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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLiberals don't hate conservatives. They just think they're stupid.
The Myth of the American Political Intelligence Gap
By Tom Junod
at 4:10PM
Conservatives hate liberals, because they know that liberals think they're smarter than them.
Liberals know that conservatives hate them and can't figure out why, because they don't hate conservatives in return.
Conservatives believe that liberals hate them, because it's easier to feel despised than patronized. And so in addition to hating liberals, they think liberals are liars.
This is the unspoken dynamic of American politics. It pervades blogs on both left and the right, accounting for the fantasies of victimization underlying most conservative discourse and for the strange liberal habit of offending while trying to appease. It explains why conservatives aren't lying when they say they have no problem with Barack Obama being black; their real problem is with Barack Obama being black and smart.
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Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/liberals-smarter-than-conservatives-6649182#ixzz1l4cSRzXl
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)on a cellular level.
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)learn how sharing benefits both of us.
Mopar151
(9,989 posts)When they keep trying to tell me down is up, black is white, and Rush Limbuagh has talent.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,015 posts)Morning Dew
(6,539 posts)Lint Head
(15,064 posts)renie408
(9,854 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)... acquaintances of mine are towards-the-right conservatives and they're nice people ...just
extremely uninformed when it comes to politics and the working of a society.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)- and the problem gets bigger the further right you go - is that they start with conclusions, virtually all of which are unsubstantiated or unsubstantiable. Which is exactly the wrong way to understand anything in the world.
They believe in mythologies and fairy tales (both religious and secular) that confirm their prejudiced conclusions and are innately incapable of modifying their blighted and vacuum-sealed beliefs about reality no matter how much evidence is presented to the contrary. Thus the constant posture of denial and projection from reichwingers.
Nothing in the right wing "mind" can ever be reevaluated without the whole edifice collapsing under the weight of its own illogic. As everything is linked together in a "unified" (and largely paranoid and fear-driven) worldview, nothing can ever be changed. Pull out one piece, and the whole Jenga tower comes crashing down. Therefore denial is #1-3 on the list of their defense mechanisms. This also explains the terror reichwingers have for science, which is always subject to revision in the light of new evidence.
The liberal approach is to start without preconceptions, ask honest questions, assemble a body of objective evidence, consider underlying or less-obvious causes, and draw conclusions that logically follow from that evidence. It has another name as well. It's called the scientific method. As knowledge can never be perfect, conclusions and solutions are necessarily proximate and conditional. That drives righties out of their tiny minds. Ambiguity is anathema to them but doesn't much trouble liberals.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Many conservatives have it backwards.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)in an ironic sort of way.
Scientific method. Ambiguity.
Seriously? Where?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Conservatives adopt beliefs absent evidence and then try and hammer the square peg of facts into the round hole of their beliefs, then give up and deny the facts altogether.
I have met no liberals who were unwilling to at least reconsider their conclusions in the face of new, objective facts that supported by extrinsic evidence.
Mopar151
(9,989 posts)But you can't make your own facts.
Hey, I'm a machinist - we routinely measure to .001/inch - that's half a hair! You can beleive all you want - but a pin that measures .752 isn't going to slip-fit into a 3/4" hole. .752 - .750 = .002 interference. Steel to steel, that'll take a small sledgehammer or a big-ass press to put together, beleif or not. Heat or cold can be used, as well - but when the temperatures equalise, it ain't movin'. Or, you can turn/file/polish the pin down a bit - but that is changing the facts!
The trouble is, the folks who watch Fucks News take beleifs (or conjecture, or outright friggin' lies) as fact - and it just don't work!
Or, as a friend of mine put it - the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle aren't "trim - to - fit"!
My Dad was a precision inspector by trade - he saw his job as establishing the facts (to .00005, in a temperature - controlled room, with measurements traceable to NIST). He was fond of quoting Sen. Sam Ervin "Once you have the facts, the law will take care of itself."
just1voice
(1,362 posts)and it's natural and healthy. The article assumes the premise that hatred is a bad thing then goes off into lala land making numerous incorrect assumptions. Hatred of terrible things is good, normal and necessary.
dembotoz
(16,808 posts)personal shortcoming that i should over come???
perhaps but i have many other things i have to fix first