This post originally appeared on Feb. 9. Thought it was worth an encore presentation this election week. —DM
Yesterday my funny, brilliant, musical conservative speechwriter friend Mike Long said on Facebook that he was deeply upset by this Huffington Post piece that basically claims conservatives are dumber than liberals.
As a liberal, I find the article, and its suggestion that there's a physiological difference between liberals and conservatives, less offensive than absurd.
Here's what I think about liberals and conservatives: I think, yes.
Every sane human being has conservative instincts and liberal ones. We each have an inner looker and an inner leaper, a miser and a spendthrift, a lover and a fighter, a hunter and a gatherer. The strict disciplinarian is overcompensating for her permissive side. We've each had experiences that lead us to trust institutions, and we've had experiences that warn us not to. We've been rebels and we've been team players. We've given, and we've taken away.
It's not that there are two kinds of people in the world; there are two kinds of people in ourselves. Tiresome as they are, the liberal and conservative polarity endures because it is psychologically valid and intellectually useful.
It's a complicated world, and none of us has either the stamina or the time to thoroughly think and feel our way through every issue that comes down the pike. (Think about it: How many issues do you truly feel ownership of because you've put in the man hours studying them from every angle? One or two or three—and I bet you don't favor universally "liberal" or "conservative" solutions to those issues, but some combination of both.)
But unable to wonk out truly independent stances on healthcarereform-defensespendingabortionstemcellresearchglobalwarmingguncontroletaxreform-MiddleEastpolicy, we eventually pick one of the two groups to associate with most of the time, and when in doubt—and we're usually in doubt—we go with the girl what brung us.
How we wind up choosing "liberal" or "conservative" as our default stance is part tribal. It also has to do with the life story we tell ourselves we are living—usually "conservative" or "liberal" is the coat that looks best. And it can have to do with our relationship with a single, searingly important issue that's associated with one of the two general points of view.
Doesn't matter how we come to "conservative" or "liberal": The trouble starts when we forget all of the above and start to think our political postures are truly connected with our inner lives. And everyone is so eager to defend their "core principles" that everybody forgets: Our political stances are mostly just fallback positions.
This isn't an argument for moderate politics. Issue by issue, I believe that radical politics is often correct and I think political conviction can be one of the most beautiful things you'll ever see. Meanwhile, when someone proudly declares she's a moderate, it sounds like someone who likes both the Cubs and the White Sox. Well, fine, I guess. But you're not really a baseball fan, and I don't want to talk to you about baseball.
If I'm gonna talk politics, I want to do it with people who force me to think harder than I normally do—and remind me of the difference between my deep ideas and my assumed stances.
(Or, failing that, people who agree with me all the time.)
Update: Hell yes I'm voting for President Obama. And there's a fair chance I'll be live-blogging the election tomorrow night, from my usual stone-cold sober and objective point of view. Luv ya! —DM
Thanks for this, David, and amen.
I regularly find myself irked for having being “auto-filled” as either conservative OR liberal, based on someone knowing my stance on a single issue that the world has decided “makes me” one or the other. I agree with you that in a political space that argues routinely on issues of life and death (literally), it’s hard to understand how one can hold a moderate position. However, since I hold strong opinions on a few issues that place me firmly in BOTH camps, I have yet to figure out at which campfire I sing kum-by-yah most heartily. I remain unaffiliated, which is kinda lonely for the reasons you describe above, but what’s a pro-life, anti-death penalty, anti-Prop 8, pro-climate initiatives girl supposed to do?
She’s supposed to stick to her guns (depending on her stance on the Second Amendment).
FROM MIKE LONG:
Well said, David, and I do agree with just about everything in here. (Good catch on the “tribalism” point as well, an idea I first heard from Peter Robinson, a Reagan speechwriter and now a scholar at the Hoover Institution.)
Still, my point is on another matter. The thing that disturbed me about the Chris Mooney piece — the thing that worries me about the fellow’s whole schtick — is that he and others want to find some “scientific” way to invalidate the opinions of people whose opinions he doesn’t like. He and many others have decided that since they can’t persuade others that this or that position is right, they will attempt to show that to arrive at any other position is the product of genetic error. That, is, Mooney’s goal is to literally dehumanize his opponent — something like “They can’t help it that they think that way. Science says they are incapable of unbiased thought, so we can ignore their opinions.” It’s become pernicious, and it’s especially appealing to people who possess an evangelical fervor for their beliefs that exceeds their evangelical fervor for simply seeking the truth. The “my opponents are incapable of understanding” posture means its holder no longer needs to entertain certain other points of view on a given matter.
