Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWookie
Conservatives care about the average. Conservatives, by getting richer themselves, are raising the average, ergo the poor are better off. Liberals care about the median and the minimum.
Can't tell if sarcastic or not, but this is all almost entirely wrong.
It comes down to conservatives thinking that people's results in life are most directly related to their own actions, and liberals think that people's results in life are most directly related to others actions. I think this drives a lot of it.
Conservatives don't care about the poor because the poor are that way because they can't properly do things on their own (and they could!), whereas liberals tend to think that most poor people are there for situations out of their control and have a nearly impossible climb to get out of such a situation.
Of course, liberals are also much more empathetic than conservatives too. Liberals appreciate individuality more and conservatives value conformity.
Trying to think what the other major values differences were as well.
Libertarians are interesting in that they share some values conservatives have and some liberals have (and are more extreme than both in other cases). Conformity is even less valued among libertarians than liberals, and empathy was even lower than conservatives.
The more interesting question is where these values come from. Those who have an easier life are going to fall into two buckets, those that think they had it easier, or those that think they are there because of their own hard work and can't relate to people who had a harder life growing up.