a library membership – for free (The Medicine Hat Public Library waives the membership fee for anyone who can’t afford it). With enough personal motivation your resources for self-directed learning are limitless. You’re free to access every textbook, every book on computer programming, plumbing, engineering, art, history, and culinary skills. Then there are the free resources available through the internet—classes from top universities, tutorials on YouTube. Can’t afford a computer or internet access you can get that at the library too. You want a better job? To eat better? To be a better husband? To learn another language? The old saying is that you can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it drink. Well, we have a pool of knowledge so deep and wide. All you have to do is drink. And yet we still have poverty.
The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. There are larger forces that favour some and discriminate against others and we should work to correct them to ensure a level playing field, but neither are humans just passively buffeted by forces beyond our control. And when we de-emphasize personal responsibility too much we risk eroding the very foundation of our society.
This balance between collective action and personal responsibility constantly changes because our society is constantly changing. The balance must be struck anew for each generation. Progress will come from conservatives and liberals of my generation having a forceful fight. As it will for the next generation—the contest is eternal. But you can’t separate the two sides anymore than you can separate the two sides of a coin.
Medicine Hat News. December 21, 2016.