The Great Divide : Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree

The theme of The Great Divide is that the populations of the democratic world, from Boston to Berlin, Vancouver to Venice, are becoming increasingly divided from within, due to a growing ideological incompatibility between modern liberalism and conservatism. This is partly due to a complex mutation in the concept of liberal democracy itself, and the resulting divide is now so wide that those holding to either philosophy on a whole range of topics: on democracy, on reason, on abortion, on human nature, on homosexuality and gay marriage, on freedom, on the role of courts … and much more, can barely speak with each other without outrage (the favorite emotional response from all sides). Clearly, civil conversation at the surface has been failing -- and that could mean democracy is failing.

This book is an effort to deepen the conversation. It is written for the non-specialist, and aims to reveal the less obvious underlying ideological forces and misconceptions that cause the conflict and outrage at the surface -- not with any expectation the clash of values will evaporate, but rather that a deeper understanding will generate a more intelligent and civil conversation.

As an aid to understanding, the book contains a handful of Tables directly comparing modern liberal and conservative views across a range of fundamental moral and political “issues” so that curious readers can answer the book’s main question: “Where Do You Stand?” An interesting result in testing this exercise has been the number of people who find they “think” one way, but “live” another.

William D. Gairdner, PhD, has had a busy life as an athlete, an academic, a businessman, and latterly, as a successful author. He is presently retired and lives near Toronto, Canada.

As a young athlete, Bill competed in the decathlon at the 1963 Pan-Am Games in Brazil (silver medal), and at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 (11th place), and then in two Commonwealth Games in the 400 metre hurdles event (6th place both times)

After earning a number of higher degrees, including a Doctorate in Literature and Philosophy from Stanford University (1970), he taught at York University in Toronto for several years, and then decided to pursue a career in business, from which he retired in 1988 to devote his time to writing.

Beginning in 1990, he produced a string of bestselling books in quick succession, including The Trouble with Canada (# 1 in Canada in 1990), and The War Against The Family. He was then the managing editor of Canada’s Founding Debates - now an historical landmark. On the heels of that he published The Trouble with Democracy, and also The Book of Absolutes. His last book was The Trouble with Canada … Still! – an overview of the regime-change in Canada over the past twenty years that was released in 2010 and sold out in three months.