“Liberal,” “Conservative,” and the Illusion That Divides Us

As another fourth November nears, our country is in a fight with itself. Poll numbers are near 50% in favor of candidates from two parties that could not be more polarized on their views, and such partisanship has ground government in the United States to a screeching halt over the past four years. Changes to healthcare have been reduced to a minimum and we stand frozen in the face of issues such as stem cell research and gay marriage. The filibuster has become the political weapon of choice against the potential for non-partisanship, collaboration and progress. Taking a step back and looking at this sad state of affairs that has become the baseline pulse of our society, I wondered, where has all this come from? My intuition was from the two party system, but I quickly came to realize that the source is perhaps more likely a perversion and distortion of two words that lie on either side of our great nation’s political divide: liberal and conservative.

The terms “liberal” and “conservative” are part of the everyday lexicon employed by politicians, broadcast anchors, writers, citizens and academics alike. The problem is that each kind of person uses these words for different reasons and in different contexts, and this creates a usage problem. We can understand these words as descriptors of a set of political views (i.e. those of republicans and democrats), a set of social tendencies (e.g. a “pro-choice” or “pro-life” stance), or as downright inflammatory adjectives (e.g. “liberal hippy” or “gun-slinging conservative”). Since these words are used as devices for so many different purposes in so many different contexts, we, as citizens, are bound to get confused and misled. For example, just because one says that they are “conservative” should not imply that they align with the views of the many radical religious folk and tea partiers who get filed under the same moniker. You could be a pro-choice fiscal conservative, but nevertheless, you get slapped with the “conservative” label and associated with ideas you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.

Nietzsche: Power and Moral Value

A preliminary discussion of Nietzsche as an existentialist philosopher involves ideas about the general scope of his work in the context of existentialism in general, the concept of the will to power and some thoughts Nietzsche’s position on truth. Nietzsche’s “will to power” is a striking concept.  It involves a state of constant becoming, or more bluntly, a constant state of overcoming. It is the essence of life for Nietzsche and thus deserves to be discussed. The Nietzschian life revolves around “power” and the augmentation thereof, but what exactly is power? Power involves a surmounting or even involves control or influence over a particular external thing or internal phenomenon. Thus, if one were to act in order to “increase their will to power,” they would be acting to overcome something either in the world or in themselves that, if surmounted and overcome, will increase one’s control and influence over that thing. These general terms are confusing, so perhaps some examples will better serve to articulate the concept.