Graham Pfeiffer – Chapter 9: Can Conservaton and Liberalville Survive Together?
In Chapter 9 of their book, Predisposed, Hibbing, Smith and Alford argue that biology has a role to play in making people predisposed to specific political views. They create a hypothetical world in which three towns, (Conservaton, Liberalville and Middletown), represent the ideological basis of American politics. They argue that conservatives will never understand liberals and vice versa. Liberals and conservatives “see, understand and describe the world differently” and it influences their politics. The authors see the people of America speaking different political languages. The authors of this piece do not give a definitive solution, in fact state, “No magic institutional formula can make divided politics go away.” (pg. 261) They do offer two necessary steps towards resolving the problem of the political language disconnect.
The first solution they offer is to stop trying to convince the other side that your world view is correct. Whether you are liberal or conservative, time is wasted trying to convince people that will never see the world in the same way. The authors believe that predispositions cannot be “gamed.” This means that the democrats can’t speak in conservative terms and frame their views for conservatives and be successful and the same applies to republicans and liberal values. So the authors advise an acceptance of the opposite sides’ political views. The authors state that political opinions are correct for you but to “be humble about them and recognize that they will not and cannot lead to the kind of society everyone wants because not everyone has the same perceptions of reality and therefore of the most desirable social arrangements.” (pg. 255-256) The authors recognize that factions cannot be destroyed and quote Madison’s two ways of destroying factions. One, by taking away the liberty that gives people the right to express opinions. Second, is to force everyone to have the same political opinions. Since this is not feasible, the best possible solution is to empower the people who pay attention to the interests of more than their own faction in a representative government.
The second recommendation comes from a problem created by the first recommendation. Representative democracy exacerbates the problems of factions. So if neither direct democracy, nor representative democracy helps the problem, what will? The authors say that it is the structure of the American political system that makes representative democracy apart of the problem. They say that conservatives and liberals disproportionately define the choices of collective action. They state that people who are only concerned about their faction are in control of the government and leads the head-butting we see in politics. Their solution? A reformed system that allows moderates a larger political role to support candidates that can bridge the gap. “It is impossible to avoid the implications of predispositions and the best that can be done is to manage these predispositions that insures we count, rather than bash, heads to resolve differences.” (pg. 261) This is not a solution, but a guide to how we form policy moving forward to fix the way our government runs.
DCSI - American Politics 