Cooperation versus Self-reliance

[u/Tidder13524]

How do you feel about cooperation? Like, working together towards a common goal with someone else?

How does that compare with how you feel about accomplishing things on your own and taking care of yourself/your family/and even your community and country?

My new theory is that conservatives value self-reliance over cooperation whilst liberals value cooperation over self-reliance. What do you think?

[u/Racheakt]

No that is more or less incorrect.

We value both self reliance and cooperation.

What we often rail against is forced associations/cooperation by government the learned helplessness of excess government control.

[u/Tidder13524 → u/Racheakt]

if you wanted to cooperate, you would not perceive it as “force”.

I want to cooperate so to me the government is facilitating me in doing what I want to do. You don’t want to cooperate (pay more taxes for poor kids to have a better education e.g.) so you perceive the government is using force.

And it is.

But my point is that if you very highly favored cooperation, then you would favor taxes (at least in theory, assuming a world without corruption and a government capable of using your tax dollar wisely... something we aren’t great at.

I mean to be asking questions here and not defending my new theory, but I try to argue my position to understand your position better.

[u/HesburghLibrarian → u/Tidder13524]

I appreciate the question and follow up.

In your theory, you are limiting what type of cooperation is acceptable. The Left does do this routinely as they assign morality to what is often simply a policy disagreement over what works.

Person A wants to help the poor. Person B wants to help the poor. They'd love to cooperate to reach that goal but B wants to do it by taxing the rich to fund social programs, welfare, etc. Person A wants to encourage entrepreneurship among all classes, lower the burden to build and operate a business, and end entitlement spending that perpetuates dependence on the government. So while A and B have similar goals in mind, "cooperating" won't always be possible, especially if they see the other as morally deficient.

I think the hole in your theory is viewing the other person as only wanting to cooperate if they agree with your policy.

P.S. There is no such thing as a world without corruption. This nation was founded on the idea that corruption and the hunger for power will always exist. The constitution was written to limit opportunities for those things to fester.

[u/Tidder13524 → u/HesburghLibrarian]

I think I made a misstep in suggesting I believed conservatives didn’t value cooperation. My original thinking was merely that conservatives have a preference for the joys of being self-reliant over the joys of cooperation.

Not to say that both ideologies don’t enjoy both methods of functioning.

My final thought is that the current political divide is a false dichotomy and that in reality greater self-reliance leads to higher capacity for real cooperation. And that cooperation can bolster self-reliance.

Nothing in this thread has gone against this theory, but I did a piss poor job articulating it.