Alan Phipps wrote: ↑Sat, 28. Nov 20, 13:35
As a Brit not fully understanding all the implications of US terms such as left/right, liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat etc, I did some internet research and found
this integrated chart. It might be accurate, or not, or just be cherry-picking stereotypes, but I'm sure some people from over there will tell me.
Probably about 50-60% correct? Not saying it means the other half is wrong but I feel there are a lot of stuffs on there kinda get shoed in just for the shake of having a side. Like Free Trade and Fair Trade, I don't think you can make that distinction between the 2 parties. Also stuffs like Personal Freedom feel like it's there because of a few issues like abortion and recreation drug, because in general the left definitely advocate for more regulations and restriction both in term of society and activism. I mean ... even as an outsider, when you hear a yank yelling "FREEDOM", do you think about the left or the right? So a lot of these groupings are really muddy.
One thing that graphic got wrong for sure is the Equality and Equity. It should be the other way around. Equity is one of the flagship's ideology of progressive, at least in the US. I'm sure of this because I used to be a conservative equality myself, and it took about ~10 years working inside a progressive environment for me to convert into an equity mindset. Equity is the old/default mindset that are viewed (by liberal, and I agree with) as an insufficient concept to address inequality on its own. Equality is not bad, but it's a naive concept based on the assumption that everyone started off equally. Equity a 'relatively' new idea that had only come in prominent probably at the turn of the century, so it's definitely a progressive thing.
*a sub point to make here is that it's possible for a person to change their ideology, provided both a willingness to change and an appropriate mentorship exist. In this particular case I was lucky to have both, but even then it wasn't something that happened overnight.
Another thing I don't agree with is the label the parent-ship on the right is built on Respect and Fear, and I feel that is stereotyping. I had expressed the idea that I believe children in the US (both in term of parenting ship and early education) are being wrapped in too thick of a bubble. I had discussed my own up-bringing to different people in the US, and there are 2 distinct reaction from different age groups. People who are 30 or younger thought I went through hell, while the older folks said that's how American used to be as well, before the progressive took over. And my experience is people stereotyping the Asian upbringing a lot in the west, you know the Korean dad, the tiger mom, OMG YOU CAN GET SPANKED IN SCHOOL!?!?! For once, the 'effect' that often portrayed in Western literature about those situations are the exceptions, not the norm. And for second, it's never about fear.
IMO the biggest take away from that chart that's relevant to the current discussion is the statistic it provided. Not sure we can trust it since we have no idea where they come from, but let assume those numbers are accurate, let's pick a few statistic as example:
Gay right: 54% on the left vs 44% on the right.
Abortion: 60% on the left vs 43% on the right.
Just as a glance, that seems to support the natural position of the two side right. But let's also read it in reverse: it means 46% of the left does not support gay right, while 57% of the right does not support abortion. I had mentioned recently (in this thread or others) that I don't believe people simply vote along the ideology line. These numbers showed that it's only less slightly to run into a liberal who are against gay right, just like how it's not THAT unlikely to run into a conservative who support abortion. The point here is it showed there are plenty of ground and overlap for understanding and compromise, and people are not singularly identified. Even if someone identified as a conservative, that can easily be because he/she is 51% conservative and 49% liberal, once you realize that, a compromise or even a change in opinion is not that big of deal really. I believe the reason it looks impossible now because words like conservative, liberal, left, right and similar trigger certain assumptions about individual even before other taking a chance of understanding the person.