Scientists Are Beginning To Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative

[boneyard bill]

Originally Posted by NobleSavage
That's because formal education teaches you to be liberal. It's the bias, not the content. I started as a liberal myself and became more conservative as the country moved left. In the early 60's the consensus in the country was much more conservative than today's conservatives are. I am probably more liberal today than when I was a liberal but would still be regarded as on the right.

Am I reading this right? The country moving to the Left?! What country are we talking about -- or are you talking about the '30s?

It's not the bias, it's the content. Facts have a liberal bias. Reason has a liberal bias.

Let me guess. You were born after the sixties. In 1960 abortion was illegal in all 50 states. Gays were treated as badly on a national scale as blacks were in the South. Over 50% of the federal budget went to defense and that amounted to about 8% of GDP compared to about 3% of GDP today. We still had conscription into the military. The illegitimacy rate was far lower than today. So was the divorce rate, and incidents of std's was way lower than now. About half of married women did not work outside the home. Blue collar workers, even non-union workers, were overwhelmingly Democrat while white collar workers generally supported Republicans. The majority of Catholics and born-again Christians also voted Democrat. "Social issues" were virtually non-existent except for civil rights. There was basically a consensus on social issues so they never really came up. Democrats boasted of being the party of the working man. Republicans pushed fiscal responsibility. On foreign policy, Republicans were initially non-interventionist but eventually gave in to the anti-Communist sentiment originally touted by the Democrats. So there was little difference between the parties on foreign policy which tended to be hawkish across the board.

 

[untermensche]

Many people have defined the word "liberal" for themselves to mean something bad.

They have an idiosyncratic definition that is the opposite of what the word really means, but that doesn't matter.

To be liberal is to be open minded. To promote liberalism is to promote tolerance. For a government to become more liberal is for it to become more open and democratic.

For education to become more liberal is for it to become more expansive and tolerant of questioning.

To oppose liberalism is to oppose these things.

While what you say is true regarding the general usage of the term "liberal," it really has nothing to do with the political meaning of the term, and it is the political meaning that was introduced into this discussion. There is certain nothing preventing someone from being "liberal" in the sense in which you have defined the term while being conservative in the political sense in which that term is understood.

So when your education teaches you to be "liberal" what is there to complain about?

An education that didn't would be a disservice to humanity.

People who rail against liberalism do a disservice to humanity. They are really just supporters of oligarchy.

 

[boneyard bill]

While what you say is true regarding the general usage of the term "liberal," it really has nothing to do with the political meaning of the term, and it is the political meaning that was introduced into this discussion. There is certain nothing preventing someone from being "liberal" in the sense in which you have defined the term while being conservative in the political sense in which that term is understood.

So when your education teaches you to be "liberal" what is there to complain about?

An education that didn't would be a disservice to humanity.

People who rail against liberalism do a disservice to humanity. They are really just supporters of oligarchy.

I think you missed my point entirely. To come to understand other cultures and people is liberal in the general sense but not necessarily in the political sense. I can come to understand the Indian practice of suttee without necessarily approving of it. But political liberalism is an ideological political line. You aren't asked to understand why Herbert Hoover followed the course that he did during the Great Depression. On the contrary, you are given a highly slanted and largely inaccurate presentation of what Hoover actually did. In other words, you get propaganda.

 

[untermensche]

So when your education teaches you to be "liberal" what is there to complain about?

An education that didn't would be a disservice to humanity.

People who rail against liberalism do a disservice to humanity. They are really just supporters of oligarchy.

I think you missed my point entirely. To come to understand other cultures and people is liberal in the general sense but not necessarily in the political sense. I can come to understand the Indian practice of suttee without necessarily approving of it. But political liberalism is an ideological political line. You aren't asked to understand why Herbert Hoover followed the course that he did during the Great Depression. On the contrary, you are given a highly slanted and largely inaccurate presentation of what Hoover actually did. In other words, you get propaganda.

There is nothing liberal about misrepresenting facts.

You label lying as liberal behavior so you can condemn liberalism.

You know what I hate about conservatism, all the bestiality.

 

[Valjean]

On balance, college educated people hold a different set of values than do people with little or no college education. For example, there is no inherent reason why the understanding of biology or of science that one learns in college that should lead people to support abortion while lesser educated people should oppose it. College imposes a different value system on the students than they get from their communities. The process is subtle, but it is very significant.

College educated people have learned to evaluate more dispassionately, using critical analysis of relevant facts, rather than the knee-jerk, emotional reaction to the unfamiliar, common among those with more insular lives.
It should come as no surprise that those with more experience of thinking about things should come to "hold a different set of values."

 

[boneyard bill]

I think you missed my point entirely. To come to understand other cultures and people is liberal in the general sense but not necessarily in the political sense. I can come to understand the Indian practice of suttee without necessarily approving of it. But political liberalism is an ideological political line. You aren't asked to understand why Herbert Hoover followed the course that he did during the Great Depression. On the contrary, you are given a highly slanted and largely inaccurate presentation of what Hoover actually did. In other words, you get propaganda.

There is nothing liberal about misrepresenting facts.

You label lying as liberal behavior so you can condemn liberalism.

You know what I hate about conservatism, all the bestiality.

You continue to confuse the two meanings of the term. I'm not claiming the political liberals are necessarily liberal in the general sense of the term. On the contrary, I am arguing that they are very close-minded.

 

[boneyard bill]

On balance, college educated people hold a different set of values than do people with little or no college education. For example, there is no inherent reason why the understanding of biology or of science that one learns in college that should lead people to support abortion while lesser educated people should oppose it. College imposes a different value system on the students than they get from their communities. The process is subtle, but it is very significant.

College educated people have learned to evaluate more dispassionately, using critical analysis of relevant facts, rather than the knee-jerk, emotional reaction to the unfamiliar, common among those with more insular lives.
It should come as no surprise that those with more experience of thinking about things should come to "hold a different set of values."

College doesn't teach you to think, necessarily. It gives you a different set of facts to think about, but there are plenty of things in the day to day world that encourage us to think. However, the "facts" presented in college are not without context. As Einstein said, "Theory determines fact." A raw datum is meaningless. For it to become significant it must be placed within the context of a theory. Then it becomes a meaningful fact. A materialist and individualist world view might argue that a fetus is a mere "piece of protoplasm," but a materialist and individualist world view is a theory, not a fact. Yet most of our college education presupposes this world view.

People without a college education are more free to explore other attitudes. This is not the absence of thinking. This is thinking within a different context and that different context will likely produce a different set of values. Conservatives today, even those with college educations, hold values that are closer to the values of liberals in the '50's and even the '60's, but they are still more liberal than the liberals of that day. They have been influenced by changes in the larger society, but they haven't been as successfully propagandized by academia.

 

[Tom in Napa]

With conservatives and liberals getting so much attention here, is there any available for progressives?

 

[Underseer]

I found the study linking conservatism to susceptibility to fear much more amusing than this.

Although I think it's adorable that so many libertarians are applying the word "them" to conservatives.