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Neither coincidence nor conspiracy can explain how each collection evolved. The most reasonable explanation is that each side begins with different premises that naturally lead to a consistent collection of ideas. People on each side of political struggles are unlikely to be able to articulate these premises which are often implicit. Most people are probably not even aware of these unifying premises that define much of what they believe. I am going to call these pre-analytic premises a vision.

Visions are abstractions of reality, our sense of how the world works. Since knowledge about reality is infinitely complex (I will discuss this later), a vision economizes on knowledge by constructing a whole out of smaller parts, or tiny pieces of information. A vision is analogous to a map. Any given map excludes all information except the specific areas it was designed to represent, such as hiking trails, population distributions, and average local temperatures. If it did not exclude and drastically simplify information, it would be just as complex and unintelligible as reality. Hence, any vision must leave many important phenomenon unexplained.

Visions precede theories. Before we construct a theory through systematic reasoning, we have vague feelings or intuitions. The economist and political philosopher, Thomas Sowell, who has written the most sweeping survey of visions, has articulated the role of visions in constructing theories this way:

A vision is a foundation on which theories are built. The final structure depends not only on the foundation, but also on how carefully and consistently the framework of theory is constructed and how well buttressed it is with hard facts. Visions are very subjective, but well constructed theories have clear implications, and facts can test and measure their objective validity. The world learned at Hiroshima that Einstein’s vision of physics was not just Einstein’s vision.

Visions of physics tend to find consensus relatively quickly. When two visions of physics are mutually incompatible, scientific testing and data will provide feedback that will vindicate one vision and discredit the other. Newton’s vision of how the world works gave way to Einstein’s, Einstein’s giving way to Bohr’s, new data providing discordant feedback to old ways of thinking. Ultimately it is not visions of physics that explain political conflicts, but it is social visions that define the unusually long-lasting collection of political beliefs. If social visions acted similarly to visions of physics, then only one vision would survive among competing visions.

Underlying social visions shape our political culture and even our personal lives. What are they? Why have conflicting visions lasted so long despite increasing feedback from data and experience?

Collections of Political Beliefs

Any observer of western politics (from Europe to America) will notice two consistent collections of contrasting political beliefs. Each collection includes ideas about military spending, monetary policy, taxation, judicial responsibility, drug laws, education, marriage, etc. But, each idea is separate and seemingly unrelated to the other ideas within each collection. For example, imagine that someone tells you of their sympathies toward homeschooling; you could predict with decent accuracy that he also supports religion and lower taxes. Likewise, imagine that someone announces their tolerance for same-sex marriage; you could anticipate that he probably favors pacifism and environmentalism. This aptness is not perfect, nor is it unsound. It seems rather bizarre that people line up on opposite sides of different issues with great consistency, since marriage and military strength, and homeschooling and tax policy do not appear to have any logical connection to each other. Why are these contrasting collections of ideas so neatly organized into two opposing sides?

Bfa Project

Right now I am working on a very large project. It is my senior project for my BFA. I will post on what I am writing about in the future. Eventually this blog will probably evolve and become more focused on the material I am writing about now. My senior project paper connect and answer the following questions:

Why are conservatives considerably happier and healthier than liberals?
Why conservatives give far more to charity than liberals?
Why religious democrats are 30% more likely than average among all democrats to become a republican and why secular republicans are less likely than average to become democrats?
Why 60% of Mormons are conservatives and only 10% are liberals?
Why is Mormonism the only religion that has a direct relationship to increased academic education and increased religious activity?
Why it is logically impossible for honest truth seekers to “agree to disagree”?
Why conservativism is inherently boring and liberalism is inherently exiting and easier to understand?
What causes the decline and fall of civilizations?
Why equality and the rule of law are mutually incompatible?
Why economists are 3:1 conservative to liberal?
Why chimpanzees are better at predicting political outcomes than highly specialized human experts?
Why you should be skeptical about conspiracy theorists and contrarians?
What does politics have to do with physics?