Liberals Versus Conservatives, Materialism vs Godliness

People who know me well will probably never refer to me as a conservative although I may be notoriously referred to as one in some circles, especially to those on Twitter. I would like to think of myself as a pragmatic person, in deference to both liberal and conservative labels that people, myself included,  so easily use nowadays. 

Let us begin with some basic definition before we proceed further. In easier terms, liberals generally are those who want to change the status quo and conservatives are those who want things to remain the same.  

In the whole context of this , it is also a reflection of right wing and left wing, the duality of man where one can choose between two. Surah Al-Balad(البلد) 90:10 and shown them the two ways ˹of right and wrong˺? 

Jonathan Haidt, a University of Virginia psychology professor, has examined the values of liberals and conservatives through paired moral attributes: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity. He outlines the psychological differences in his TED talk.

Conservative students at that time were more likely to describe themselves as "responsible," "organized," "successful," and "ambitious," while liberal students might describe themselves as "loving," "tender," or "mellow." Conservatives self-report more parochialism in that they tend to expend their empathy toward more well-defined, closed social circles like the family whereas liberals self-report more universalism in that they expend their empathy toward more permeable, broader social circles, like the world as a whole.

People embrace political conservatism (at least in part) because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety, and uncertainty; to avoid change, disruption, and ambiguity; and to explain, order, and justify inequality among groups and individuals

It is something of a weird occurrence when I come to think of this. Once, during the Prophet’s time, the liberals were those who fought for the change in society that puts faith in God as the prime change in society where the conservatives were those without God and now it is the other way round. That is perhaps how the world work, maybe as nothing stays the same and like the circular shape of most things in the Universe, the Earth, the Sun, the moon, the human eyeballs, the ovum as well as the greatest invention of man, the wheel, everything revolves and what goes up comes down and then up again in a perpetual cycle.

Nothing much to do with this but there is this theory, the bicameral mind that posits humans were previously using the right brain more than the left brain where humans act according to voices that they hear in their mind and according to this theory, the human mind evolve as the left, more analytical mind takes over. Perhaps what we are seeing now is the mind evolving for both right and left mind to somehow work together.

Now, I am mostly a liberal in the sense that I want things to change. Anybody would, I believe, look at how things are. This, I am sure. However, this is where it might differ from one person to another. A typical liberal would want a change towards a more free world with less rules and social order while a typical conservative would want the opposite. I would want something in the middle. I would like things to change but there are things that I have to stand ground and vehemently defend such as my position on race and religion. I do believe in individual liberty as well of collective responsibility of which to be helpful to those who are in need. 

Consensus opinion suggests that the philosophies of individualism and liberalism that opened the path to modernity in the West are Western in origin, and that conservatives or people of faith, especially Islam, opposes and rejects this but I am very certain this is not the case. This is the propaganda that is fed to the general public about Islam. 

This is where I, myself too, was mistaken to believe that merely by scratching the surface of Islam and not deeper diving, embracing and freeing myself from dogmas of modern living to have a complete feel of Islam. Thus, I am thankful for the pandemic which gave me the time to rediscover myself and the opportunity to see things that can’t be seen, only felt.

In my personal understanding, Islam not only wants ultimate freedom of the individual from any order that is not from God, but also from control by the state. Islam emphasizes the role and responsibility of the individual and freedom of faith is a fundamental principle.

Liberalism is a form of political organization that is militantly secular and incapable, by definition, of seeing the strong claim of religion – the claim to be in possession of a truth all should acknowledge – as anything but an expression of unreasonableness and irrationality. To intellectual and clever liberal, religions are the home of “extremists … fascists … enemies of the public good … authoritarian despots and so forth.” This is why extreme liberalism is commonly tied to the Neo Marxism belief system, made famous by Karl Marx’s quote “religion is opium for the masses”, a very condescending view of religion, where many liberals would not dare say they oppose religion but instead they eviscerate it. What I mean by eviscerate it, is that they disembowel the true meaning of religion, the beauty, the benefit and the form and function of it. reducing it to merely the negative connotations that has been played from those who did not experience it and are totally against it.

Liberals who espouse supporting freedom thus cannot hold on to any one belief system but rather a set of loose ideas on what they oppose. In short they know what they don’t want but they don’t know what they want. This is why we see a lot of “cancel culture” that happens with liberal people. When faced with another idea that is different from theirs, liberals tend to strongly object and will vehemently go against them. They will hunt it down and erase it because they cannot even tolerate any ideas different from theirs because they don’t actually have any. That’s why they prefer to be around only themselves. 

And many of the ideas of the liberals are merely ideas that have not been tested or implemented, some even against the nature of humans. But I will elaborate this next time. Conservatives on the hand are grounded knowing that they have their own set of belief systems and that there also exist other belief systems but that doesn’t really matter because they are grounded to one and the rest are just what other people hold onto. It’s normal to have differences, to conservatives. A paradox, I would say, considering that liberals are fascist when it comes to different schools of thoughts. Fascist in the sense that there is no possibility of coexisting with other kind of thoughts and ideas and the total obliteration of any that is visible, in the literal sense.

Religion, or in my case, Islam provides a great anchoring point of identity to the self, when faced with the dislocating trauma of modernity and globalization. Religion helps in creating an ethical framework and also a regulator for values in day to day life. This particular approach helps in character building of a person. In other words, Religion acts as an agency of socialization. Thus, religion helps in building values like love, empathy, respect, and harmony.

Religion explains individual suffering, it assures a greater reward in the afterlife to worldly failures than to successful life.Religion gives you a purpose to live for and for some people, it is to spread the word of God or others it’s to eradicate the evil from the world through their actions. Religious teachings set a very good ground for counseling and giving people hope during hard times like what we are now in. 

But liberals don’t see all this. Well, these things are not seen, to begin with but then again what a waste of life to only consider the things of the material world when there are so many amazing universes of the unseen that makes life meaningful, wonderful and keep us anchored with humility that we don’t know everything, after all.