I’m Right & You’re Wrong — The Eternal Battle Between The Left & The Right

Who’s right, who’s wrong?

Political ideological conflict will always occur between the right and left. It’s like one long, never-ending battle of conflicting views, perspectives and priorities. That is exactly how it should be. We need conflict, discussion and debate to keep the wheels churning forward in our democratic societies.

From a psychological perspective, political ideology and personality are correlated. The big 5 personality model is a good predictor of political ideology. People high in trait openness and low in conscientiousness are the creative types — the artists and entrepreneurs. People low in openness and high in conscientiousness are the conservative types — the administrators and managers.

Society functions well when these types are in good balance with one another. There’s no point in having too many liberals without enough conservatives because we will come up with some brilliant and progressive ideas, but no one will be around to execute these ideas.

Conservatives are great planners and they can execute on things better than most liberals. Conservatives score high in conscientiousness, which is broken down into two sub-traits; industriousness and orderliness. People high in conscientiousness like order, routine and predictability. Conservatives make good managers, lawyers and accountants. The downside to having too many conservatives is, structures can become rigid and stagnant. Conservatives are more averse to change than their Liberal counterparts. That’s where the liberals come in.

Liberals are open, creative and they pursue change. Silicon Valley is predominantly a liberal area, and perhaps it’s because that region is a hub for creative and entrepreneurial pursuits. Creatives are good at coming up with new ways of looking at things. Open people can come across as rebellious and contrarian. They are always looking for new ways to do things. On an individual level, an open type is usually full of new ideas relating to personal life or career. They make good entrepreneurs because they know how to steer the ship with their big picture way of thinking.

On a sociological level, the right maintain order in our society. They are fiscally motivated, so they are good at keeping our economy churning. The left creates chaos, in the sense that they disrupt the order. We need to disrupt the status quo because that’s how we make progress as a society. The left is socially motivated, as opposed to the fiscally motivated counterparts on the right.

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

The simple answer is — it all depends on the context of any given situation at any given point in time.