From the Archives - Trans vs. bi: Michael Ostrolenk explains the difference between 'transpartisan' and 'bipartisan'

Trans vs. bi: Michael Ostrolenk explains the difference between 'transpartisan' and 'bipartisan'
July 15, 2010 12:16 AM MST

For the past several weeks, the Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute has been hosting a summer speakers series featuring experts on a wide range of policy issues, mostly but not entirely related to the organization’s core mission of protecting basic civil liberties.

Last Friday, July 9, Rutherford's afternoon speaker was Michael Ostrolenk, chief executive officer of the Transpartisan Center. A psychotherapist with extensive experience in political organizing and policy analysis, Ostrolenk is also affiliated with the Medical Privacy Coalition, the Liberty Coalition, and the American Conservative Defense Alliance, among other organizations.

In his talk, and later in an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Ostrolenk explained the meaning of “transpartisan.”

“The transpartisan imperative in American life and the necessity of it,” he said, must be seen from “four different perspectives: that we need transpartisan policies; transpartisan activities based on principles; transpartisan processes (in order to take decisions on our behalf); [and] a transpartisan analysis of the social and economic system” in which “we’re now living.”

‘Trans’ vs. ‘Bi’
He offered a distinction between “transpartisan” and the more familiar term, “bipartisan.”

“Trans,” he said, “means to transcend through and beyond the partisan.”

What differentiates that from bipartisan, he went on, is that with bipartisan, “you think of a pie and you split it half/half.”

With bipartisan, “you have the so-called left, the so-called right, the Republicans and Democrats, and then they split the difference. In that, you only have two voices; that’s why you have the ‘bi.’”

Explaining further, Ostrolenk said that “the transpartisan is a recognition that there are multiple different voices, perspectives, and worldviews operating in the world that we live in, especially here in the United States.”

That means that, “if you really want to be transpartisan, you have to listen to and integrate into your discussion all the different voices to have a bigger picture and understanding of what’s actually happening in the world, in people’s lives and community lives in the United States and the world in general.”

In contrast with bipartisan, with transpartisan, Ostrolenk continued, “you’re not splitting the difference, you’re just listening to all of the other voices and you’re trying to figure out how to integrate the different voices together, to both create a larger map of social and political reality and a way of operating inside of that map to effect positive and sustainable change in the political system.”

That sounds like a mouthful, but it really comes down to bringing people together who disagree on some issues in order to find how they might have common ground on other issues.

Practical Initiatives
Ostrolenk gave two examples of practical initiatives that the Transpartisan Center has pursued.

One, he said, “is Audit the Fed, as a project of the Campaign for Liberty. I’ve helped create a coalition, left and right, conservatives, libertarians, progressives, and liberals in support of an audit” of the Federal Reserve, with 331 cosponsors of legislation in the House of Representatives.

Another example he gave is the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran, "which was a left-right effort that emerged about three years ago, [which] had liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and progressives coming together, recognizing that war with Iran would be majorly problematic for the United States.”

When people ask about that, “Have you guys been successful?” Ostrolenk wryly replies, “Well, we haven’t attacked Iran yet.”

The Rutherford Institute has five more speakers scheduled between now and July 26. More information can be found on the Institute’s web site.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 15, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Talking about 'liberaltarianism' at the University of Virginia

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 16, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Talking about 'liberaltarianism' at the University of Virginia
April 16, 2010 11:23 PM MST

On April 15, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from two universities and a Washington think tank participated in a panel discussion at the University of Virginia on the topic, “Libertarianism: Left or Right?” The panel was organized by Jennifer Burns, an assistant professor of history at UVA, who explained how it came about to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner.

“I met Brink Lindsey in the course of doing an event at [the Cato Institute] on my book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. I had read his article about “liberaltarianism,” proposing an alliance between liberals and libertarians. I thought it was really interesting, a really creative new way to think about politics in the 21st century.”

Lindsey, vice president of research at Cato, had “brought a liberaltarianism discussion to several universities,” Burns said, including Princeton and Stanford, and he “asked if I wanted to do it down at the University of Virginia. So I put together some folks who are interested in engaging these questions.”

The eventual panel was made up of Lindsey and a colleague from Cato, Will Wilkinson, as well as Gerard Alexander and Colin Bird, both associate professors in the UVA Department of Politics; political scientist Steven Teles from Johns Hopkins; Sahar Akhtar, assistant professor of philosophy at UVA; and Burns.

There were some distinguished names in the audience, as well, including UVA English professor Paul Cantor, UVA psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, and UVA philosophy professor Loren Lomasky.

After the free-wheeling panel discussion ended, Lindsey explained the basis of his argument, which was first published in an article in The New Republic called “Liberaltarians” on December 4, 2006:

There is, he said, a “need to rethink the historical alliance between libertarians and social conservatives, that that alliance was born out of unique historical circumstances, specifically, the challenge of socialism at home and totalitarian socialism abroad. That’s gone now. There’s a lot of ideological flux on the right. It’s an appropriate time for libertarians to see the possibilities of engaging people on the left side of the political spectrum.”

Asked why there is an organized libertarian caucus within the Republican Party but no equivalent in the Democratic Party, Lindsey replied:

“Who knows? One reason is that libertarians have not made an effort to present libertarian policy ideas in a way that is calculated in any way to be congenial to the way liberals think.”

He added, “Whether they think of themselves that way or not, libertarians have been part of a right coalition. They have framed their arguments in conservative terms, in terms of preserving the heritage of American liberty and venerating the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, rather than in presenting their case in terms that might find a more receptive audience on the left.”

One of Lindsey’s respondents on the panel, Gerard Alexander of UVA, set out his own point of view of “liberaltarianism” as one that understands “that where libertarians ally themselves is a historically contingent thing. I don’t believe that conditions justify them allying more with people to their left than their right. I think the basic conditions that obtained 40 or 50 years ago still obtain.

“Therefore,” he concluded, “the most logical alliance, however imperfect, for libertarians in modern America is still with people who call themselves conservatives.”