A Little Sanity in Our Political Life

I'm usually quite active reading updates on social media from friends, acquaintances, politicians, sports writers and athletes. Some of them like to offer their opinions on politics. (I actually have several friends who are on the Left politically.) What amazes me is how little some individuals really question the premises that underlay their political positions. This goes for both those on the Left and the Right. It appears that they allow either MSNBC or Fox News to do their thinking for them.

In my daily (well, most days) review of the internet, I found an article that offered a much more intellectual but similar perspective. The Contradictions of Liberals and Conservatives was written by Thomas Storck, a former contributing editor of New Oxford Review and Caelum et Terra and who serves on the editorial board of The Chesterton Review.

Storck states...

...Most Americans who are in the slightest degree politically active or interested incline to one of the two chief political positions common in this country, what we call conservatism or liberalism. In fact, each of these blocs constitutes not only a political grouping, but a cultural group as well, each with its favorite publications and web sites, radio shows, almost its own distinct ways of dressing and eating. Although there is much that one could say about these two groups, I want to comment on one thing only about them. This is that each of them is conscious of the claims of the common good and firmly committed to restraint of human passions, backed up even by the authority of law, in one sphere or area of human life, and equally committed to a laissez-faire policy in another sphere. While each group seems to be aware of the dangers that unrestrained acquiescence in human weakness poses to the social good in one area, each is equally blind to those same dangers in another and equally crucial sphere of life.

When it comes to the Left, Storck says...

...From being zealous for the common good and ready to place all manner of restraints on human conduct in the economic realm, liberals run to the other extreme and embrace a policy of laissez-faire when it comes to sexual matters. It is hard to understand how liberals do not see, or profess not to see, that the unrestrained pursuit of sexual pleasure can do as much harm to the social fabric as the unrestrained and anti-social pursuit of money. But liberals do not see this.

Storck also points to the failings of the Right...

...It is hard to understand how conservatives do not see, or profess not to see, that the unrestrained and anti-social pursuit of money can do as much harm to the social fabric as the unrestrained pursuit of sexual pleasure. But conservatives do not see this. A disordered notion of freedom constitutes almost their entire approach to economic morality.

Be sure to read Storck's entire article but we should all think about his concluding remarks...

...Americans like to pride themselves on their freedom, but they exhibit little freedom of thought when it comes to politics. But if enough of us begin to think a little, then it is just possible that we might begin to have a little sanity in our political life. And who knows—it might even spread?