An isomorphism is a mapping between two sets of objects which preserves functional relationships between those objects. An example from Wikipedia is two different types of decks of cards. One deck contains the traditional suits: Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades. The other deck contains Stars, Squares, Circles, and Triangles. Clearly, the two decks are not exactly the same, but they ‘work the same way’ – games played on one deck will work just the same as games played on another deck. (Mathematicians love isomorphisms, but that is a subject for another blog post.)
Let’s consider two seemingly unrelated phenomena – Terrorism and Global Warming. Conservatives believe that terrorism is the biggest threat facing humanity today. If we do not take drastic action, they warn, we face dire consequences involving millions of deaths. Conservatives either don’t believe that global warming is happening, or that it is happening but it has been drastically overblown as a threat. In any case, they argue, the proposed fixes for global warming such as the Kyoto treaty would do far more to hurt the country than to help it.
Liberals believe that global warming is the biggest threat facing humanity today. If we do not take drastic action, they warn, we face dire consequences involving millions of deaths. They tend to believe that terrorism is overblown as a threat, and that measures taken to prevent terrorism, such as the USA PATRIOT act, are far more of a threat to the country than terrorism itself.
A perfect isomorphism, if ever there were one. What’s interesting about this one is that it sheds light on inherent differences between conservatives and liberals. The liberal ‘bogeyman’ of global warming is propped up by the liberal god of science. Anyone who claims to fully understand global warming had better have graduate level studies in physics and climatology. If they don’t, they’re simply trusting in what they are told ‘the scientists’ have come to conclude. (Never mind that prominent scientists disagree with the mainstream conclusion about global warming.) To question the idea that global warming is the biggest danger humankind faces is heresy.
To liberals, the ‘bad guys’ in the global warming story are the developed nations, specifically the Big Corporations ® like ExxonMobil who are producing all of the pollution, and the conservative politicians who enable them to get away with it. The case of global warming illustrates the common tendency of liberals to blame two groups for practically all problems in the world: conservatives and capitalists.
The conservative bogeyman of terrorism is based largely upon recently historical events and a strong imagination. It’s harder for me to write about this side of the issue because, although I think it’s very inflated, I do think terrorism, unlike global warming, is a serious threat facing the civilized world. Still, the attitudes of conservatives towards terrorism are very enlightening in terms of the differences between liberals and conservatives. To liberals, it is quite clear why the terrorists are after us – it’s because we’ve done something bad to them with our foreign policy, and they’re angry at us because of it. Once we fix our problems, the thinking goes, they’ll leave us alone.
Conservatives see the issue as a simpler case of good verses evil. They’re after us because they’re primitive savages, and that’s what primitive savages do. The conservative way of looking at things is almost ludicrously simple. Personally, I think it’s the most accurate – if you think you can reason with someone who wants to cut your head off, you’re probably making a mistake. Conservatives don’t blame liberals for terrorism, but they do think of liberals as aiding and abetting the terrorists. This attitude is almost certainly an offshoot of the simplistic “us verses them” attitude that so many conservatives take. Of course, it has the effective of making liberals angry and unlikely to consider further argument, reinforcing the beliefs of the conservatives.
The great problem in all of this is that very few people have a truly open mind. Global Warming threats are so absurdly exaggerated that conservatives tend to ignore perfectly reasonable proposals that would greatly improve the environment. Conservatives are so quick to question someone’s patriotism that they prevent anyone who disagrees with them from seriously considering their arguments. As a result, most, if not all of the people I’ve met are solidly convinced that one is a real threat and the other is a bogey man.
I don’t think we should be dumping garbage into the air and water that sustain us, but I think most of the measures that have been proposed, such as the Kyoto treaty, are ham-handed and would cause far more damage than they would prevent. I think that terrorism is a problem facing the western world, but that we can deal with the problem without passing bloated pieces of legislation of questionable constitutionality and utility. Unfortunately, I feel like I’m one of very few people who think this way.