Skip to main content

Evil, According to Republicans and Democrats

Please note that the following thoughts are only my observations. Please consider the evidence you see in the behavior of both parties for yourself.

In our politically polarized climate, I was thinking about how Democrats and Republicans are different, and where those differences come from. Democrats seem to place more hope in institutions, and seek to reform those institutions when there is something wrong in society. Hence, there is more willingness to levy taxes to offer more social services as a support to those with less than others. They see the state as a way to equalize society. Thus, evil, to Democrats, seems to be a social issue: if there is a problem in society--poverty, racism, climate change, etc.--it is a problem with the structure of society and must be addressed as such: repair the system, and you will solve the problem. They are generally accepting of a larger state bureaucracy because they believe that increased accountability within a state structure will prevent evil. It seems to me that this is why communism and utilitarianist governments are on the left politically, because they offer more power to the state.

On the other hand, Republicans seem to place more emphasis on personal responsibility. They claim that the power to improve society is in the hands of the individual. They will often oppose increasing the power of institutions through increased funding and the consequent needed accountability, and they decry large state government. Poverty, racism, climate change, and other problems should be solved by the individual, and the state has little place interfering with individual liberties. Taxes, to Republicans, get in the way of the individual of spending his or her money as that person sees fit. In fact, those who believe still in Reagan economics feel that fewer taxes will lift up the rest of society--including the poor--because those with wealth will spend it to improve the overall economy. Evil, to Republicans, is a personal issue that must be solved personally and not through the state. This is why a hands-off approach to the economy ("laissez faire" economics) is appealing to Republicans.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. Some Republicans want increased state controls on abortion clinics and other areas related to morality, for instance (though, even here, you will hear cries to "defund Planned Parenthood," which offers abortion). All in all, though, it seems like one of the most fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans is their views of the source of evil.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comparison

Psychologists and others have studied ways in which we compare ourselves to each other. One man named Leon Festinger argued that we tend to compare ourselves to other people when we don’t know how good or bad we are at something (like football or playing the guitar). One way we do this is when we compare ourselves to those who are not as good as we are, to protect our self-esteem (called “downward social comparison;” example: we’re playing basketball and miss most of our shots, but we feel okay because a teammate wasn’t even given the ball). Another comparison we make is when we compare ourselves to others who are doing much better than we are (called “upward social comparison”). When we see others who appear to be doing better than we are, we can respond by trying to improve ourselves, or by trying to protect ourselves by telling ourselves it’s not that important. There was a study published in 1953 by Solomon Asch, who asked students to take part in a “vision test.” The par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning and Change

In a recent article in National Geographic ( "Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science "), Joel Achenbach attempted to explain why humans have trouble believing the evidence laid out in scientific research. In the article, he cited a phenomenon called confirmation bias , our tendency to adopt the evidence that fits what we already believe. Now, I am a feeling person by nature. Subconsciously, I make choices in my environment based on my emotional reaction to it. Similarly, I have found that the information I remember most is the information I respond to with strong emotion, whether that emotion is humor, anger, shock, or something else. This is why I believe confirmation bias exists: we respond to facts emotionally. However, sometimes we learn information that, instead of confirming what we believe, has the opposite effect. We are introduced to facts that shock us out of our complacency. That shock can jar us into questioning long-held beliefs, and even entire worldviews...
Post a Comment
Read more