It's easy to speculate on the reasons for the passionate political debates that occur here, where normally intelligent and sociable people engage in vitriolic and vicious attacks on their ideological opposites. Our world is defined by economic and commercial relationships and dominated by the merchant and business class, just as the middle ages was characterized by religious issues and personalities. Those individuals of the Left, who never felt comfortable or at home in this world, resent this and are in constant conflict with it; they blame the commercial ethos and its champions for subordination of those characteristics they feel define them as artists, philosophers, scientists, and humanists. In essence, they are the true Conservatives because they seek a world that is no more, perhaps never was. The Right, on the other hand, have embraced this ethos, but still find themselves grinding their lives away as petty businessmen or mere employees and they must find someone to blame for their inability to self-actualize themselves and succeed in the very milieu they have chosen as the optimum one for themselves. In a way they are the true Liberals, because they seek a world that is not, and will never be. The passions are so great because both sides blame the other as the reason for their own personal failures.

Listen to them carefully, the Left accuses the Right of running the world for its own benefit and obstructing all progress. The truth is that the Left depends on the crumbs left over at the table and they have no say in what's on the menu. The Right complains that if only they were left alone and allowed to work without obstruction everything would fall into place and everyone would be happy. The truth is that they're washing dishes and bussing tables and no one is serving them dessert.