Another reason Westerners are tempted to compromise is because we tend to view the world dualistically. Things are true or false, right or wrong, good or bad. We have little patience for ambiguity or for the unsettling reality that values change over time.

I know you're on my side," an immunologist once remarked to me as we discussed the politics of vaccination. I did not agree with him, but only because I was uncomfortable with both sides, as I had seen them delineated. The debate over vaccination tends to be described with what the philosopher of science Donna Haraway would call "troubling dualisms." These dualisms pit science against nature, public against private, truth against imagination, self against other, thought against emotion, and man against woman.

It's a theme born out of the Christian faith rather than a pagan understanding of the universe. Both views agree that we human beings are small, frail, and limited in our ability to battle the forces of the world that seek to destroy us.
In response, the pagan worldview says, "We cannot win this on our strength. Therefore, let us go down fighting nobly and die well."
The Christian worldview, on the other hand, says, "We cannot win this on our own strength. Therefore, we must rely on a Power outside of ourselves to win this for us.

Many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview.

Today's media zoom their cameras in on and dedicate endless column inches to wars, disasters, famines, scandals, tragedies, and every form of evil. Things beautiful, wholesome and good, however, are less photogenic, so the works of God and His servants are rarely noticed.

Everyone has some kind of philosophy, some general worldview, which to men of other views will seem mythological.