The Forest of Man

Jon Chait has an interesting piece on the band Rush's fascination with Ayn Rand.  Getty Lee Weinrib, the son of Jewish holocaust survivors, apparently was a great admirer of her work.  Chait notes that Rush lyrics sometimes took a very objectivist stance.  He highlights the song Trees:

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their please.

The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made.
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Kudos to Rush for taking on themes of that size.  But God, what a creepy vision.   

The first error is that large trees are genetically different than smaller ones.  We don't mind this because natural selection is reasonable in nature.  But if the metaphor is to extend to humans, we're getting into genetic determinism.  Which, given our history brings up the issue of racial inequality.  Conservatives won't admit it, but conservatism frequently leads to a racist explanation for inequality.

The second problem is that, disregarding the genetic metaphor and instead viewing it in psychological terms, environment shapes social efficacy.  Large "trees" statistically get there because of social advantage.  It's not difficult to imagine why the "trees" of the ghetto are much smaller than those of Greenwich.  The body of research overwhelmingly pointing towards human development being socially determined is undeniable.

The fundamental conservative objection to this deterministic view is that "all things being equal", man can choose to succeed or fail and society should allow him this freedom.  The first thing a conservative will tell you is that there are many examples of men who succeeded despite the odds.  As a refutation of determinism, this is incoherent.  It is mainly an appeal to lack of data: there are so many variables that go into one's level of success that retracing all of them is very difficult.  However, it isn't impossible, and usually one can discover some strong indicators with a little bit of digging.  But scientific research isn't about outliers, but finding theories that are predictable.  It is simply obvious that a good upbringing is important for life success.  The fact that some people succeed or fail despite their environment is indeed intriguing, but hardly a case against good parenting or healthy social institutions.

Lets return to the phrase "all things being equal".  Conservatism depends upon this conceit about human nature.  It basically assumes that, at 18 years of age (or younger, for some), men are capable of making the same life choices.  So whether they succeed or fail, they are ultimately held to the same standard; they are assumed to be operating from the same knowledge base, the same ability to assess situations and attain desired outcomes.

But this is clearly not the case.  "All things", as it were, are not "equal".  People possess profoundly different levels of self-efficacy.   Some of this is no doubt genetic, and owing to personal temperament.  But far and away the larger element is an emotional and cognitive disposition honed over a lifetime of environmental experiences.  One might conclude as a practical matter that society cannot reasonably alter this dynamic, but this doesn't change the fact that people experience different levels of life success depending on what social environment they have lived within.  So it is for the rich man.  So it is for the poor man.  The only variable that reliably exists outside this construct is pure, dumb luck.

As to what society can do about it, the short answer is a lot.  Beginning with the premise that every citizen has an equal right to the pursuit of happiness, if there is some way in which we can create a more egalitarian dynamic we are morally obligated to do so.  This has been the underlying philosophy of most of our most cherished institutions: libraries, parks, roads, schools, etc.  Of course these things need to be payed for, and it follows from the understanding that man's success is socially dependent that those more successful owe a debt to society relative to what they have been granted.  Likewise, those less successful are owed by society a rectification of what they have been denied.

Of course, the details of how this ought to be done are messy; determining how best to adjust for equality gets into the tricky moral business of individual rights and property.  What is equitable?  How do we achieve it?  The simplest answer to the former goes back to our first principle of man's right to pursue happiness.  If self-efficacy is all that is needed, then a system of delivering a basic level of it to every man seems reasonable.  This is arguably the main purpose of any good social institution.  Libraries provide equal access to the world of ideas.  Roads provide physical access to the nation.  Police, firemen and the military provide security.  Universal health care provides the physical health to act.  And the most powerful institution, the sheer magnitude of which we are slowly coming to terms with, is public education.  It presents the greatest opportunity society has of delivering to every citizen the individual power to determine - to an extent equal to their peers - their own life success.

In the end, if we are to assume that every man has the same objective potential to grow his "tree", then we must take into consideration the structural differences in society that lead men to different outcomes.  To the extend that we are able to do so in a humane and moral manner, we must strive toward the creation and maintenance of institutions that deliver on our nation's promise of real liberty for all, the liberty to determine for themselves their own lot in life.

