Can Different Ideologies Coexist in Harmony?
Cultural and political discourse is predicated on an individual’s interpretation of information. Information is acquired, thoughts are formed, and opinions are born; this is our natural pathway to beliefs, ideas, and concepts. My worry lies in the quantity of incorrect information over the quality of correct information. I started my blog out of the motivation for noticing more and more the division of our society and how the information fueling the gap seems to mainly stem from critiques of extremist views within conservative and progressive ideology. Progressives (or social justice warriors) shape views and beliefs through the lens of humanism working towards creating a balance of an unequal system fighting for those oppressed within it, while conservatives form opinions and beliefs mainly through the lens of individual liberties and the responsibility to fix inequality should be on our own accord. Extremists (particularly on the left) have chosen to support and promote their ideas, fighting with the tools they claim to be against (profiling, anger, hatred, and violence), which continues to allow the right to use the art of absurdism to counter progressive ideals causing the increasing scale of polarization. Validation has replaced fact; outrage has replaced context and belief has replaced understanding. Although I consider myself a progressive, my views mainly hover around the center. Life and the argument of life’s quality are too complicated to live in the realm of only one school of thought. Although I agree with aspects of individual liberties, I find it a hard pill to swallow that we live in a world where the few live in lavish luxury while the masses struggle to provide themselves with basic needs to survive in this consumer world we’ve created. I also find, as a culture, we’ve misunderstood the core aspects of progressive ideas not only to the rhetoric opposing them but to our response to the opposition.
Value and money are a prime example. I’ve stated in my earlier work how the buying power of Americans hasn’t changed since 1978. How the cost of living and higher education has sky-rocketed and how we’re discovering an increasing amount of consumer and tax manipulation going on within the corporate elites. These examples point out the problem of under-value for the worker vs. the over-value of the capital. As a progressive, I agree the worker should have a higher value because, without the worker, growth would be non-existent. Workers should be able to have affordable access to basic needs and shouldn’t have to sacrifice a majority of the little time we have on this planet for work to be able to eat or keep themselves healthy. The common rebuttal to this belief (from the right) is “Don’t take my money you haven’t worked hard to earn it.” This would make sense if the argument was over money instead of value, but this is a false perception. If you see a worker as wanting more money, you’ll end up mistaking their demand for an increase in value, for them wanting to take your money, which unknowingly or not, your money was solely dependent on your value. This false perception is an easy trap to fall into because money is how we show and establish value in a capitalist system. What separates the two is predicated on the context of value over money because paying someone more through their value doesn’t take your money. The left also has a problem with a similar false perception when it comes to free speech and ideas. The left confuses free speech with ideas because language is the only tool we have to bring ideas to life which is why context is essential in separating the two. I claim to be a centrist because my beliefs mainly follow a scale of volume vs. impact. For example, I agree with an individual’s right to make as much money as they please, but when they begin to undervalue the worker to achieve extreme wealth, I’m not on board.
Companies form monopolies following the “if I can’t beat them, buy them” mentality and a company that increases volume by accruing more companies has an impact on the value of competition in a free market, which is one of the main arguments for capitalism. However, markets such as technology have benefited society by drastically lowing costs leading the way for affordable tech products. The issue mostly between conservatives and progressives lies in the notion of values and ideas being unable to coexist in harmony. Which is funny to me because other countries have proven it works. Wither its China proving an authoritarian branch of communism and capitalism can work, or many Scandinavian countries with aspects of democracy and socialism, proving dueling belief systems are workable and can coexist. I believe aspects of socialism and aspects of capitalism can work together to prove the best possible situation for our society. Before I scare you with the “S” word, I think it’s important to look into socialism because it’s essential to see through the stigma and baggage the ideology has received throughout the years.
As with most things I run into in my life, I try and take the time to understand them before I form opinions of them, which is why I can happily say I’ve read the whole Twilight series, but I digress. I was strongly motived by the utter baggage and negativity attached to the term and was curious to learn for myself the origins of the fear around its ideology. Socialism came into fame as a derivative of Marxism. Wither you love Karl Marx or not, he did have an interesting theory when it came to conflict. Marx’s theory states human beings are social creatures by nature and a capitalistic system creates social classes and breaks down society as either the people with capital or the worker. This class divide causes conflict because the people with capital, wanting to pay the least amount of money for their labor, while the worker wants to be paid the most amount of money for their work. This premise (also the origins of communism) in a simplified nutshell is the collective ownership of all, favoring cooperation over competition and collectivism over individualism. The critique over socialism (I do agree with) is socialism fails when scaled up because needing to be social and creative is only a small cog in the complexities of human life. Humans also have qualities of self-preservation and greed. The argument against socialism I have a problem with is the comparison to failing countries who’ve claimed to be socialists, but when compared to actual ideology socialism hasn’t honestly been tried. Countries that claim to be socialists have established merely a tyrannical regime wearing a socialism cloak. Socialism (as commonly bashed by the right) isn’t a critique on socialism as they so whole heartily believe, but the evaluation on the manipulation of its ideology. Besides, taxes would fall into more of a socialistic ideology with every citizen of the country giving money to the government from them to use it for our collective good wither it be through the conservative lens of military and safety or the progressive lens of social welfare.
