The divisions between left and right are fundamental and unbridgeable. A frequent trope of political rhetoric is that everyone agrees about the ends; we merely disagree about the means. Although this is often true at the level of a discrete policy issue (for example, how to broaden access to health care), it is wrong at the deeper level of what might be called the “tectonic plates” that drive the individual political battles. Reducing left-right differences to disagreements only over means has a numbing effect on clear thinking, and is an obstacle to grappling with some of the larger problems that now need reform that goes far beyond the business-as-usual tinkering around the edges, such as entitlement spending. Liberals tend to believe in old-fashioned leveling egalitarianism; conservatives do not. (Much more on this point in due course.) Rather than evade or gloss over fundamental differences, highlighting them is the vital pre-condition to finding any middle ground for possible compromise.
The lessons contained here are very worthwhile, especially today when the study of political science is mostly about social science and searching through empirical data. I am not denigrating everything modern political science has to offer because some of it is definitely useful, but I am pointing out that there has to be a foundation on which to view all of that information in the right way. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, once used a great example that perfectly illustrates this point: Is the technical knowledge needed to build the atomic bomb more important or is the kind of knowledge needed to know how to use the atomic bomb more important? Modern education, which is career-driven, would most likely answer the former is more important. Aristotle, Plato, and the American Founders would all agree that the latter kind of knowledge is without question superior.
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