Better Living Through Misery

I wish I could say there is a single, core difference between progressives and conservatives, an attitude toward authority, for example, or the ability to deal with change and uncertainty, but I can't. Every time I come up with something I find holes in it.

But this in itself is instructive. Monocausal is not my style, and I'm proudly progressive. Conservatives seem to love it. Simplicity, I mean, and monocausal explanations for everything. Maybe it's due to a belief in determinism and innate qualities.

Inborn attributes, and nature over nurture, but there I go again, slipping into a simple outlook, though we can see that this does capture something fundamental to conservatives, that people belong in certain classes or clans and should stay put.

All the goodness going to the few, those born worthy, that is, and the misery to the many. Someone can change camps, but this is so associated in conservative minds with the drama of a conversion experience as to only be possible in that way.

So it is comforting to them to think that the piling on of all the goodness to the elect, and the misery to the non-elect, is not only natural but God's will, because suffering, misery and deprivation are means through which you might be transformed. 

And accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, so, when conservatives add to the world's suffering in denial of and revolt against their ability to alleviate it, they are on God's side and looking out for us, in the remote hope of our salvation through suffering.

This seems unchristian to me and presumptuous, but they evidently like to see people suffer, from a belief in just deserts or in the efficacy of suffering in self-improvement. Conservatives are strange people. I can conceive of the validity of their beliefs. 

If humans are, in fact, nothing more than animals, but the beliefs are irreconcilable with Christianity and our national ideals, so I wish they would give up on the ruse--fat chance--in which case their victims might more easily see the truth and fight back.

The truth being that they have no ideals at all, but are only intent on grabbing all the power they can, while hoping their victims never figure out how they're being messed with, which is exactly what they fear, the end of their one-sided battle for domination.