TO A BROAD FIRST APPROXIMATION, PERHAPS.

Former legislator, aide "to three unindicted governors," and political science professor Jim Nowlan offers to distinguish political conservatives from liberals.  "As shorthand, I have told my college students over the years that conservatives tend to see the world as it is, while liberals see the world as they wish it to be."  That might be Thomas Sowell's conflicting visions (tragic, as opposed to anointed).  Or not.  "These perspectives tend to drive their respective operating philosophies. That is, conservatives see strong value in tradition, and resist change, at least until persuaded that such is absolutely necessary to preserve order and stability. In contrast, liberals are more open to change, to achieve what they see as social and economic justice for all."  There is a major subtlety there, in that people who might agree on an outcome being desirable also disagree on the means for getting there.  It's a lot easier to draw the world you'd like to see on a chalkboard than it is to implement it, for one.  Whether the intentions yielded the results, or whether something else was at work, also matters.  Moreover,  it's not surprising that he's grappling with a distinction between intellectual and practical conservatives: in a time when coalitions are fracturing, so things go, and it's likely that a person with similar experience but with unindicted Democrat governors might see something similar in the tussle between Great Society and Great Helmsman Democrats.