I believe a healthy discourse would be to flush out the ideologies of these systems and how they apply and operate within specific contexts of human life as appose to a generalized critique or praise. I believe answers lie in the harmony of capitalism and socialism to trace the best path forward. Capitalism is handling our nature of self-preservation and greed and socialism our nature of creativity and community. Goldilocks didn’t want the porridge that was too hot or too cold; she wanted the porridge that was just right or was she the only one?
Value and money are a prime example. I’ve stated in my earlier work how the buying power of Americans hasn’t changed since 1978. How the cost of living and higher education has sky-rocketed and how we’re discovering an increasing amount of consumer and tax manipulation going on within the corporate elites. These examples point out the problem of under-value for the worker vs. the over-value of the capital. As a progressive, I agree the worker should have a higher value because, without the worker, growth would be non-existent. Workers should be able to have affordable access to basic needs and shouldn’t have to sacrifice a majority of the little time we have on this planet for work to be able to eat or keep themselves healthy. The common rebuttal to this belief (from the right) is “Don’t take my money you haven’t worked hard to earn it.” This would make sense if the argument was over money instead of value, but this is a false perception. If you see a worker as wanting more money, you’ll end up mistaking their demand for an increase in value, for them wanting to take your money, which unknowingly or not, your money was solely dependent on your value. This false perception is an easy trap to fall into because money is how we show and establish value in a capitalist system. What separates the two is predicated on the context of value over money because paying someone more through their value doesn’t take your money. The left also has a problem with a similar false perception when it comes to free speech and ideas. The left confuses free speech with ideas because language is the only tool we have to bring ideas to life which is why context is essential in separating the two. I claim to be a centrist because my beliefs mainly follow a scale of volume vs. impact. For example, I agree with an individual’s right to make as much money as they please, but when they begin to undervalue the worker to achieve extreme wealth, I’m not on board.
Companies form monopolies following the “if I can’t beat them, buy them” mentality and a company that increases volume by accruing more companies has an impact on the value of competition in a free market, which is one of the main arguments for capitalism. However, markets such as technology have benefited society by drastically lowing costs leading the way for affordable tech products. The issue mostly between conservatives and progressives lies in the notion of values and ideas being unable to coexist in harmony. Which is funny to me because other countries have proven it works. Wither its China proving an authoritarian branch of communism and capitalism can work, or many Scandinavian countries with aspects of democracy and socialism, proving dueling belief systems are workable and can coexist. I believe aspects of socialism and aspects of capitalism can work together to prove the best possible situation for our society. Before I scare you with the “S” word, I think it’s important to look into socialism because it’s essential to see through the stigma and baggage the ideology has received throughout the years.
As with most things I run into in my life, I try and take the time to understand them before I form opinions of them, which is why I can happily say I’ve read the whole Twilight series, but I digress. I was strongly motived by the utter baggage and negativity attached to the term and was curious to learn for myself the origins of the fear around its ideology. Socialism came into fame as a derivative of Marxism. Wither you love Karl Marx or not, he did have an interesting theory when it came to conflict. Marx’s theory states human beings are social creatures by nature and a capitalistic system creates social classes and breaks down society as either the people with capital or the worker. This class divide causes conflict because the people with capital, wanting to pay the least amount of money for their labor, while the worker wants to be paid the most amount of money for their work. This premise (also the origins of communism) in a simplified nutshell is the collective ownership of all, favoring cooperation over competition and collectivism over individualism. The critique over socialism (I do agree with) is socialism fails when scaled up because needing to be social and creative is only a small cog in the complexities of human life. Humans also have qualities of self-preservation and greed. The argument against socialism I have a problem with is the comparison to failing countries who’ve claimed to be socialists, but when compared to actual ideology socialism hasn’t honestly been tried. Countries that claim to be socialists have established merely a tyrannical regime wearing a socialism cloak. Socialism (as commonly bashed by the right) isn’t a critique on socialism as they so whole heartily believe, but the evaluation on the manipulation of its ideology. Besides, taxes would fall into more of a socialistic ideology with every citizen of the country giving money to the government from them to use it for our collective good wither it be through the conservative lens of military and safety or the progressive lens of social welfare.
I believe a healthy discourse would be to flush out the ideologies of these systems and how they apply and operate within specific contexts of human life as appose to a generalized critique or praise. I believe answers lie in the harmony of capitalism and socialism to trace the best path forward. Capitalism is handling our nature of self-preservation and greed and socialism our nature of creativity and community. Goldilocks didn’t want the porridge that was too hot or too cold; she wanted the porridge that was just right or was she the only one?
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