Posted 4 years, 9 months ago late at night by oso
I was once very convinced that being a liberal had something to do with intelligence. That liberals were actually more intellegent than conservatives. It wasn’t a bias so much as careful observation. Every Republican I met seemed a little … well, stupid. I remember reading an article from the UCSD Guardian while I was a student there which complained about the hegemony of liberal professors on campuses across the country. Of course professors are liberals, I thought. They’re smart people and smart people are on the left. Conservatives are dimwits, religious zealots, red-necks, and trust fund babies.
Reading blogs has changed all that though. I’ve come to realize that there are some very very intelligent conservatives out there. People who believe (and are probably right) that they have worked for everything they have and that you should do the same. It’s that feeling you get when reading Ayn Rand - empowering self-reliance which borders on Fascist environmental destruction when implemented on the macro level.
So my new conclusion. Amongst those who really take the time to care and evaluate objectively (as possible) their political leanings, one’s political view is an extension of where their heart is at. If you are a giving person accustomed to adaptation you will probably consider yourself a liberal. (and if you went to college you will probably try to intellectualize why you are a liberal rather than seeing it as an extension of your heart, not your mind). If you are greedy and have an aversion to change you will probably intellectualize your conservativeness.
Most political scientists would be against such a conclusion because it means studying psychology, humanity, and spirtuality to find an answer for how we choose how we are governed. I’d be curious to hear what you have to say.
i consider myself a giving person who welcomes change and adaptation, but if you call me a liberal ill smack you upside and downside….on the other hand if you called me a conservative i’d charge you with slander. i think a problem we have in this culture is the need to identify with one group or the other, a two party system. as much as i love liberals, i refuse to be categorized as such for one extreme is just as bad as the other. independent thought begins to break down and people just fall into line with their fellow team-members. say it!
I used to think of myself as conservative because I believed in self-reliance. The more I learn about the world, the more I discover about the structural obstacles people face. Thus people can’t really depend on self-reliance alone. I might be called a liberal now, but I would not call myself one. I would not call myself conservative either. Unlike Rex, however, I would not be offended if you call me either. My beliefs tend to be very liberatarian. Let people do what they want. However, sometimes the playing field is not even and some oportunities need to opened. I do believe that the government has no place in legislating morality. It is a very slippery slope.
Interesting and thoughtful post.
Intelligent conservatives? I mean this with the utmost sincerity: please offer a few URLs to visit. Every conservative / Republican / right-wing web site I’ve gone to has been full of racism, hatred, aggressive stupidity, and selfishness. Of course, I’ve been noticing a new breed of liberal popping up on the ‘net, too: the blind, rabid cheerleader. They just blindly follow anyone who vocalizes something against the right, regardless if it is just as bad as what the right spews. They were the rabid ABBs before the Iowa Caucus even began. They’re the ones that are ok with Randi Rhodes treating Nader like she was Hannity, or Medved, or Limbaugh. *sigh*
Oso,
You might be interested in the Berkeley linguit George Lakoff’s mapping of the metaphors conservatives/liberals use to make sense of the world. Its similar to notion of their values.
Lakoff
Raven, although they annoy me with their politics, I still find the neo-conservative Straussians to be intelligent (and willing to engage sarcastic lefties
Staussian blog
Critiques of the Straussians:
Noble Lies
Politics of Deception
Hari, you make some good points. I was just writing on a blog the other day about our need to transcend hyper-categorization and too lump into limiting “camps” what are actually very complex sets of beliefs and ideas.
But let me clarify what I meant by liberal and conservative. I think you interpreted liberal to mean democrat and conservative to mean republican which is not what I intended at all. By liberal I mean progressive. I mean someone who is dissatisfied with not only the current state of the world (or country, state, city, etc) but also the current structure of power, priviledge, and wealth. A liberal, according to me, wants the governement - some form of government - to be part of making that change.
A conservative on the other hand wants to maintain a stasis of the current political structure. Does not want progress but rather stability. Government, according to my definition of a conservative, should do only what is required to maintaint that stability.
Of course there is a multitude of ways to express yourself both as a conservative and as a liberal. Which is why I agree that you can’t neatly categorize a person as one or the other. I, for example, am a social libertarian (gov’t - back the fuck up), but also a socio-economic socialist (no borders man, raise national minimum wage, free university education for all).
But I do think it is fair to make a distinction between progressive and non-progressive. Which is what I did. And I was curious as to why (especially on blogs) there was so much passion from both groups. Where did it come from. Why are there so many others out there like myself who want change, who envision a better world. And why are there just as many who want things to stay the same. First I thought it’s a matter of who benefits (rich are conservatives) but that’s often not the case. Then I thought it must have to do with intelligence - conservatives don’t want change because they haven’t thought enough or haven’t experienced enough.
Finally though, I came to the conclusion that it is a matter of “heart.” I don’t even know what that means. It’s an elusive and romantic term. But all I see while reading all these liberal and conservative blogs are a lot of people using intelligent sounding arguments to justify where they stand. But it’s just that - a justification. They already have their minds made up. Or if they don’t - in my opinion - they make them up based on their personality much more than some sort of deductive reasoning.
Xoloitzquintle - I’m a huge fan of self-reliance myself, but I wonder if it doesn’t come from the ultra-individualistic society that we grew up in. Is it fair to force that same self-reliance on others or should we seek a wider solution that allows for individualistic self-reliance and community group support?
Raven - There are probably about 20 to 30 conservative blogs that continue to impress me. Most of them are Libertarian and/or Straussian. Much of what they say makes me wince - I’m a bleeding liberal - but at the end of the day you can’t call them stupid (might even be impressed), you can only agree on a difference of opinion. I’ll try to post soon with a list of well written conservative blogs in addition to the links that Thivai (another lefty ally) put up.
Neo-cons are not conservative but simply anti-liberal. Liberal is not intellligence but simply a view that the best directives always benefit the most people and that isn’t the wealthy powerful elite who incidentally the neo-cons serve.