Stability vs. Change

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I get a lot of exposure to Leftist politicos, radicals, anarchists, and wing-nuts. I walk relatively freely between mainstream culture and the very margins of society. What I have noticed is that those on the fringe of society are there for a reason - they either think far ahead for their time, or they are complete crack-pots. (I can only hope that I am not one of the crack-pots!)

One of the primary differences between liberals and conservatives is the relative importance put on tradition versus progress. Conservatives tend to want society to run along traditional norms, while liberals want to break down many of these norms. Both sides believe that their way is the best way to achieve happiness and prosperity for all.

Personally, I believe in throwing out what doesn't work as soon as it stops working. Otherwise, it would be like keeping a VCR on top of your TV despite the fact that it hasn't been functional for 10 or 15 years. Why not throw it out and get a Hi-Def or Blue-Ray DVD player instead?

At the same time, I have to acknowledge that tradition has its place, too. It keeps you connected to your roots, and how can you know where you're going if you don't know where you've been? What's more, tradition has a stabilizing influence on society. When so many hippies of the 1960's left "the grid" to live communally on collectively-owned land, what would have happened if the entire country had joined them in their experimental living? It would have been an unmitigated disaster! Most of those communes failed within a few years, mostly because living communally is a lot more work and a lot less satisfying than its participants would have supposed. If the rest of the world had not hummed along without them, continuing to live their "boxy corporate lives," there wouldn't have been a society for these hippies to come back to.

In addition, although there are many hyper-intelligent visionaries on the liberal side of politics, there are also a lot of barely functional psyche-ward cases. For example, Ted Kaczynski. Conservative resistance to change might cause unending frustration for the visionaries, but it also protects us from the potentially destabilizing influence of the wing-nuts.

In the end, the tension between progressive vs. conservative principles is not inherently good or bad. Depending on the players involved and the political climate of the day, on the negative side it can result in either gridlock or wild swings between vastly different political policies; but on the positive side it can give us progress at a pace that matches both what society needs and can easily digest.

To get less of the negative and more of the positive, all sides need to respect each other. We need to work honestly towards the betterment of society, and assume that our political complements are doing the same. Only then will we be able to forge compromises that both move society forward, and keep us grounded in the best of our traditions.