rolling explaining conservatism

the irony is that there's a huge amount of complexity in the conservative mind, but it all goes to creating elaborate justifications for their untrue axiomatic beliefs. it's the conspiratorial mindset at work.

i'm at a loss for anything to do but wait for them to crash and burn.

Cherrypicking ideologies without fully understanding or following them just so one has cover to be a raging asshole in real life.

anyway, my tendency is to view the basis of conservatism as a simple moral failing - the inability to recognize the Other as a moral equal to the self. this is a moral failing we all have to some degree or another. i personally consciously treat many conservatives (including all unrepentant Trump voters) as Other/anathema. i know liberals are very unfond of this, and i certainly recognize the trap inherent in that behavior. my take is that i am acting on the basis of their objective behavior, which is, i would argue, provably morally inferior. there's this very idealistic liberal belief that treating people with kindness will make them kinder, but i find in practice all they tend to do is feed such people's belief in their own superiority.

i think conspiracy thinking and complexity are not the same thing: the former is almost always in the service of simplification, even when the process itself is insanely convoluted.

It's much more difficult to understand the physical forces of the universe which caused your milkshake to fall off the counter than to shake your head and mumble 'fuckin' Soros' under your breath.

i think conspiracy thinking and complexity are not the same thing: the former is almost always in the service of simplification, even when the process itself is insanely convoluted.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

In the end people think in terms of narratives and the democratic party was really hurt when they stopped being able to give people a good story—maybe because of a noble commitment to complexity a la Derrida; more likely because they didn’t have one after making their pact with neoliberalism, after which their project became muddled even to themselves. It put them in a weak position and, as the author of the Atlantic article wrote, left them open to charges of hypocrisy, which is why the right has delighted in “triggering” them ever since by needling their few remaining principles. It created a sick feedback loop into which the right wing came to define itself primarily in terms of attacking liberals. This is all that people like rush limbaugh do; they’re not out their advocating a good of their own. Trump’s only rhetorical mode is the attack and the type of attack he prefers is the kind that humiliates his opponents and targets the very pillars of how they try to present themselves. In my view, this is what is nihilistic about him. You can say what you want about “conservatism” but the energies animating the Trump movement are driven by this overriding negativity. It seems like they get pleasure out of it and there isn’t really a larger plan—except of course the behind the scenes agenda of helping corporate power, but I’m talking about Trumpism as a social phenomenon.

Maybe it's because I've been studying him over the past few years, but this famous bit from Weber often comes to mind when I think about our political malaise:

Our age is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization, and above all, by the disenchantment of the world. Its resulting fate is that precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have withdrawn from public life. They have retreated either into the abstract realm of mystical life or into the fraternal feelings of personal relations between individuals. It is no accident that our greatest art is intimate rather than monumental. Nor is it a matter of chance that today it is only in the smallest groups, between individual human beings, pianissimo, that you find the pulsing beat that in bygone days heralded the prophetic spirit that swept through great communities like a firestorm and welded them together. If we attempt artificially to “invent” a sense of monumental art, this leads only to wretched monstrosities of the kind we have seen in the many artistic works of the last twenty years.
If we attempt to construct new religious movements without a new, authentic prophecy, this only gives rise to something equally monstrous in terms of inner experience, which can only have an ever more dire effect. And academic prophecies can only ever produce fanatical sects, but never a genuine community. To anyone who is unable to endure the fate of the age like a man we must say that he should return to the welcoming and merciful embrace of the old churches—simply, silently, and without any of the usual public bluster of the renegade.

If we attempt artificially to “invent” a sense of monumental art, this leads only to wretched monstrosities of the kind we have seen in the many artistic works of the last twenty years.

what does he have in mind here?

I actually don't know!

Symbolism and its precipitates, most likely, which were routinely dismissed as 'decadent'.

This was all adequately addressed by Eric Hoffer in 1951. The mail bomber, the synagogue shooter, they all fit the characteristics of The True Believer. Quotes from the wiki synopsis:

The "New Poor" are the most likely source of converts for mass movements/for they recall their former wealth with resentment and blame others for their current misfortune.

