[cam_l]

You have touched on what i think is the critical underlying difference between Left and Right thinking.

Systemic responsibility vs personal responsibility.

The thing is, they are not mutually exclusive. They are more like two sides of the same coin. And while those two sides may not be exactly equal, most arguments between the sides seem to centre on the disjunct between these two ways of thinking.

If you can acknowledge, but frame the very real issue of personal responsibility within the context of a system, we may find it easier to bridge this divide.

For example, judge the responsibility of three hypothetical people with a sweet tooth.

1. Tries to eat healthy, but goes out to buy a cake every day.

2. Tries to eat healthy, but friend brings around cake every day to tempt.

3. Tries to eat healthy, but friend brings around cake everyday, and empties pantry of all other healthy food.

Most people will waver on 2. or 3. But depending on where you live, 3. may well be the closest to reality.

[nosianu]

That is not a difference of politics but of what you are looking at. If the subject is public health policy you look at statistics and the big picture. If you look at one particular patient you don't. Same here: If the subject is the fate of one person and one person only (meaning that person isn't a "Fake" stand-in example and the subject really is the big picture) then you can and should talk about that person's behavior. If the subject is the big picture that's useless because you can't change people and you should make policies that work and don't demand a huge genetic change. Same in crime: Individuals are and should be held accountable, but public policy should not and does not rely on people to change but sets the framework.

So, no contradiction necessary. The exact same person can have both views - depending on what the subject is. However, lots of discussions and comments focus on individuals (even if no concrete one is chosen) when the subject is the big picture.

I think so-called conservatives and progressives would find that they are not actually all that far apart at all if they really looked at individual cases. It must be true individual cases - people tend to extrapolate and still think about the population (coming up with things like "slippery slope" arguments, or giving small criminals huge sentences to "send a signal").

[cam_l]

Fully agree, but i think the crux is you cannot have an individual without a system.

Which i think the Right don't really understand. And of course the left speak as if the individual is theoretical when looking at the system.