yeah, I read that, what dreck. They could have just as easily slanted the "results" to read positively for the conservatives and negatively for the liberals. Lame.
I visited Marriah's website and started to read "Explaining Bush Hatred" but could only manage a few paragraphs. He started out with completely unsupported assumptions about conservatives and liberals. He then went on to "prove" hatred of Bush was justified.
I would normally give him a conditional pass for being unfamiliar with the scientific method and some other sort of understandable ignorance. But he also claims he is a scientist. So now I am inclined to believe he is just nuts.
>>"First and foremost, I am a philosopher. This means that, at heart, I am a scientist, and I wish to know truth. "
Empiricist or p-idealist? You decide.
This "empirical scientific method" of which you speak. I do not think it means what you think it means. ;)
---------------
>>""The difference between the scientist and the engineer is that the former seeks what is True, the latter what is Good." - John Horgan, The End of science. My first aim is to know the Truth about how humans behave: I want science to elucidate our subjective experiences. Once I know the Truth, I aim to engineer myself and my environment to produce that which is Good."
God help us.
Few good things ever happen when philosophers get into the "social engineering" biz.
"A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
"As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction."
The problem that I have with this study is that if it is true that they have found that liberals brains work differently than conservatives, how long do we suppose it will be before they come up with a drug that makes us all the same? Scary...
Kevin, if I had a dollar for every time I read some conservative saying that liberalism is mental disorder, I'd be at least $50 richer.
That being said, I think the results of this study are fairly uncontroversial, and there is no reason to believe that one way of thinking is better than the other in a general sense—one is probably better in some situations, and the other is better in other situations.
Ah yes, Guav, but here they're doing the defining under the guise of "science", claiming an authority they really don't have. When Conservatives do it, it's usually just bitching and grumbling. I've yet to see the scientific study claiming liberals are a bunch of bed-wetting pansies.
As for the neuro study, (accepting the root findings as legit for the sake of argument) the conclusions reached aren't supported by the data.
They do OK right up until the "and therefore, conservatives are more more rigid and less able to adapt than liberals"
While the data might support the meaning they assert, it could mean any of a dozen other things, or nothing at all.
It's equivalent to finding a time travel video snippet of an historical Jesus saying "Look at the lillies of the valley" in Aramaic, and using this as a basis to conclude that the rest of the new testament is verbatim truth, as is the {select a sect}'s interpretation of it.
But Kevin S, they haven't declared conservatism a mental disorder under the guise of science—they haven't declared conservatism a mental disorder at all. You said "I wonder when they're gonna ..." They haven't.
But apparently when conservatives declare liberalism a mental disorder it's ok because, you know, "they're just grumbling" or whatever.
I have a better idea. How about it's not OK for either side to declare thye other side mentally defective, whether grumbling or not?
(Liberals are a bunch of bed-wetting pansies, for the record :)
geekWithA.45:
They do OK right up until the "and therefore, conservatives are more more rigid and less able to adapt than liberals"
But there's nothing inherently bad about that, and it's not really all that surprising, given that one of the fundamental aspects of conservatism is a resistance to change (which once again, is not inherently wrong or bad by any means). I don't know that it particularly matters whether conservatives are less ABLE to change or merely less WILLING to change, there are certainly benefits to it.
But there's nothing inherently bad about that, and it's not really all that surprising, given that one of the fundamental aspects of conservatism is a resistance to change
That wasn't Geek's point, his point was that the "science" was so slim as to merit the scare quotes I just slapped around it. There's nothing in one's speed in recognizing a letter that should have any broad predictive power in an individual's ability to adapt to "change". There MIGHT be a correlation- after you account for other variables. For example, I dread posting comments on certain Blogspot blogs because I have a really terrible time recognizing letters if they're at all deformed; it has nothing to do with my politics or my ability to adapt, it's just a little neurological quirk. One that turns a simple spambot-catcher into a frequent cause of wanting to pitch a heavy object through my monitor, still.
I'm getting a signup prod when I try to read the LA Times piece. Does anyone know if they even provided their metric for determining a person's politics as "liberal" or "conservative"? The meanings are enormously slippery across time and across culture, and frequently change to absorb any number of positions, some of them self-contradictory in internal logic. Or did they rely on self-identification- that's even worse.