Equitable Citizenship is a Right

Education reform is a topic of much debate.  Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, places emphasis on improving school quality through reforms to unions, performance pay, standards and innovative charters.  What is missing however, is any discussion of parenting.  It is an established fact that failing schools are largely made of of poor students, who come from poor homes with poor parents.  They come in to school from an environment that does not adequately prepare them for success.  The traditional response to this is to simply try and get teachers to do their jobs better.  So far this hasn't worked, and any teacher will tell you that it isn't so simple.  Even the best teachers will struggle when faced with an impossible task.  Poor schools across the country are trying their best and continuing to fail.

But wasn't the real problem the student's home environment?  Maybe that is something we can do more to fix. The first question is, "what kind of home environment"?  What is it about home environment that produces success?  This where differences in socioeconomic status become clear.  School quality does have some effect, but this is largely dependent on the population served to begin with.  (I'll skip further comment here because it's complex and if looking at policy, teacher performance is going to get you minimal results compared with a student-targeted model). 

So the next question is what is it about SES that influences student behavior.  There is a lot of data on this.  It begins in the womb.  Environmental toxins, esp. lead paint, are surprisingly big factors in poor neighborhoods, and they have serious physiological effects.  From there, you go to mother's hormones - stress levels.  Language and emotional development begins very early.  These are enormously dependent on environment.  Basic cognition, vocabulary and social skills can be literally years behind by the time kids enter kindergarten. 

So what can we do about it?  "Money" is a loaded term: spent poorly, it has no effect, obviously; spent wisely it can have very good results.  Again, this is in the data.  What you really want is to target at-risk students, looking at academic deficits, whether behavioral or skill-based.  Models can predict pretty well where these will come from demographically.  Some students will certainly be very difficult to properly provide support for (I'm thinking of those where drug use or criminality is a major factor at home).  But in most cases a comprehensive investment in outreach and daily - if not hourly - support will be plenty.

This won't look like the standard public school model, where a child shows up the first day of kindergarten, sits all day in a class of 30, then goes home with a backpack loaded up with worksheets.  That model simply doesn't work.  Certainly not as a guarantee of the right to an equitable citizenship.  If we are serious about leaving no children behind, we need to take ownership of the idea that every single child, no matter where they come from, will turn 18 having been adequately prepared for life success. 

We have pretended that just by giving children basic access to a teacher in a schoolhouse, we have done our job.  Some stop-gap measures have been cobbled together, such as busing, reduced-price lunches, or special education resources.  But these don't begin to address the many disadvantages many children face.  Some will decide this is too big a task, either because it is impossible or not worth it.  The truth is that it is possible, and a strong case can be made that it will ultimately be worth it not just in a moral sense but because the economic and social gains will end up outweighing the initial investment.

The Harlem Children's Zone in New York claims to have gotten every child into college.  Even if not entirely true, this is a staggering achievement.  They also get 2/3s of their funding from private sources.  That's a budget 2-3 times that of ordinary public schools.  But they are able to use this money to provide services over and above the traditional one child, one teacher model.  They provide parenting workshops, health services, extended hours, and round the clock support.  Their Harlem Gems pre-K program runs 8am-6pm and has a 1:4 child/teacher ratio. 

If we currently spend around $7,000 per child for 12 years, that's roughly $84,000.  California spends more than half that in one year per inmate.  If we took as seriously the problem of giving every citizen an equitable start in life, as we do the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, we could be replicating the success of the HCZ in cities all across the country.  Imagine what this would do for us in terms of productivity?  Real estate values! 

As a matter of civil rights, as arguably enshrined in the constitution, this will likely require federal intervention.   Specific, evidence-based programs can be funded by mandate at the federal level.  But we need the public will to commit the resources in a serious way.  All the talk of teachers and charters and unions is largely irrelevant.  What is needed is a paradigm shift in which a child's development is viewed in a holistic, environmental context.  Most schools will not need very much extra help at all.  Most communities will not need health services or parenting classes or all day kindergarten.  At risk students can be individually targeted and services provided on an as-needed basis.

We can do this.

The Small Government Utopia

 Jon Chait ponders why conservatives seem consistently unreflective.  They are much less likely to trust facts that don't come from conservative sources.  He points to Julian Sanchez who calls it:

"epistemic closure" -- an intellectual world in which the only trustworthy sources of information are those within your movement.

Chait argues that they are considerably less critical than progressives.

Liberalism is not really an ideology in anything like the sense that conservatism is. Conservatism is an ideology organized around the belief that big government inherently destroys freedom. Contemporary liberalism is the ideology of people who don't share that conviction, though it lacks any strong a priori beliefs to hold it together.....Liberals are not ideologically pro-government in anything like the sense that conservatives are ideologically anti-government -- conservatives view shrinking government as an end in and of itself, while liberals would view expanding government a success only to the extent that doing so furthers some other real-world benefit. I think it's the fundamental distinction between the two parties, and it explains all kinds of asymmetrical behavior -- a loose coalition versus a coherent ideological movement.

