Is there a correlation between right-wing thinking and laziness?

[raccoon]

I have a relative by marriage, “George” who is very right-wing—and also lazy as the day is long. When he was younger, he attended technical school for a while, then dropped out. He has always hated every job he has ever had and laid out of work as much as he could. He is planning to retire at 62, though I don’t think he can manage it financially.

I have a first cousin, “Tom,” also very right-wing. And lazy, although Tom was lucky and persistent enough to retire from one of the “Big 3” automakers after 30 years.

Both men frequently sound off about welfare recipients and people whom they perceive to be getting a handout. All George’s siblings are the same way, and so is Tom’s wife.

I'm kidding, because you can't extrapolate from two individuals, but I'd like to hear others' experience.

Maybe I should apply for a grant to study this. LOL.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. They're intellecutally lazy.

Around here we call them "onesies." It refers to the lowest level on the cognitive rigor scales, the most well-known being Bloom's Taxonomy. A "onesie" recites, recalls, quotes, selects, recognizes . . . all requiring memory but no actual thinking.

[newportdadde]

2. The party of blaming others for your own failures.

That has been my experience. They are failures but rather then examine why they failed they look for a scape goat via racism or just some other made up reason. I was fired because my boss had to deal with OSHA, I couldn't go to college because of XYZ, not because I got drunk and flunked out. I can't handle my money so I'm broke, so I don't want to pay for reduced lunches for school children, they are the real reason I'm broke. Gay people ruined the institution of marriage and got my daughter pregnant at 16. Its all about not taking responsibility which is so ironic given the whole bootstraps mentality they pretend to live under.

[Fumesucker]

3. Great minds discuss ideas..

Average minds discuss events.

Small minds discuss people.

I think that was Eleanor Roosevelt..

[FLPanhandle]

4. Not in my experience

Of course most of the RW friends/family I have are engineers. Smart and hard ass workers. Just myopic in their world view or religious and not willing to go against any church teaching.

But lazy? No.

[hobbit709]

5. I'm lazy but I'm as far from RW thinking as you can get.

I think they are mentally lazy at best and downright stupid at worst.

[Marr]

6. Definitely. Lazy people can be found anywhere, but one of the appeals of the Conservative narrative

for regular people is that it's self-aggrandizing. The implicit message is, "you're the salt of the earth; a Real American. If it weren't for all these liberals you would be on top, where you're supposed to be". That's an appealing message if you're unhappy with your life, whether it's the result of laziness or not.

I've known more than one person who fit the description of your relative by marriage. One of them used to tell me how he'd be a firefighter right now if it weren't for Affirmative Action shoehorning unqualified minorities in the positions. I actually asked him once after he'd had a few beers to tell me the story of how he was locked out in favor of an unqualified minority, and do you know what it was? He'd never taken the first step to becoming a fireman. Never got his ass off the couch and tried at all. But he heard there was a black guy on the town fire department, and his little delusion allowed him to think of himself as hard-working "real American", cheated by minorities and liberals.

[dmallind]

7. Of course there fucking isn't.

This silly cartoonish tribalism DU exhibits is one of its worst features.

All right wingers are fat

All right wingers shop at Walmart and eat at Applebees

All right wingers drive SUVs

All right wingers are pasty and wear black socks with sandals and shorts in the Summer.

All right wingers live in the suburbs and stay out of urban restaurants and nightlife.


And of course these are reflexive - nobody who is any of the above can be a true progressive, all of whom bicycle for lunch to Azerbaijani delis in inner-city neighborhoods where nobody speaks English but them, then relax after work at the co-op and a four-hour Pilates session by sipping imported beers from Tibet at an urban fusion jazz nightclub where they are the only white person, then bicycle the 20 miles home (but still in the city of course - never in the suburbs!) to get some sleep before the triathlon on the weekend.

Desirable attributes are not unique or even especially prevalent in people who think like you. Undesirable (or often media-directed "undesirable") attributes are not likewise in those who do not. This applies for all given values of "you" (including the one in the mirror).

[raccoon]

8. You didn't read my post, did you?

"I'm kidding, because you can't extrapolate from two individuals, but I'd like to hear others' experience.

Maybe I should apply for a grant to study this. LOL."

[dmallind]

9. response is under your post, but directed more at the pervasive attitude

you'll notice I used none of your specific examples to portray DU attitudes. That's not because I didn't read them; it's because the larger mindset that spews out these caricatures is the real problem. It's no different thinking, even for fun, that all right wingers are X than it is thinking all Texans are Y or all Muslims are Z. The only thing that X Y and Z can possibly be in any rational discussion are things that are inherent in the words themselves - maybe "anti-communists", "Southerners" and "non-Christians" respectively. I have no scruples at all about offending or insulting right wingers - that's not the problem; I just don't want NON-right wingers to portray us as jingoistic and unreasonable.

[Dreamer Tatum]

12. Rock ON. nt

[TrogL]

10. correlation is not causation

[SpiralHawk]

11. Jingoism is not bingoism