Also, the value of studies of this nature are entirely dubious.
Let's say I concoct a well structured longitudinal study that legitimately would identify a correlation between bed wetting and political affiliation.
There are 3 possible outcomes:
1) No significant correlation exists
2) A weak correlation, one way or the other exists.
3) A strong correlation, one way or the other exists.
And then....so what? Aside from the fun we get out of 30 seconds of snark, who gives a poop?
So, my question is this: given that this is one of about a 8 or 9 "studies" I've seen in the last 5 or 6 years, all of them coming out of reputable academic institutions that oughta know better, all of them flawed, and all purporting or insinuating the superiority of the liberal affiliation, what is motivating both the question -and- the funding?
I submit that this is a symptom of a deep insecurity, and need to "scientifically" validate someone or something.
Anecdotally, it is my observation that a great many who espouse neoLiberal ideals show a great deal of fear and rejection/denial that the positions of their opponents are the product of a well informed deliberate process of reason. For if that were the case, it would entirely call into questions the validity of their own positions, setting up the cognitive dissonance frequently mentioned on this site.
Subsequently, in an act of projection, that exact same charge is then leveled by them going in the other direction, and both teams routinely accuse each other of mindlessness, crowd following, and indoctrination.
I am, and have always been willing to entertain the idea that the neoLiberal has arrived at his position through an equally rigorous process.
And yet, each and every time I've tested that by engaging once again in the tiresome debate, to see where the rubber meets the road, I find that the neoLiberal position holds little water, and the opponent is reduced to withdraw from meaningful participation in the debate, relying instead on various forms of intellectual dishonesty: fallacies, rhetorical grenades, or the playing of the internet superpower* card.
After a while, one wearies of entering the arena yet again to cover the same old ground.
Neither position is absolutely correct without qualifications, neither is perfect, but after serious testing in the arena, one of them simply carries more weight than the other.
A liberty oriented conservative outlook, (classical liberal, small l libertarian, pick your label) accommodates a wide, wide range of interests, including most of those about which a neoLiberal is often concerned. And yet, the neoLiberal will gleefully attack the basis of this outlook, because the basis from which it proceeds is fundamentally incompatible.
An individual can temporarilly join a collective when it suits his interests, but a true collectivist, a member of a mass movement can not/will not stand on his own as an individual.
(*The internet superpower card: one of the conditions of victory is that the vanquished understands himself to be defeated. On the internet, it is possible to avoid defeat simply by never acknowledging defeat.)
... its not OK for either side to declare the other side mentally defective...
I don't agree. When someone claims they are right without, or in spite of, factual data or their "logic" is nonsensical, such as "someone was murdered with a knife therefore we must ban guns". If they then claim they have the authority to inflict their view of reality on others I will insist it is appropriate and perhaps even necessary to identify them as "mentally defective".
I think I never said that liberalism/socialism is a mental disorder.
I'm convinced that it's based on flawed principles tho. And I may have said that sometimes the liberals all together behave like an insane super-organism.
(On the other hand, the infamous Scrotal Inflation guy is a liberal, for god's sake!)
CAshane wrote: "Kevin B, Did you ever get any response from Marriah related to "Liberal v. Conservative: Both are Necessary"? It was a great fisking by the way."
Sorry, I just saw the comment. If I recall correctly, Themestream folded shortly after I wrote that piece, so no, Mr. Star did not respond to the fisk. He might not even have been aware of it.
It's extremely rare that I make bets. I think I have only made two bets in the last thirty years (I won both). I'll make a bet here. I bet his philosophical guru is not Ayn Rand. :-)
Actually, I liked this excerpt: "An individual can temporarilly join a collective when it suits his interests, but a true collectivist, a member of a mass movement can not/will not stand on his own as an individual."
I think this is why the opposition believes that the NRA is in charge of everything gun-rights related. As Tam put it so accurately over the Zumbo affair, "Poor Lefties; they've been playing on astroturf so long that they don't know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot." They cannot believe that a huge number of people can reach a common conclusion and act in common cause without being told to by some central, organizing power.