But how did we get here?  The way I see it, the right is basically where the left was when Communism was still taken seriously.  That is, the entire movement has swung deeply into the radical end of the spectrum.   But now that Communism was actually implemented in numerous countries around the globe, with disastrous results, the left has been forced to be much more discriminating.  It is no longer possible to dogmatically claim that all business is evil.

Yet this is what the right now does almost to a person.  They consistently claim that "all government* is evil.  They talk about "tyranny" and the "end of liberty", as if any minute now we'll be in Stalinist Russia.  But this is a blatant misreading of history.  In the early 20th century, this fear would have been more plausible, as many countries indeed were "on the road to serfdom", as Hayek put it. 

But in the ensuing decades, socialism was implemented with very different outcomes.  In countries with a weaker democratic base and large scale inequality, Marxism was used as a blunt tool to overthrow the existing paradigm, installing Communism as a hopeful guarantor of social justice.  Meanwhile in countries where power was much more diffuse, and democratic institutions were strong, Marxism simply meant a gradual buffering of enterprise.

When progressives in the early 20th century were promoting communism, they were doing so in the face of a much more abusive and tyrannical capitalism.  It was therefore much easier to fall into dogmatic hyperbole, and at that point communism seemed a benign alternative to a capitalism that seemed irrevocably corrupt.  But today's progressive sees capitalism and communism much differently.  It has witnessed both the undeniable brutality and practical inviability of communism, and the ability of a strong social democracy to soften the edges of capitalism's social and environmental failings.

Modern conservatives have drawn different historical lessons.  They certainly have always understood the dangers of communism.  But they obviously never adequately processed the lessons of untrammeled capitalism.  This sort of historical amnesia is difficult to counter, as so many generations have no passed since we've had the sort of weak federal government they argue for.  And internationally, all modern, successful and wealthy nations are the sort of social democracies they despise.  If one were find a country with an economic system similar to what they claim to want, it would likely be a war-torn failure.  Granted, these countries would not have had the sort of founding stability that might give economic libertarianism a fighting chance.  But the fact that such a system is not taken seriously by any otherwise functioning democracies seems evidence that reasonable people simply prefer a minimum level of social democracy.

And so American conservatism continues to live on in a sort of Utopian vacuum, in which premises are based on a dogmatic vision of a history that is always just around the corner.  Failures of capitalism, such as the recent economic collapse, are instead viewed as the result of government intrusion.  And because no clear evidence of what a modern state would really look like under their version of capitalism exists, straw men can be created to fit seemingly any scenario.

The Science of Justice

Terry Eaglton writes on human nature, justice and morality in The New Statesman:

In fact, the word [evil] has come to mean, among other things, "without a cause". If the child killers did what they did because of boredom or bad housing or parental neglect, then - so the police officer may have feared - what they did was forced upon them by their circumstances; and it followed that they could not be punished for it as severely as he might have wished. This mistakenly implies that an action that has a cause cannot be freely undertaken. Causes in this view are forms of coercion. If our actions have causes, we are not responsible for them. Evil, on the other hand, is thought to be uncaused, or to be its own cause. This is one of its several points of resemblance with good. Apart from evil, only God is said to be the cause of himself.

It is a fairly common occurrence for particularly ghastly crimes to be referred to in subhuman terms.  It is as if by describing the acts in this way we somehow avoid any culpability as humans ourselves.  Surely we could never behave this way.  After a recent case in which a 7 year old girl was raped by a gang of older boys in a housing project, the mayor referred to them as "monsters".  One often hears the sentiment how could they do something like this?, despite the fact that evil things have been done since the dawn of history. 

There is no argument that terrible crimes are, well, terrible.  But what is strange is the persistence of the myth that there is no explanation for why evil is done.  For more than a century we have been collecting data on this very question.  And all of it points in the same direction: that human behavior is the result of a combination of biological and environmental development.  The type of brain you have, and the type of world you are raised in determines what kind of person you will be.

Wise people have always known this.  But until science lead us toward evidenciary claims, there was no real way of arguing it without appeals to nebulous philosophy or theorizing, which were often little more than aphorisms.  Today we know enough that, while unable to determine all of the causes and influences that caused someone to commit a particular crime, we are able to make pretty clear predictions as to what types of environments and brains are conducive to criminal behavior.

