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Created: March 31, 2003
Latest Update: March 31, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Left-Perspective Critique of Neo Conservatives

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, March 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

The left/right prespective has always been difficult for me. I tend to be very trusting, and to believe that people would never say what they did not mean, or speak with authority to issues they did not understand. So I have to work at going more deeply into issues, to be sure that I have understood them. After a while studying the issues will bring you more confidence. But sometimes you'll be wrong. Sometimes we all are wrong. That's why we have re-interpretation, so we can rethink issues we once thought we understood, and rethink issues that change as time and space change. What made sense in 1943 may not make sense in 2003.

One method for making the task of understanding easier is a basic knowledge of attitude change and persuasion theory. Certain groups stand for certain values. The group is like a representative or celebrity that people can identify with. Like Charlton Heston. When that celebrity or representative group speaks or writes on the issue, you can be pretty sure how the issue fits in with the values you believe the celebrity or the group to hold. If they fit with your values, there's some help in understanding the issue.

Attitude change and persuasion theory reminds us that if a group whose values we are pretty sure of supports an issue, then that issue fits the groups values. So if a radical left group supports an issue, that's a clue to understanding the issue from the left-perspective. If a radical right group supports the issue, that's a clue to understanding the issue from the right-perspective. If you are trying to think through the issue for yourself, checking out how different groups whose value orientation you understand treat the issue, can help in understanding it.

Years ago, many years ago, William A. Scott wrote Values and Organizations. In trying to develop questions that would measure values, he recognized that some organizations represent (generally) certain values. For example, we could generally state what the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts stand for. So, if we want a baseline against which to measure others readiness to help people, to be prepared, to share love of country and love of community, we might compare survey responses from our subject to responses from the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts.

Of course, values have changed a little since I read Scott's book in the 70s. Today some Boy Scout troops are mightily opposed to homosexual members. This reminds us that in order to get some useful baseline of values, we'd have to be careful to be sure we know fairly certainly what those values are presently. Mission statements may cover some of that. But there are attitudes it's not socially acceptable or legally acceptable to express in mission statements. That doesn't mean such attitdes don't permeate the mission statements. It just means you won't find them spelled out there.

This essay is an attempt to help us all understand the current status of the war with Iraq. Because I am seeking a left-perspective understanding, I went first to The Nation. I really want to understand the left perspective, for I agree with the values expressed by the left that wealth needs to be more effectively distributed, and that exploitation of those who do not have is harmful to all of us, even those who have. At the Nation, I found the following articles that helped me develop my own feelings about the opposition of the opposition to the war. I mean, Michael Savage suggested that if we don't believe in war and the killing it entails that we are seditionists.

Here are the links. I'll get to discussion questions soon. jeanne

The Hubris of George W. Bush (and the Neocons) By David Corn. The Nation March 31, 2003.

The Conservative Imagination by George Packer. The Nation. review | Posted December 12, 2002. Link added March 31, 2003.

Having checked out that perspective, I need also to examine other perspectives. I've got to understand what the Other is saying, if I'm to engage in illocutionary discourse.

More soon. April 2, 2003. jeanne