A variety of what Hoffer terms "misfits" are also found in mass movements. Examples include "chronically bored", the physically disabled or perpetually ill, the talentless, and criminals or "sinners". In all cases, Hoffer argues, these people feel as if their individual lives are meaningless and worthless.

Hoffer argues that the relatively low number of mass movements in America at that time was attributable to a culture that blurred traditionally rigid boundaries between nationalist, racial and religious groups and allowed greater opportunities for individual accomplishment.

As the developing world benefited from the recovery after WWII and globalism, it meant Americans had to compete, so most Americans could no longer maintain the lifestyles their parents enjoyed. American living standards peaked around 1970 (not coincidentally with American oil production), so everyone of working age recognizes a decline.

However, being a "true believer" isn't conservatism. Conservatism, as I've noted upthread, is the innate predominance of a fearful/anxiety ridden cognitive core, centered on the reptilian amygdala. Neoliberals from the Wall St. and Silicon Valley nouveau riche aren't intrinsically conservative, though many are eager to take advantage of innate conservatives for financial gain. The steady conservatives are your neighbors that close their blinds/curtains even in safe neighborhoods, who were born fearful, and who vote for the reactionaries.

Once social progressives understand that anxiety and fear is central to Conservatism, we can reorient our messages to achieve progress. Will and Grace won over far more independents that "... get used to it" pride parades.

"President Obama's regime annexed Crimea. Not Putin."

lol @ usa

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/matthew-whitaker-world-patent-marketing

krav #maga

xxp I tend to regard this kind of psychologizing with skepticism. It makes intuitive sense, but I don't think conservatives are on the whole more or less fearful/anxious than liberals or progressives. I've known plenty of folks on the right and the left who don't fit that dichotomy. I think that personal identification is a bigger determining factor in one's politics than psychology.

personal identification isn't a psychological issue?

I was just about to say… I'm wary of over-psychologization, especially when it brushes over the political, but this is not one such instance.

It's less about the presence of fear/anxiety and more about the response to the fear/anxiety.

Good point, reggie. I think "personality" is maybe closer to what I mean than "psychology." The personal identification thing is psychological for sure, but sociology seems like the bigger factor. I think people are more likely to share the political views of whoever they regard as their peers, regardless of whether they have the typical personality of someone who holds those views.

The main reason I think this I have to admit is anecdotal and personal; my father, who is genuinely kind-hearted and gentle, invariably votes R because for whatever reason that is where he has put his identification. He's been drinking the conservative media Kool Aid for a long, long time. If you didn't know how he voted, you would never guess it in a million years from his personality (well, maybe a little--he can also be a bit of a crank). The contradiction is something I've been grappling with for years, but especially since 2016.

zchyrs, i think this is a struggle a lot of us have had to face. people who we have never known as anything but kind and loving supporting people who are openly monstrous.

in a way i do feel fortunate that i'm not the one being tested most strongly here. when i was younger i dabbled in voting based on my personal beliefs, likes, dislikes, based on the candidate rather than the party. partly it was out of genuine belief that all of us had a common national interest that transcended party (i no longer believe this), but partly it was an unhealthy need to prove myself as an Independent Thinker.

electoral politics on a national scale has no room for Indepdendent Thought. I vote to support my tribe, in fact i moved across the country so i could be in a state where my tribe was strong. i feel a moral imperative to support them, even when they run a candidate i don't like or who has policies i don't agree with.

ultimately i don't actually believe in democracy. i still vote, though, because the people of my tribe need my help.

Goes the opposite way too. I've probably been socially shunned because I look like a narc, I've voted Dem since 1992.

bro holder was way more corrupt than whitaker is. death tax!

i liked this comment from politico’s quillette puff piece

pic.twitter.com/h5KfGJxsbX

— maura 🎙 johnston (@maura) November 16, 2018

avenatti bad! mega MAGA 2020!!

