from Special Correspondent T.S. DeHaviland
It’s no novelty to point out that the Republicans and the Democrats have fundamentally different ideas about human nature. Republicans see people as basically bad: if you give ‘em an inch, they’ll take an ell. If you give them a penny, they’ll beg a pound. To Republicans, a man ain’t nothing but a dog, and both male and female Republicans will use this to excuse all manner of philandering and misbehavior. This is why, in the minds of many Republicans, people need savin’–by divine intervention ideally, but by a bullet to the brain if that’s all you have on hand.
Democrats, by contrast, see people as basically good but prone to corruption, usually through the influence of power. Democrats may very well agree, for instance, that a man ain’t nothing but a dog, but they’d also maintain that we as a society have a responsibility to convince men that they’re all very good dogs, noble defenders of the castle, and deserving of a bone every now and again. Democrats believe that most people want to contribute most of the time, but that not everybody is currently in a position to do so.
When a Democrat reads Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” she feels pity. When a Republican reads it, he thinks that bastard got what he deserved.
This basic difference in how each sees human nature reflects the different attitudes Republicans and Democrats have about power and privilege. The Republicans chalk all good things, whether monetary or spiritual (though they have a hard time seeing the distinction), to right living and/or a saved soul. How else could a creature who is basically corrupt have good things happen to him? It must be that he has either learned to beat the system or God has granted him grace because of his contrition. Power and privilege are therefore divine rewards and those who earn them inherently deserving. This also means that those who are demonstrably sinful but also wildly successful, Bill Clinton comes to mind, must be in league with the devil somehow. It is the only way they understand the fallen and unredeemed can gain power. Whether or not all Republicans believe this to be literally true is questionable, but some do.
But this understanding of human nature also implies that misfortune that befalls the saved is also the work of Satan. From earthquakes to floods to Tom DeLay’s indictment, evil things must be afoot. Likewise, if Muslims are killed by a tsunami, it must be because they have not renounced their heathen apostasy and embraced Christ. Should Tom DeLay go to jail, it must be because he has been attacked by a Satan-worshiping Democrat prosecutor and not because he broke the law–I mean, he is saved after all, and therefore beyond earthly reproach.
Democrats tend to see earthquakes and floods as mere misfortunes and legal trouble in general as a result of some type of wrongdoing as measured by earthly law. They tend not to see these things as cosmic attacks perpetrated by the forces of evil. Democrats see people like DeLay as corrupt because they have power and are tempted by it away from an otherwise honest path. In turn, they see success as a product of luck or skill or merit or inherited privilege, not divine right. It’s not that some on the Left don’t believe in heavenly punishments or rewards–many do; they simply acknowledge that such things are up to God in the hereafter and don’t pertain so much to the here-and-now, where the outcomes are measurable and scientific principles apply.
Without divine justice, the Right would have little idea of why bad things happen at all. This is part of the reason they are relatively quick to embrace social Darwinism and laissez-faire fiscal policies, but they refute evolution in other fields. Business must be let to act on its own to sort out who gets the rewards God has to bestow; the divine order must remain intact to do the handing out. Those who seek to exercise their greed in the marketplace are simply acting on basic human impulse; whether or not they succeed is up to God.
Liberals, of course, take a different view, seeing the marketplace itself as a human construction and acquisitiveness a product of that marketplace. Liberals tend to see the creation and exchange of goods as extensions of material needs, extensions that may lead to power differentials and therefore to corruption and a breakdown of our innate sense of justice. This is why few of us on the Left worry all that much about regulating business: it represents a possible threat to a human dignity and goodness we see as inhering to each, as a birthright.
I’ve wildly oversimplified the issues here, but every time I hear a politician propose a plan to fix Social Security or help Americans with healthcare or end crime, I ask myself just what that proposal implies about human nature and whether or not I could live in a world where those assumptions are true.