I've taught low-income children in Kindergarten as well as high school, and as a class they are much more likely to end up in prison.  The writing was on the wall the minute they walked in the classroom.  They often came from dysfunctional homes in which good parenting was not practiced - despite how loving and well-meaning the parents generally were.  But few were very successful themselves, and had difficulties with drugs, relationships, work - much less raising children. 

The research on early childhood bears this out.  Literally starting before birth, children are absorbing their environment, whether from toxins like lead paint and allergens more common in poor housing, to the mother's stress level and tone of voice.  Language becomes very important for the development of cognition and communication.  Socioeconomic status is a major predictor for how much positive (or negative) stimulus a child will receive before entering school. 

Teachers are then burdened with the task of trying to make up for concentrated communities of disadvantaged children.  As they fall behind in school, whether to lack of emotional development and behavioral control or academic struggle, the beginnings of criminality emerge.  There is nothing more tragic than looking at statistical averages for future success of poor populations.  "If only someone would step in and help these children," you want to ask.  The teachers and administration can only do so much.  Many fathers are in prison or simply absent, and many mothers are working or high - or unable for a variety of reasons to protect their babies from falling down the wrong path.

Yet this is all happening on our watch.  This is us.  This is what humans do in desperate situations.  We would all be exactly the same - facing the same odds of failure.   Instead of neglecting disadvantaged members of society, we ought to be targeting those most at risk for unhealthy behaviors and intervening.  The earlier we get to them, the better chance we'll have to correct their development.

At the same time, the adult population is not, nor likely will ever be, perfect.  There are some pathologies that are likely genetic, and may never be corrected for.  Certain individuals, such as serial killers or pedophiles, we may never be able to diagnose and respond to before they commit their first crime.  Their pathologies are still relatively mysterious, however seem to have a strong genetic component.  In the future, treatments might be developed to reverse their effects.  In the meantime, criminal justice agencies are grappling with appropriate levels of response.  Pedophilia presents a particularly troubling situation because lesser offenses may not call for a life prison term, yet there is no evidence that any "cure" exists.  Management programs have been developed to try and find a balance, but the problem is ongoing.  An encouraging sign is that, despite our traditional inclination to treat them as "evil" instead of mentally ill, we are moving toward a more rational and evidence-based assessment of their pathology.

Still, while these difficult cases continue to strain our scientific understanding of human behavior, they represent only a small portion of prison populations, thankfully.  Most criminals are very explainable, and sadly, highly predictable according to socioeconomic status.  However the good news is that we know that interventions are still possible.  The hard part is in crafting public policy that the rest of the public will view as not only effective, but at a cost sufficiently low to sacrifice their tax dollars for.  The moral case is clear: if these individuals have been, for all intents and purposes, created by society, then it is our duty to do everything in our power to help them.  Because as much as they have been created by society, so to have we.  And as our brothers and sisters we owe it to them to share what we have been "blessed" with.

A Republic of Disinterest

Kevin Drum has some thoughts on the radio listening habits of conservatives and liberals.  He points to an article showing how NPR has been enormously successful in the past decade.

NPR's listenership has nearly doubled since 1999, even as newspaper circulation dropped off a cliff. Its programming now reaches 26.4 million listeners weekly — far more than USA Today's 2.3 million daily circ or Fox News' 2.8 million prime-time audience. When newspapers were closing bureaus, NPR was opening them, and now runs 38 around the world, better than CNN. It has 860 member stations — "boots on the ground in every town" that no newspaper or TV network can claim.

He writes that it basically comes down to taste.

A common question on the left is, "Why is there no liberal talk radio?" That is, no wildly popular liberal version of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Laura Schlesinger. And the answer is: there is. It's called NPR. When lefties listen to the radio, that's what they listen to.

Noticeable absent is figures for Rush Limbaugh's audience.  Clearly the largest conservative draw on radio, the Washington Post puts him at somewhere around 14 million.  What's interesting is that if you combine the numbers for your average conservative and liberal audiences, you're still at under 50 million.

Yet according to the US Census Bureau, about 131 people voted in in the 2008 presidential election.

So the question appears to be: where are people getting their news?  My hunch is that most people aren't all that interested in news.  They have opinions, but they're largely based on vague ideological narratives that thrive in an environment devoid of factual information.  Because they are already uninterested in politics or political philosophy, actively listening to the news would require a critical analysis that would then require more even more listening. 