The traditional American "classical liberal" or "small 'l' libertarian" culture is one of individualism, but that doesn't mean it's one of anarchy. The conflict was well described by Ironbear a while back: "The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat."
I doubt that many on either side of the divide see it this way, but I believe he's right.
And, I'd like to add one more time: Damn, I've got the brightest commenters on the web! Y'all ROCK!
Societies certainly need both liberal people and conservative people to function properly, however this is a case of connotation being confused with denotation. And it's not even 1st degree connotation(e.g., the original meaning of liberal in the political sense), but 2nd or 3rd(e.g., the association of progressivism with the word liberal). The morons running the study either deliberately or ignorantly(most probably the former, but since they were probably deprived of a proper education concerning political theory this is understandable, if pitiable) equate leftist politics with liberalism and rightist politics with conservatism. When in reality they are largely progressivism and well, I don't know how to describe the current policies other than to note they seem to like shooting themselves in the foot.
>>""The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat."
"
And this brings us full circle: there are few things more enobling of the individual than an individual bearing formidable arms on his own authority and responsibility.
At the same time, there is nothing more threatening to a collectivist/collective who/which does not trust him/itself for any purpose, nevermind potentially lethal ones.
There is a good deconstruct of the experiment at
:-
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com/
under the date Sunday 16 September ...
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-differences-between-liberals-and.html (30 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
yeah, I read that, what dreck. They could have just as easily slanted the "results" to read positively for the conservatives and negatively for the liberals. Lame.
I visited Marriah's website and started to read "Explaining Bush Hatred" but could only manage a few paragraphs. He started out with completely unsupported assumptions about conservatives and liberals. He then went on to "prove" hatred of Bush was justified.
I would normally give him a conditional pass for being unfamiliar with the scientific method and some other sort of understandable ignorance. But he also claims he is a scientist. So now I am inclined to believe he is just nuts.
Did you check his resume? He's working on a PhD in "International Relations" at CUNY.
Why am I not surprised?
>>"First and foremost, I am a philosopher. This means that, at heart, I am a scientist, and I wish to know truth. "
Empiricist or p-idealist? You decide.
This "empirical scientific method" of which you speak. I do not think it means what you think it means. ;)
---------------
>>""The difference between the scientist and the engineer is that the former seeks what is True, the latter what is Good." - John Horgan, The End of science. My first aim is to know the Truth about how humans behave: I want science to elucidate our subjective experiences. Once I know the Truth, I aim to engineer myself and my environment to produce that which is Good."
God help us.
Few good things ever happen when philosophers get into the "social engineering" biz.
Wonder when they're going to define conservatism as a mental disorder? Can't be too long now, I'm thinking...:)
They've already started. See this 8/13/03 story in the Guardian:
"A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
"As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction."
The problem that I have with this study is that if it is true that they have found that liberals brains work differently than conservatives, how long do we suppose it will be before they come up with a drug that makes us all the same? Scary...
Kevin, if I had a dollar for every time I read some conservative saying that liberalism is mental disorder, I'd be at least $50 richer.
That being said, I think the results of this study are fairly uncontroversial, and there is no reason to believe that one way of thinking is better than the other in a general sense—one is probably better in some situations, and the other is better in other situations.
Big deal.
Guav, did you read the link to my older piece? Hell, did you read its title?
I was replying to what Kevin S. said, not you, Kevin B. Sorry for not clarifying.
Too many Kevins? This is not a problem I've encountered before! ;)
Ah yes, Guav, but here they're doing the defining under the guise of "science", claiming an authority they really don't have. When Conservatives do it, it's usually just bitching and grumbling. I've yet to see the scientific study claiming liberals are a bunch of bed-wetting pansies.
As for the neuro study, (accepting the root findings as legit for the sake of argument) the conclusions reached aren't supported by the data.
They do OK right up until the "and therefore, conservatives are more more rigid and less able to adapt than liberals"
While the data might support the meaning they assert, it could mean any of a dozen other things, or nothing at all.
