Bleeding Heart Liberals and Tory Blues

It is not an unimaginable conclusion that the liberalism of some people is a vacuous product of nothing more than inexperience and abstract thought.  That is, their open arms and open minds are strictly clinical and not the result of having had to accommodate others or put into practice what they so enthusiastically urge.  It is one thing to advance constant inclusiveness and boundless toleration if you don't have to live with it.

Having said that, there are very few people of any proximity about whom I am forbearing, either instinctively or philosophically.  Humanity as a whole can prove to be a dirty business and sometimes it's just best to keep one's distance. Admittedly I have traditionally cultivated a less than insightful perspective about others except perhaps shamefully for pragmatic commecial and social reasons.  Otherwise I have preferred to ignore the grit of human nature which I reckon necessarily contaminates each and every one of us.  Perhaps it is nothing more tactical than disregarding the barnyard habits of a pet dog before embracing it.  Some behaviour though natural is indelicate.  Besides we wouldn't want to de-mystify the human experience entirely.

In the end the extent of one's view of equality may be but another habit without the benefit of either enlightenment or constitutional understanding.  We are after all such hopeless creatures of our vernacular.  And the thing I find about rubbing shoulders with others is that any former perception of radicalism isn't long in disappearing. This risks being a small compliment though certainly a levelling one. Familiarity - to put a twist on a stock adage - tends to take the wind out of our collective sails.  We're really not that much different from one another. Any foundation for debate about entitlement to freedom and cooperation quickly becomes diluted in a sea of murky distinctions.

The only imperative I can see for preserving so-called conservative views is political, that is relating to interests of status and authority (usually within a select group or organization) rather than to matters of principle. To differentiate the idealism of human association on any other basis is in my opinion an uphill battle (though of course that doesn't stop those advancing a position from attempting to hang the legitimacy of it on some peg of ingenuity, science or morality). Similarly the theses of liberals based upon assumed freedoms of gender, assembly, religion, speech, press, civil rights, markets and international cooperation do nothing but beg the question. The liberals (fueled by their righteousness) and conservatives (fired up by their self-interest) are essentially colliding on the same useless debate while avoiding the truth that there is no realistic basis for discrimination of any sort, at least not based upon human differences. Certainly there remain the isolating and economic reasons for differences but it offends me that the competing parties confound those simplistic parameters with such obtuse philosophies.  How quickly the argument deviates from the substance to the fluff! The alleged hard questions in life are seldom so difficult but we're all reluctant to acknowledge the answer.