In addition to these changing asymmetric relationships between the two visions, there is an enduring asymmetric relationship based on how they see each other as adversaries. Each must regard the other as mistaken, but the reasons for the "mistake" are different. In the unconstrained vision, in which man can master social complexities sufficiently to apply directly the logic and morality of the common good, the presence of highly educated and intelligent people diametrically opposed to policies aimed at that common good is either an intellectual puzzle or a moral outrage, or both. Implications [sic; should be "imputations"] of bad faith, venality, or other moral or intellectual deficiencies have been much more common in the unconstrained vision's criticisms of the constrained vision than vice versa.
In the constrained vision, where the individual's capacity for direct social decision-making is quite limited, it is far less surprising that those who attempt it should fail—and therefore far less necessary to regard the "mistaken" adversary as having less morality or intelligence than others. Those with the constrained vision tend to refer to their adversaries as well-meaning but mistaken, or unrealistic in their assumptions, with seldom a suggestion that they are deliberately opposing the common good or are too stupid to recognize it.
(Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles [New York: Basic Books, 2002], 248-9)
Note from KBJ: The constrained vision corresponds to conservatism. The unconstrained vision corresponds to progressivism.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 