It's equivalent to finding a time travel video snippet of an historical Jesus saying "Look at the lillies of the valley" in Aramaic, and using this as a basis to conclude that the rest of the new testament is verbatim truth, as is the {select a sect}'s interpretation of it.
Kevin B, Did you ever get any response from Marriah related to "Liberal v. Conservative: Both are Necessary"? It was a great fisking by the way.
But Kevin S, they haven't declared conservatism a mental disorder under the guise of science—they haven't declared conservatism a mental disorder at all. You said "I wonder when they're gonna ..." They haven't.
But there's nothing inherently bad about that, and it's not really all that surprising, given that one of the fundamental aspects of conservatism is a resistance to change (which once again, is not inherently wrong or bad by any means). I don't know that it particularly matters whether conservatives are less ABLE to change or merely less WILLING to change, there are certainly benefits to it.But apparently when conservatives declare liberalism a mental disorder it's ok because, you know, "they're just grumbling" or whatever.
I have a better idea. How about it's not OK for either side to declare thye other side mentally defective, whether grumbling or not?
(Liberals are a bunch of bed-wetting pansies, for the record :)
geekWithA.45:
Guav, I suppose you didn't see Mr Baker's post right after mine, the one where he linked to the Guardian piece?
But there's nothing inherently bad about that, and it's not really all that surprising, given that one of the fundamental aspects of conservatism is a resistance to change
That wasn't Geek's point, his point was that the "science" was so slim as to merit the scare quotes I just slapped around it. There's nothing in one's speed in recognizing a letter that should have any broad predictive power in an individual's ability to adapt to "change". There MIGHT be a correlation- after you account for other variables. For example, I dread posting comments on certain Blogspot blogs because I have a really terrible time recognizing letters if they're at all deformed; it has nothing to do with my politics or my ability to adapt, it's just a little neurological quirk. One that turns a simple spambot-catcher into a frequent cause of wanting to pitch a heavy object through my monitor, still.
I'm getting a signup prod when I try to read the LA Times piece. Does anyone know if they even provided their metric for determining a person's politics as "liberal" or "conservative"? The meanings are enormously slippery across time and across culture, and frequently change to absorb any number of positions, some of them self-contradictory in internal logic. Or did they rely on self-identification- that's even worse.
Also, the value of studies of this nature are entirely dubious.
Let's say I concoct a well structured longitudinal study that legitimately would identify a correlation between bed wetting and political affiliation.
There are 3 possible outcomes:
1) No significant correlation exists
2) A weak correlation, one way or the other exists.
3) A strong correlation, one way or the other exists.
And then....so what? Aside from the fun we get out of 30 seconds of snark, who gives a poop?
So, my question is this: given that this is one of about a 8 or 9 "studies" I've seen in the last 5 or 6 years, all of them coming out of reputable academic institutions that oughta know better, all of them flawed, and all purporting or insinuating the superiority of the liberal affiliation, what is motivating both the question -and- the funding?
I submit that this is a symptom of a deep insecurity, and need to "scientifically" validate someone or something.
Anecdotally, it is my observation that a great many who espouse neoLiberal ideals show a great deal of fear and rejection/denial that the positions of their opponents are the product of a well informed deliberate process of reason. For if that were the case, it would entirely call into questions the validity of their own positions, setting up the cognitive dissonance frequently mentioned on this site.
Subsequently, in an act of projection, that exact same charge is then leveled by them going in the other direction, and both teams routinely accuse each other of mindlessness, crowd following, and indoctrination.
I am, and have always been willing to entertain the idea that the neoLiberal has arrived at his position through an equally rigorous process.
And yet, each and every time I've tested that by engaging once again in the tiresome debate, to see where the rubber meets the road, I find that the neoLiberal position holds little water, and the opponent is reduced to withdraw from meaningful participation in the debate, relying instead on various forms of intellectual dishonesty: fallacies, rhetorical grenades, or the playing of the internet superpower* card.
After a while, one wearies of entering the arena yet again to cover the same old ground.
Neither position is absolutely correct without qualifications, neither is perfect, but after serious testing in the arena, one of them simply carries more weight than the other.
