Conservatism, creativity and social change: David Loye's dialogical perspective

David Loye's work has consistently shown a fascination with dualities and dyads. He has addressed race relations, left and right cerebral hemispheres, and the political left and right, among others. In this essay I point to the way in which Loye's work has reconceptualized the traditional political relationship between “left” and “right,” through the development of the terms norm‐changing and norm‐maintaining, and relate this to differentiation between dominator and partnership forms of organization and relation. I then propose a quadrant model of four types: dominator norm‐changers and norm‐maintainers, and partnership norm‐changers and norm‐maintainers.

Keywords:

• conservative
• creativity
• dominator
• liberal
• moral sensitivity
• partnership
• political psychology