All This Fighting Might Be Necessary: We Need Balance

Think back to a time when someone said something that triggered a gut response. By gut response, I mean as soon as you hear what comes out of their mouth, your eyes get a bit wider, voice gets a bit higher or excited, a feeling of bewilderment at the fact that the other person has said such a thing.

It tries to label the speaker. It tries to create order out of the chaos in front of them.

Imagine going up to your more dogmatic religious friend and telling them something that goes against their life principle. There is no God, you’ll tell them. Your friend will react immediately and label you as a heretic, atheist, lover of sin, etc.

Vice versa:

A religious person can walk up to an overly-committed (I was going to put dogmatic here but felt that the term wouldn’t fly with atheists, as they would say they do not subscribe to atheism as a dogma..) atheist and tell them that God is real and that the bible is literally true. The atheist will react with a sense of skepticism and call them religious nuts,irrational fools, etc.

Whatever spiritual background or religious/non-religious belief you hold, you will defend with fervor. You don’t even realize that you’re reacting and you immediately label the other person an “enemy”. Someone who does not think like you and does not share commonalities with you can be potentially dangerous.

There are always going to be two sides. There are always going to be merit on both sides.

I believe that the current political strife we have in this country is necessary for balance.

The conservatives are there to maintain society’s structure and enjoy order.

The liberals are there to push the cultural boundaries and critically examine the societal structures/norms that the people who came before us built.

The objective of all this fighting isn’t for one side to win all. There is chaos when the balance tips too far to one side.

Potential dangers of leaning too far into the Conservative side: If we follow the status quo all the time and keep structures as they’ve always worked, the same problems will afflict every generation. The rich get richer, the poor stay poor.

The powerful figures of the status quo are able to oppress the vast majority and keep the societal structures, even when it may seem unfair in today’s moral standards (because back then, not many societies had the thought of individual “rights”. There were no such things as inalienable rights , as an individual — you had to live in your socio-economic class without a clear way up the hierarchy.)

Without liberals to push and constantly examine the ever constant rigidity of culture, who knows if we would ever have had the chance to now recognize gay rights, civil rights, abolishment of slavery, universal acknowledgement of morality. (ex. Nuremberg Trials, where different countries all over the world, despite having different beliefs, philosophies and lifestyles, came together to say that the crimes that Nazis had committed were universally heinous acts)

Now I’m not saying liberals are the ones that are enacting all the progressive and great things in the world. Sure they may be pushing society’s standards and limits, but they need the other side to restrain them and criticize their ideas so that they don’t start breaking what is working decently in society.

Potential dangers of leaning too far into the Liberal side: Without a status quo, people won’t have a baseline of how they should act in society. Without order to structure one’s day and have that mindset of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If no one is scrutinizing the liberal side’s ideas and allowing them to restructure society as they see fit, it will become chaotic.

Sometimes we need someone to question progressive ideals and say “How far is too far?” But if we’re all progressive, who can draw that line? No one, because if you don’t push for progressive ideals, you’re not a progressive, which means you’re not one of us — you’re just one of the “others”.

And how does this system of communism become implemented in society? We’ve see this happen with Lenin, Stalin and Mao. People have to be forced or killed. There is suppression of free thought, the ability to question, the ability to be an independent person. You either have to live pretending you subscribe to the ideology of the State or you don’t and you die.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”

Now I’m not saying conservatives are the only things holding Liberals back from massacre and keeping order in society. But as I mentioned before, you need someone to push back and ask “How far is too far?” Can progressive ideals be unrealistic and potentially detrimental as well?

There needs to be balance

I believe there needs to be a constant reevaluation of societal structures and expectations. I believe conservatives can sometimes get too comfortable with what’s working currently and neglect the potentially dispossessed that will never have the same opportunity as the conservatives.

But I also believe that you always need order to function with chaos. Chaos can produce great things but it can also be wildly confusing and devastating if we don’t have any ability to make sense of it with order. When liberals push too far, you need conservatives to reel them back.

I didn’t meant to get political but I felt excited to write about it and genuinely enjoyed seeing what I know. Please feel free to scrutinize heavily — I want to get better at expressing my ideas coherently through my writing.

I might not have a lot of my facts straight. I could be playing off of knowledge that I heard and immediately believed it to be true because it was from a reputable source (newspaper, professor, textbook).

But that is the beauty of being able to criticize ideas and beliefs that other people hold. Come to my comment section and discuss the validity of my arguments. Show me where I’m wrong and make it easier for me to admit my mistake, rather than make me double down in order to save face.

To get angry, immediately shut me off from discussion and identifying me into a neatly fitted box because I am not subscribed to your world view does not and will never convince or persuade me to open myself up to try understanding your side.

I do not know much, so if you teach me something you will be course correcting me and immediately making me a better person.

So thanks to you, I will be able to be 1% better than I was before.

I am always open to reevaluate my ideas and correct my mistakes. I am open for civil dialogue and the ability to discuss ideas without having a strong emotion and falling victim to biases and heuristics. Please let me know what you think!