Understanding Duality

I often find myself arguing with conservatives. Most of my friends and family steer clear of these lesser people realizing that that engaging them is pointless and depressing. Being an idiot, I talk to them. I am not sure why. Perhaps I want to change their mind or understand how they can be so stupid. Perhaps it is just like picking at a scab. One knows it will only hurt, but one is compelled to anyway.

A while back, I was arguing about why Bush’s tax cuts were a bad idea and the conservative I was talking to said, “You’re a hypocrite. You took Bush’s tax cut. If you thought it was a bad idea, you should have sent it back.”

Now, I don’t want to go into how utterly moronic that statement was too much. Anyone who has taken any game theory knows there is a difference between individual choice and collective choice. Additionally, claiming I should give back my tax cut is the equivalent of saying I should get out a shovel and dig an inch down if I think the community needs a well. There are situations where an individual’s actions and resources are useless towards an endeavor that is too large. Those actions resources are better used on something else.

Anyway, it occurred to me what that conservative and nearly all other conservatives lack- an understanding of the dual nature of society as both a collective and a composition of individuals. The conservative does not understand that the actions and hopes of the collective can vary from the actions and hopes of the individual.

Let’s look at second example. Conservatives love to place their “Support Our Troops” ribbons on their cars and love accusing people against the war of being heartless traitors who want our boys to die. They believe supporting the actions of the military as whole is equal to caring about troops as individuals. They fail to understand that one can be against the actions of military (the collective), but still care about the troops (the individual).

Another example- homosexuality. Conservatives basically believe that because they find homosexuality creepy and do not want to practice it, society should eradicate it. They want homosexuals to conform to the status quo and become heterosexuals. They fail to understand that one set of individuals can vary from another set of individuals yet still form a collective.

The conservative has a simplistic idea of how the world is. For them, Individual = Society = Nation = Government = Military. You’ll often hear a conservative boast about how “we” saved the French’s ass in World War II as if he had any significant connection to the event. To enjoy the victory, the conservative must be the collective. If he wants lower taxes, society should have lower taxes because he and society are one and the same. If he believes Texas is the greatest state, society should recognize that Texas is the greatest state because he and society and one and the same. If he likes meat, the status quo likes meat and vegetarians are wackos (by definition someone who is not “normal” or in line with society).

This works in reverse too. Because gay Americans exist, America is gay which means he is gay. This pains him because he doesn’t want to have sex with men and so he works to bash homosexual. If immigrants come into the country, American will be less white Christian and he will be less white Christian so he works to stop immigrations.

Additionally, if the collective chooses a path, the conservative individual usually blindly follows. If Fox News tells him to support Social Security privatization, then he supports it. If the church tells him to be against abortion, he will be. It is both an assimilating and assimilative existence.

Basically, conservatives want all individuals to be like the status quo of society because they do not understand the difference.