Modern political philosophy is complex - involving numerous competing premises.  The more one learns, the more one finds out one doesn't know.  And not knowing is uncomfortable, especially if you possess no natural curiosity to begin with.  So the easiest thing to do would be to forget the whole thing entirely.  This sort of political carelessness makes for a much more conciliatory and socially lubricious attitude.  Conflict is kept to a minimum, and happiness ensues.

Interestingly, this dynamic can also apply those who do, for some reason, have an interest in politics.  These people actively consume media, and engage in subsequent discussion with others.  However, the problem remains that political philosophy still rests on a complicated set of premises.  In order to take a particular position on the political spectrum, one must have confidence in their choice. 

It seems this can happen in one of two ways: either one has done the heavy lifting of understanding the array of premises across the spectrum, from which they rationally choose their own opinion, or they simply hew dogmatically to one perspective, and avoid contact with views that might cast doubt on the correctness of their choice.  The former model requires both perseverance and critical thinking.  As the time is taken to digest the entire spectrum of premises upon which competing political philosophies are built, one must also possess the capacity for self-reflection and evaluation, as new information will no doubt present dissonant challenges to one's accepted truths.

The latter model is much easier, and a better fit for those who do not wish to invest the required political intellectual rigor.  There could be any number of reasons for this.  Perhaps they aren't that interested in politics, or intellectualism in general.  Maybe they have difficulty accepting the self-criticism required to properly digest inevitable cognitive dissonance.  Maybe they have strong cultural traditions that dissuade them from making the tough choices that critical reasoning often requires.  In the end though, they will no doubt tend to be much more dogmatic and partisan, as their lack of broad political knowledge puts them at a disadvantage when faced with the prospect of leaving their narrow, scripted narrative.

All of this seems to point towards a depressing portrait of democracy.  A relatively informed electorate is the fundamental premise under-girding its viability as a political ideal.  Yet even if we were to some how get every citizen to some basic level of political and social education, the intellectual work required to grapple with important issues in a serious way seems something only a small minority of voters will ever be capable of performing.  This elite class of individual with have an extraordinarily outsized influence over the rest.

Currently, if we are to assume that barely half of voters consume news media on a regular basis, and of that group, maybe half still are operating from a non-dogmatic, non-partisan perspective in which new information is critically consumed and old premises are challenged, we're down to a quarter of the voting public.  That's about 13 million people, on the left and right who engage the issues with patient and determined objectivity.  There are about 218 million adults in the US.  That's 1 in 4 voters, and about 1 in 16 people.


Now, that may be all it takes to effectively drive public thought.  But I doubt it.  How much influence do these people really have.  Of the 3 in 4 voters, how many are really paying attention - as driven by partisan dogma as they are?  The grim reality is that politics is fumbling blindly forth, with no rational direction.  Is it any wonder then, that so many are outraged by colossal nature of our failings?  This despite the hypocrisy of having no one to blame but ourselves. 

In the end, the question seems to be how we manage to do as well as we do.  Within that small elite of individuals who truly possess the capacity to drive serious discussion, there does exist robust debate.  And our literature is filled with examples of wonderful political thought.  As long as this process is allowed to continue - and in the modern world it thankfully has been enshrined as a human right, we will no doubt continue to prosper.  Yet to the extent that people are not engaged in a serious way in the issues that they vote on, they present an obstacle to progress.

Bigotry on the Left and Right

 In response to a Florida urologist hanging a sign on his door that states,

“If you voted for Obama,” says the taped-up sign, “seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now. Not in four years.”

 some have wondered whether this is yet another expression of racist opposition to universal health care.  The suggestion is that, this being a Southern state, there could be some code operating out of objection to poor minorities' request for services.

I think that, while certainly a legitimate possibility, it's a bit of a stretch based on the information we have.  A larger question is whether this accusation might reflect liberal "bigotry" towards the south, and a rural, traditionalist conservative opposition .

I think it diminishes language when we use terms incorrectly, as sort of pummeling devices. Calling this man racist, with no actual evidence of it, certainly is a disservice to actual racists.


There is a lot of snobbery on the left towards rural, or conservative culture. However, this concern is hyper-inflated by the right, and exploited politically. The whole wine and cheese liberal thing. Calling it bigotry is a bit of a stretch. Speaking of diminishment, this is a complicated story that goes back – well, probably since the dawn of civilization, as soon as you had different classes of labor. It’s about philosophy and cosmopolitanism, education and economic structure.

