Greens and Libertarians: their psychoepistemologies

[gusl]

Dan Sullivan - Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future

... basic differences between the approaches of the two parties and their members. Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.

Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.
...
It is said that Libertarians have a conservative philosophy and Greens have a liberal philosophy. In reality, conservatism and liberalism are mere proclivities, and do not deserve to have the name "philosophy" attached to them. People who have more power than others are inclined to conserve it, and people who have less are inclined to liberate it. In Russia, as in feudal England, conservatives wanted more government control, as government was at the root of their power. Liberals wanted more private discretion.

In the United States today, where power has been vested in private institutions, conservatives want less government and liberals want more. What passes for conservative and liberal "philosophies" is merely a set of rationalizations that power-mongers hide behind.

Libertarians tend focus on means, Greens tend to focus on ends.
They are committed to different sets of beliefs. They are not incompatible, and they could form powerful political alliances, if only they could get over their differences. And if they got rid of radicals on both sides, I'd be quite happy to join them.

I find it very interesting that political ideology reflects a difference in psychoepistemology. I remember seeing an article about conservatives having fearful personalities:

Is there a conservative gene?

The psychological variables that the study claims might contribute to the adoption of a conservative ideology include anxiety regarding death, intolerance towards ambiguity, resistance to change, avoidance of uncertainty, need for order, structure and closure, fear of loss or threat, aggression and lower than normal levels of self esteem.

Links:
Correlation between MBTI and political affiliation
Comments on "Relations among Political Attitudes, Personality, and Psychopathology Assessed with New Measures of Libertarianism and Conservatism"

Comments

[jbouwens.livejournal.com]

I just read some stiff written by David Brin (With whom I regularly agree) pertinent here:

http://www.davidbrin.com/libertarianarticle1.html

I encourage everybody who thinks of themselves as a libertarian to read it. Very thought-provoking.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

That's truly excellent. Thanks.

[trufflesniffer.livejournal.com]

That's interesting.

I think there are far too many false dichotomies in political theory.
Most people in Western democracies could meaningfully be described as 'conservatives' - in the sense of believing that one doesn't have enough knowledge of the way the world works to rebuilt social institutions from scratch - and equally as 'liberals' - in the sense of believing in certain individual (as against group-based) rights and responsibilities. Neither seem antithetical qualities.
Equally, there's no reason, as you say, why Greens and Libertarians should consider themselves a priori in opposition to one another.

dan sullivan

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

hey i think i met that guy a couple times when i was at cmu, starting the cmu libertarian club. right on.

Re: dan sullivan

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I assume you're saying that *he* started the CMU libertarian club.

[rdore.livejournal.com]

I am generally sympathetic to green and libertarian aims where they coincide anyways, and suspicious of either in most places where they diverge. So I would generally be happy to see them working together.

[spoonless.livejournal.com]

Good article.

I think maybe the way to say it is this: the libertarian party in the US mostly focuses on fixing the problems where the major parties are too liberal (ie, personal safety laws being too strict and having a far too centralized government with too much concentrated power). And the green party mostly focuses on fixing the problems where the major parties are too conservative (not enough awareness of long-term environmental and global politics issues, civil rights for women, minorities, gays, etc.). So maybe together they could fix both sets of problems at once, and perhaps the rest of the issues (greens wanting to shift a huge amount of resources to the poor and practically dismantle capitalism and "corporate america", and libertarians tending to want to shift even more wealth to the wealthy) could stay about where they are and be fine after all.

I definitely tend to side more with the libertarians on things, but I'd be all for merging the parties, especially if it would create an alternative people would finally pay attention to!

Re: dan sullivan

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

no,'twas i. he wasn't a student. he was active in the pittsburgh libertarian circles, i think in some "official" capacity.

Re: dan sullivan

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

It's weird that we never spoke about libertarianism then. Actually, maybe we did once.
I've been a libertarian as long as I can remember... and pretty solidly so since I was ~18.

Of course by now I've dropped axiomatic libertarianism, in favour of a pragmatic / utilitarian approach, like David Friedman.

Re: dan sullivan

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

yeah i've pretty much classified myself as a pragmatic libertarian for the past few years. i tend not to talk about it because of my low tolerance for people and the tendency for politics bringing out the worst in them.

well, praglibs unite!