While perusing a few articles over the weekend and listening to a nearly three hour dissertation on John Locke's Two Treatise on Civil Government during my five hour drive, something occurred to me. It was the question of how people arrive at the political opinions. In my mental exercise, I have developed a theory. People form their political ideals two ways, ideologically or situationally. These two methods stretch beyond the realms of intelligence and culture. So, let's examine each.
The person that uses ideology to arrive at a political opinion, looks at the issue and filters it through their ideology. Most people's ideology is a series of strict and ordered personal "rules" of society and government. If the issue flows through those filters and arrives at the other end relatively in tact, they can support it. If it arrives "broken and sliced apart" by the blades and teeth of their ideology, they tend to oppose the issue.
So, how do "Ideologists" form their ideologies? These are developed in many different manners. Studying political theory, the media, their religious doctrine, their culture and peers. All of these things work to form an ideology. Some ideologies are classical political thought and theories...others are prejudiced and narrow. All have one thing in common. The owner of the "ideology" has developed some rules, in which they are comfortable, to apply the political ideas and agendas that they are presented.
The "Situationist" (for lack of a better word) is generally a "fix it now" person. They don't view political issues as potential "laws" or "regulations", instead they are viewed as problems to be solved. They look through the solution and if it seems reasonable, executable and solves the problem, they are generally in support. If the solution is restrictive, unreasonable and doesn't truly address the problem, they are not in support.
"Situationist" develop their ideals similarly to ideologists except that they tend to live in the moment, are very concerned about the immediate pressing issues and a resolution for the good of society. They tend to not get involved in the details as much as the solving of societies problems on the large scale. They tend to have legitimate concern for their fellow citizen but also are short sighted to the long implications of the policies they support.
These two methods of arriving at a political opinion both have value but it does seem to blur the lines of "conservative" and "liberal". In conversations with people that I assume I have similar beliefs, I find myself on the opposite side of an argument. It's not always because of us being either conservative or liberal, it's the manner in which we have viewed and interpreted the issue.