I think a strong case can be made that the confederate flag is an ugly symbol, that gun owners who want zero regulation are irresponsible, that anti-abortion legislation takes away women’s rights, and that a large number of Tea Partiers are racist (all of the birthers might be placed in this category, with emphasis on those speaking on stage). So, some who hold these views may also feel a sort of class bigotry. But how many of them are compelled by their bigotry to hold these beliefs?

The dangerous thing about racism or other prejudice (and I want to say “real bigotry”) is that it drives political beliefs. So if you think homeless people are scum you oppose services to help them. If you think women are inferior to men you oppose giving them equal rights. Or you’re a homophobe, or a racist, etc. These are also historically groups historically discriminated against, and so (and I realize this is a liberal perspective) there is a legacy social order that needs to be pushed against.

I’m trying to think of ways in which liberal bigotry towards rural traditionalism drives political oppression. As a liberal, I think liberal policy goals are actually trying to help any real victims. But often what is perceived as “oppression” (again, talk about language diminishment) is in fact the inconvenience of not being able to be the dominant cultural form. This would be laws against Christianism where you can’t hang crosses in courtrooms, or heterosexism when gay marriage is allowed and antigay discrimination is outlawed. The gun issue seems odd because what most gun control advocates want to regulate is pretty reasonable – with a targeted social outcome. But a certain type of gun enthusiast has invented this big conspiratorial fantasy about needing guns for protection against the government (please), and seems revanchist. I think there is a somewhat principled case against affirmative action, but it is hardly targeted towards any one class of man.

So in all of those examples, bigotry didn’t seem to be driving any of it. It might be an unfortunate response to some of the political objections, but that’s after the fact. Each of those issues originates as a specific policy goal that has nothing to do with bigotry. I can’t think of any class-bigoted liberal that takes a position on anything because of bigotry.

Yet with what I would call real bigotry (at least in the sense that there are actual policy implications), it is the original driver of policy. One’s views of women, minorities and gays are actively shaping their political beliefs. As I argued before, this is often unconscious, but it is no less troubling from a human rights standpoint. This is why I think its important to have the discussion and take possible cases seriously.

The Misinformation Superhighway

John Chait talks about the "conservative feedback loop".  He gives an example of how a misinformation meme can develop and propagate to political ends.  Trying to determine which side of the political spectrum is more willing to rely on misleading rhetoric seems kind of silly.  However it might be interesting to find some structural forces at work.

On the right, talk radio and direct mail have been major actors. On the left, I think you really saw this in the netroots internet phenomenon reacting to Bush.  In both cases, there was a technological process for delivering this sort of "red meat" to a political base, which becomes self-sustaining.  You see this obviously with FOX, and MSNBC trying to do the same on the left.

Then there is the more tricky business of looking at other, more subtle structures.  Demographics might be interesting to explore.  Then there's the philosophy itself - what it means to be a conservative or liberal, and how each might lead one into a willingness to buy into misleading rhetoric.

There seems to be a strong element of personality type that will take a hard - and sloppy - stance no matter what political movement they find themselves in.  Altemeyer and others look at this when they argue for an Authoritarian model of the psyche.  Yet separating out personality from political movement is difficult.

I think though the strongest factor at work might be either side's feeling of struggle, whether revanchist or simple political determination.  Fundamentalist Christians have always couched things in apocalyptic terms.  Marxist revolutionaries have their classless, multicultural, etc. utopia.   Philosophy, whether religious or political, has a very specific role to play and is dependent upon historical variables.  For instance, gay rights is a major motivator for Christian fundamentalists, yet changing social mores have lessened their sense of urgency.  The fall of communism dealt a major blow to Marxist thought, at least for those who would view communism as a viable Marxist enterprise.  Groups are highly affected by current politics.  In the 90's there was mass rebellion against Clinton, in the 00's it was Bush. 

In the end conservatism seems much more confident in its view of itself as a sort of current utopia. If the liberals just went away the perfect order we've achieved would be fully realized.  Thus state of perpetual defensiveness and revanchism seems to exist.  The only thing standing in the way of maximum liberty is big government.  Such a broad claim invites broad rhetoric, opening the door to error.

Progressives have their own peeves with conservatism, but are less defined by it.  Whereas in the past progressives were defined by a dogmatic opposition to business, most have now come to view it as something to embrace, albeit with caution.  There is a structural point of philosophical nuance here that hinders hyperbole, a sure sign of misinformation.