Saturday, April 23, 2005

No, really I'm not a liberal.

I realized after reading a post by Eric at Fear of Clowns accusing Prudence of being a liberal rather than the "compassionate conservative" she prefers that anyone reading my blog would probably assume I am a liberal. For the same reason I would have to argue that Prudence is in fact a conservative I would argue I am not a liberal. It has nothing to do with our respective opinions on a lot of social and political issues. It is founded in our respective mind sets.

I will briefly explain my argument for Prudence being a conservative. Prudence is a conciencious Catholic. Her ego or self has been strongly influenced by church doctrine and founded in biblical principles. From this foundation she looks at herself, who she is, what she believes in from a perspective only she (and her God) can judge. Only she can see what the motivations are for her stance on any issue and from that perspective she sees herself as conservative.

I can explain this better from my own perspective. I am (if I really must be labeled) a humanist who's ego is founded in biblical principle. (ie I really think the bible has profound and important things to say but really can't call myself a christian) I am pro human plain and simple. I believe in a number of "liberal" causes but my motivation is generally pragmatic. I also happen to believe in a few conservative causes. (guns for one)

The best way to explain myself is to give an example:
I am an ardent environmentalist. This is not because I want to save the planet for the planets sake. I have a book about the history of the geology of the earth. In the front there is a spiral graph that shows the various stages of life and unlife on earth. It goes back 4 to 15 Billion years. (science has a hard time dating back that far, the further back you go the less sure dating becomes) two thirds of the spiral is prelife then after you get through to life most of the spiral is pre life as we know it. Life as we know it is represented as an infinitesimal sliver at the very end of the spiral. The Jurassic period is about four or five times bigger. By the time you get to life on this planet as we would recognize it there is only a tiny sliver you can barely percieve. from the point we climbed out of the trees till now isn't even a drop in the bucket in regards to the history of this planet. So when it comes to environmentalism on a planetary scale it really matters not a whit what we do to the planet. I am an environmentalist because I would like the planet to remain habitable to humans for as long as possible. My motivation is pragmatic rather than the traditional liberal save the planet for the planets sake.

Personally I believe labels in general are at best partially inaccurate and usually are just plain misleading. When one attempts to label others they will always be limited to what they observe. The only person who can see into the heart of the one being labeled is that person.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your support, Treban. I think I said ay my blog that I don't mind labels, as long as they are accurate.

I do question you calling yourself "pro human" in light of your article where you think reproductive rights are being attacked. I gather from that that you are pro choice, which doesn't seem pro human to me.

You do make an excellent point about taking care of the earth, for we do not know how much longer earth will be here, and it is our duty to care for it. Aren't we taught that we should leave things better than we found it, or at least the same? We're not coming anywhere close to that on this earth.