The trick in harmonizing these two is knowing an individual’s strengths and weaknesses. I’d like to live in a society that allows each person to fulfill their potential, as much as possible. If that turns out to be infinite as liberals tend to believe, that would be awesome. But if there turns out to be massive constraints on human nature as conservatives tend to believe, that would also be good to know so that we can work around those constraints to fulfill what potential is there.

However, in seeking balance, we have to be able to see both the good and the bad within all ideological tendencies and psychological traits. We have to be very clear and very self-aware.

I’ve noticed an odd thing along these lines. Conservatives often deny the worst about conservative-mindedness while claiming the best about liberal-mindedness, and I suppose the same is true for liberals. Conservatives go on about freedom and liberty. Those are great ideals and values, but there is nothing particularly conservative about them. Liberals defend the established social order in order to maintain liberal gains, but there is nothing particularly liberal about defending the established order.

A reactionary conservative is one who has adopted some liberal-mindedness, yet tries to force liberal-mindedness toward conservative-minded purposes… which just creates a dysfunctional expression of liberal-mindedness and doesn’t do conservative-mindedness any good either. A defensive liberal is one who has adopted some conservative-mindedness to equally unhelpful results. Adopting undeveloped traits in order to develop them is certainly not a bad thing. The trick is taking things on their own terms and taking them seriously as part of one’s own inherent potential.

The first step is knowledge and awareness. It’s not necessarily problematic to use an undeveloped or underdeveloped trait in a dysfunctional way. That is just the nature of being human. However, it is also an opportunity that can be accepted… or else denied. A dysfunctional use of a trait shows one is capable of using it and so capable of developing it in order to use it better. These traits aren’t in opposition to one another. Only the ideologies and partisan politics are in opposition. And this is why we need to look deeper into what it means to be human and to live in a shared society.

Many conservatives have turned on Bush jr as not being a real conservative and that compassionate conservatism isn’t real conservatism. I don’t think there is a single real conservatism, but I’d say compassionate conservatism is more authentic than neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism/libertarianism using conservative rhetoric.

I’d say Carter’s conservatism is real. It’s not reactionary conservatism. It’s a healthy and balanced conservatism that takes traditional conservative values seriously while trying to pragmatically and morally apply them to a post-Enlightenment liberal society. I don’t have much personal opinion about Carter. He seems like a decent person, well-intentioned and genuine.

What I want is for liberalism to be given a chance and I think that can only happen if conservatism plays its natural role in society. I want a conservatism that embraces conservative-mindedness so that liberals don’t feel like they have to, in order to stop conservatives from taking all of society over some ledge. While conservatives have become reactionary, liberals have been stuck in a rearguard defense.

Most people have both liberal-mindedness and conservative-mindedness to varying degrees of development and expression along with varying degrees of potential for further development under the right conditions. I’d theorize that a person would be severely dysfunctional without a balance of the two, however imperfect in practice.

The problem I proposed in my last post is that American society puts conservative-mindedness or a particular expression thereof at the center of society, although at the same time all of American politics is in a technically liberal tradition based on Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment liberal values. This is part of the confusion that was there from the beginning. It’s very hard to grasp what it all means.

Many so-called liberals in America are relatively conservative-minded and, in some cases, have openly embraced it in becoming the defenders of traditional values such as land and community. In the opposite direction, many so-called conservatives are relatively liberal-minded (such as Reagan and other classical liberals). This is fine, as far as it goes. I could care less about ideological purity. I wouldn’t mind, though, a bit more self-awareness and historical understanding.

What would America (or any other country) be if liberals embodied, defended and promoted liberal-mindedness while conservatives did the same for conservative-mindedness? I think that would be a healthier society or at least a lot less confused by partisan rhetoric and mindless propaganda.