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/02/michael-avenatti-crash-burn-1037151

I know the bar was finally lowered to the extent that we decided to just snap it off and pitch it in the trash but I'm still all like 'wut' re: anyone having ever taken Avenatti seriously as a presidential candidate.

his main constituency were people with bad vision who thought it was #pasta and who loved pasta so, so much

you don't say

https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/chaos-at-conservative-think-tank-after-donor-revealed-as-ukrainian-born-oligarch/

“A t the time, Hudson Institute’s president and chief executive, Ken Weinstein, told Fancy Bear in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to ‘get stuffed.’”

michael flynn was a deep state double-agent all along. lock him up! free paul manafort! MAGA!!

good nancy jo sales piece on conservative women at unc

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/conservative-college-women-university-of-north-carolina-republicans

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/12/08/what-psychology-experiments-tell-you-about-why-people-deny-facts

Basically: tribalism. And being exposed to different viewpoints literally hurts.

I did flinch at the part about how banning handguns doesn't decrease violence. Yes, it fucking does.

i'd rather not give the economist a click, based on what evidence did they say this?

They quote several studies, including Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber's The Enigma of Reason. The gist of it is that reason purportedly evolved to 'help us justify our beliefs and actions to others … and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.' Belonging trumps all else.

oh no i meant the handgun thing

Oh sorry, they refer to a 2013 study by Dan Kahan, who

asked 1,110 people a question about how effective a skin cream was in reducing a rash. The question required some simple mathematics to solve. Unsurprisingly, the most numerate were most likely to solve the problem correctly [the skin cream worsens the rash]. Then Mr Kahan gave the group the question in a politicised form, asking how effective banning handguns was in reducing crime (the underlying mathematics was the same). This time, the most numerate people did not necessarily get the right answer. Rather, Republicans who were good at maths were more likely to conclude that banning guns was ineffective, whereas Democrats said the opposite.

Here's a longer article about the study: https://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/

incoming strong take alert

The Stigma Against My Conservative Politics Is Worse Than The Stigma Of Being Gay

But just as I did not choose to be gay, I did not choose to be conservative. My political evolution happened over time as I came to realize that I valued truth and reason over narrative and emotion. I became an outspoken voice on the right because I felt I had no other choice than to speak up and shout the truth, despite overwhelming pressure from the media.

The left has become empowered to actively stamp out our voices. Not just that, but they feel fully justified in doing so. But just as I realized at 16 with my sexuality, I embrace today with my political worldview: I can no more deny what I know to be objective truth than I could deny my feelings about my own sexuality then.

lolz

I'm very curious to hear what he calls 'truth and reason'. His entire piece consists of generalizations.

a conservative with shoddy reasoning???????

I guess it's probably true that sociopathy isn't really a choice.

Then Mr Kahan gave the group the question in a politicised form, asking how effective banning handguns was in reducing crime (the underlying mathematics was the same)

Yes, but were the mathematics embedded in the question capture the real world relationship between handguns and crime? Or were the data synthesized to ensure that the only isolatable difference between the handgun question and the face cream question was that the subjects of the study had preconceived ideas about handguns, but not about an imaginary face cream?

Because Kahan's point was not about handguns and crime, but about people's ability to apply strict logic to a problem where a heuristic answer has already been arrived at and internalized as true.

Good point. The numbers were probably fictive throughout, come to think of it. So my initial reaction only goes to show that he was right.

remember, until you can prove that mr. trump was told that russia hacked the DNC and mr. trump replied, "thank you; I will get you sanctions relief in exchange," none of this counts as real criminal activity. that Russia did hack the DNC and the president did pursue sanctions relief and there were dozens of laws broken fragrantly by the campaign and then lied about for two years doesn't make a difference because that's totally normal except to sore loser self-righteous liberals who hate small business owners and america on the hunt for witches. arrest obama first because he didn't stop it if it bothers you so much

Wrong thread, but we're knee deep in admissions of criminal activity from Cohen et al right now. There's now way AMI would have been given immunity for multiple felony violations of campaign finance law unless there was a shitton of dirt they would hand prosecutors.

This was pretty illuminating/infuriating.

the smart money is getting out of the market before the house adjourns democRAT. war on christmas! fire the fed! NO COLLUSION :)

His "Why We Needed Trump" trilogy is available at Amazon

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/07/mitt_romney_ready_for_my_close-up_mr_demille_139097.html?rc_fk

conservatism really in a good place RN

Sebastian Gorka is a huge star at CPAC. He enters to that "Best Day of My Life" song, then gets huge cheers for calling Michael Cohen a "rat fink."

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 28, 2019