I've noticed certain perspectives common to certain causes in politics. Sometimes I suspect that the perspective underlies the cause, other times that the perspective is actually a result of the cause, though I'm often not sure. Often, the differences in perspectives cause people to talk past each other, not realizing that there's an issue of basic assumptions being missed.
Perhaps an example is in order.
It seems that if I talk to someone in the liberal camp on issues of race, I'm sure to hear something about "privilege." If I talk to someone in the conservative camp, I won't, but I might hear accusations that a particular attitude is racist. The liberal will assert that there's no such thing as reverse racism, which might upset the conservative. But here they are talking past one another.
To the liberal, what matters about racism is the idea of privilege, that external factors from society give one group an advantage over another. High violent crime rates, poverty, and broken families can all work against particular groups. These, along with biases (and, indeed, the statistical facts of high rates of violent crime and single-parent households can lead to negative stereotypes even if such biases wouldn't otherwise exist), particularly hurt blacks in the United States. If you really push, you can even get conservative blowhards like Bill O'Reilly to admit that these external realities are a factor working against blacks. If you are conservative, it is in this context that you have to understand a lot of liberal positions related to race. For a liberal, there can't be such a thing as reverse racism because racism means not being a part of the privileged class ("privilege" can be understood as not having these external factors working against you) because of race. This perspective understands society as broken down into different groups, and you have to admit, there is some truth in it: blacks have, at a bare minimum, a higher probability of having more external factors to overcome than whites do. Liberals prioritize this idea of privilege, saying that we need to work to break down the divides between these different groups and classes by breaking down the differences in privilege.
The conservative perspective is simply different on this issue. To the conservative, racism is primarily an individual thing: it is about the biases of individuals and about seeing people differently based on race. To the conservative, making a distinction between people based solely on race is what makes a policy or a person racist. The conservative is likely to call things like affirmative action racist because he or she sees it as making a distinction between people based solely on race. The conservative believes that the path to overcoming racism is for individuals to be virtuous and to see one another first as fellow children of God (or, if you like, as fellow humans). He or she also believes that each individual can carve his or her own path, that one is not bound to one's class by some overpowering fate. To the conservative, privilege is a myth, not because they don't agree that external factors can matter, but because it isn't an overpowering fate. Beside that, they see efforts to deal with privilege as problematic because they require us to legally see race as making a difference, which is what they fundamentally see as making racism. Their perspective understands society as composed of individuals and families, and you have to admit, there is some truth in it: the prosperity of individuals makes up the prosperity of society, the virtue of individuals makes up the virtue of society, and the biases of individuals make up the biases of society. Conservatives prioritize this idea of individual prosperity, virtue, and bias, saying that we need to break down the divides between individuals by helping every person to have a better opportunity to prosper, teach each person to be more virtuous, and help each person break down his or her biases.
Of course, conservatives and liberals aren't monolithic, so there will be variations here. But the fundamental point is to see that there is something underlying others' views. This extends beyond the particular issue of race. There is a perspective, and it has truth, rationality, and meaning. Political opponents aren't simply motivated by hate or power or racism, their perspective isn't fundamentally bigotry or a demand for sameness. At bottom, there are good intentions in most policy positions, and while you may dispute the wisdom of the position (good intentions don't imply good policy), be slow to spread invective, quick to seek out the truth in political opponents' perspectives, and prepared to incorporate the good their perspective affords and to compromise.
