A chara, – Brian O’Brien (“Ideological polarisation and health advice”, Letters, May 12th) gives a classic but outdated definition of conservative politics. This definition is narrow and ignores the conservative focus on individualism at the expense of society. Margaret Thatcher in an interview with Woman’s Own in 1987 stated that “there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.” This is more reflective of the dominant neo-liberal philosophy of the right whereby individualism is key and free markets are there to support the route to individual prosperity through the pursuit of self-interest. The focus on the state is to both minimise its size and impact on the markets and individual rights.
From a left-wing perspective, the statement that left-wing ideologists “embraced free living, risk-taking behaviour and hippy lifestyles” has little to do with political philosophy and refers to events that occurred over 50 years ago. Again I think it is more useful to consider society’s place from a left-wing perspective. The left believes in equality and therefore an enhanced role for the state in terms of supporting the most vulnerable in society. They reject the rights views on “trickle-down” economics and point to the record levels of inequality in the major developed economies, including Ireland. The government’s role is to support all members of society, especially the most vulnerable. Income redistribution through taxation and welfare payments, anathema to the right, is the main mechanism to achieve this. Using the prism of individual rights versus societal preference explains the different attitudes to the adherence to Covid policies and the consequent restrictions and vaccinations in some of the more divided societies such as the UK and the US. But it is also relevant when looking at other countries such as Ireland, where we tend to vote for the centre or the left and this helps explain the high level of public support for the government’s response to Covid. – Is mise,
DERMOT HARDY,
Dublin 18.