A liberty oriented conservative outlook, (classical liberal, small l libertarian, pick your label) accommodates a wide, wide range of interests, including most of those about which a neoLiberal is often concerned. And yet, the neoLiberal will gleefully attack the basis of this outlook, because the basis from which it proceeds is fundamentally incompatible.
An individual can temporarilly join a collective when it suits his interests, but a true collectivist, a member of a mass movement can not/will not stand on his own as an individual.
(*The internet superpower card: one of the conditions of victory is that the vanquished understands himself to be defeated. On the internet, it is possible to avoid defeat simply by never acknowledging defeat.)
.
"I have a better idea. How about it's not OK for either side to declare thye other side mentally defective, whether grumbling or not?"
Splendid idea.
I don't agree. When someone claims they are right without, or in spite of, factual data or their "logic" is nonsensical, such as "someone was murdered with a knife therefore we must ban guns". If they then claim they have the authority to inflict their view of reality on others I will insist it is appropriate and perhaps even necessary to identify them as "mentally defective".
I think I never said that liberalism/socialism is a mental disorder.
I'm convinced that it's based on flawed principles tho. And I may have said that sometimes the liberals all together behave like an insane super-organism.
(On the other hand, the infamous Scrotal Inflation guy is a liberal, for god's sake!)
CAshane wrote: "Kevin B, Did you ever get any response from Marriah related to "Liberal v. Conservative: Both are Necessary"? It was a great fisking by the way."
Sorry, I just saw the comment. If I recall correctly, Themestream folded shortly after I wrote that piece, so no, Mr. Star did not respond to the fisk. He might not even have been aware of it.
Thanks for the compliment.
Joe Huffman wrote: "I visited Marriah's website and started to read "Explaining Bush Hatred" but could only manage a few paragraphs."
I wanted to read "Profit is not necessary in economics" but that link is broken.
Any bets on who this guy's philosophical guru is?
It's extremely rare that I make bets. I think I have only made two bets in the last thirty years (I won both). I'll make a bet here. I bet his philosophical guru is not Ayn Rand. :-)
"After a while, one wearies of entering the arena yet again to cover the same old ground."
Sort of describes most of us here of late, doesn't it? Well, perhaps I'm just projecting, as it certainly describes me.
Geek:
By the way, brilliant and well-described comment above.
Especially the part about the defeat... That's a very, very good point, and it's part of what I think is at the root of the "division of the country".
Actually, I liked this excerpt: "An individual can temporarilly join a collective when it suits his interests, but a true collectivist, a member of a mass movement can not/will not stand on his own as an individual."
I think this is why the opposition believes that the NRA is in charge of everything gun-rights related. As Tam put it so accurately over the Zumbo affair, "Poor Lefties; they've been playing on astroturf so long that they don't know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot." They cannot believe that a huge number of people can reach a common conclusion and act in common cause without being told to by some central, organizing power.
The traditional American "classical liberal" or "small 'l' libertarian" culture is one of individualism, but that doesn't mean it's one of anarchy. The conflict was well described by Ironbear a while back: "The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat."
I doubt that many on either side of the divide see it this way, but I believe he's right.
And, I'd like to add one more time: Damn, I've got the brightest commenters on the web! Y'all ROCK!
Societies certainly need both liberal people and conservative people to function properly, however this is a case of connotation being confused with denotation. And it's not even 1st degree connotation(e.g., the original meaning of liberal in the political sense), but 2nd or 3rd(e.g., the association of progressivism with the word liberal). The morons running the study either deliberately or ignorantly(most probably the former, but since they were probably deprived of a proper education concerning political theory this is understandable, if pitiable) equate leftist politics with liberalism and rightist politics with conservatism. When in reality they are largely progressivism and well, I don't know how to describe the current policies other than to note they seem to like shooting themselves in the foot.
>>""The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat."
"
And this brings us full circle: there are few things more enobling of the individual than an individual bearing formidable arms on his own authority and responsibility.
At the same time, there is nothing more threatening to a collectivist/collective who/which does not trust him/itself for any purpose, nevermind potentially lethal ones.
That is why they fight.
There is a good deconstruct of the experiment at
:-
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com/
under the date Sunday 16 September ...
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>