Of course, the real definition of intelligence is the willingness to constantly re-evaluate a position based on new information. The Mooney comeback to that is that some issues are so obviously settled that they don’t deserve re-evaluation (e.g., global warming, the role of tax increases in budget balancing, the proper role of government in society). (That sounds like I’m setting up a straw man, but I’m not. Just read Mooney’s writing — he cites these issues as settled.) But let me be generous: Mooney’s argument will be more inclusive than that, such as, “Oh, I’ll re-evaluate the issue anytime. Just bring me new evidence.” And that’s a fair position. Science says we go with the theory we have, constantly adjusting it based on new material. But now we’re back to where this piece began: His effort is not to find new information or disprove other information, but to discredit a whole class of sources. His goal is to show that a whole class of folks — conveniently, his political opponents as a class and as an ideology — are physically incapable of forming a valid opinion. Conveniently, the cure for what ails them is — surprise! — to come around to Mooney’s opinion. (Actually, that’s the cure for getting Mooney to shut up about it. He suggests there is no cure for what ails them, because their genes have handicapped them. They can’t be fixed. Hmm, where have we heard that idea before, that some people are just not fixable….)
History is filled with stories of folks who were convinced they were right about some “settled” issue, from the earth-centric universe to the natural role of certain humans as slaves to others — and so convinced that they foreclosed discussion on alternatives. Mr. Mooney’s doing the same thing, but with a little sprinkle of modern, quantified science for credibility. Mr. Mooney should re-visit the stories of Galileo and Copernicus, and see if he can recognize his own words as those of the church in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
What Mr. Mooney doesn’t understand about intellectual engagement is that the battle is never won because the battle is never lost, though that appears to be what bothers him: He can’t shut the door on those who disagree with him. Of course, that’s the price of intellectual engagement, fighting the battles on various fronts, over and over (but less and less often) over time. Intellectual evolution is a forward-and-backward process and it always will be, sometimes more in one direction than the other, but always in the general trajectory of up and out.
To try to foreclose on debate by de-legitimating not just the opinion of another but their very right to form an opinion is as nasty a tactic as there has ever been. It’ll work, too, at least for some people; it is an appeal to vanity over diversity — in this case, diversity of thought, though it’s thought Mr. Mooney doesn’t like. Of course, those who know political theory (or who just took some 101 in college) recognized from the first graf what’s going on here. There’s an idea called “false consciousness” from a certain pernicious ideology, and it shoots through more than a few strains of modern thinking. Mr. Mooney and those who like his ideas should run that one through Wikipedia, just to see where it’s led so far. He’s not onto anything new, he’s just got more modern ammunition.
Thanks, Mike–and of course I don’t disagree with a word you say either. Only, I think you’re taking Mooney and the bullshit research he cites a little too seriously. He’s got a few thousand Twitter followers and he writes books that are read by unthinking liberals.
If I worried about the pernicious influence of crackpots like him, I’d have to take Ann Coulter seriously. And I know you understand that I will not, cannot do a thing like that.
Not that you shouldn’t worry that “this kind of thinking” exists out there. But we must also have faith that fair-minded people even among strong partisans, will recognize it when the research comes from Fisher-Price.
Not to put too find a point on it, but the difference between Ann Coulter and Chris Mooney is this: Ann Coulter will hurt your feelings but she’ll never try to deny you the right to speak, even when others a) get her speaking gigs canceled (on college campuses–what irony!), b) shout her down so she can’t speak, and c) physically assault her.
Chris Mooney believes that science — science! — teaches us that a whole class of his fellow human beings have no right to an opinion because they are genetically inferior.
In that fight, I’ll take Coulter. Bet you will, too, when put that way.
Just for balance of tone, you should know I am writing this with my Taylor guitar around my neck, as I was learning a new fingerpicking tune and took a break. Huzzah.
Cazart.
Good points and well stated sir. I agree that we have a little bit of both sides in each of us. All too often we are swayed by one or two big issues that rope us into falling into one camp or the other.
At the end of the day I guess I just need to quote the learned scholar Rodney King, can’t we all just get along?
People are full of contradictions. Too many of them, however, and they start to auto-destruct. So there is something to be said for following gut instinct and not analyzing to death.
@Rich: Thanks, man. Rodney King’s statement has staying power because, however naive it is, it’s a good question.
@Peter: Clearly, you’re in Europe. Here in the States, Analyzing to Death is not a big problem.
A great piece David. While I also don’t want to discuss baseball with anyone who roots for both the Cubs and the White Sox, I think you are being a little harsh on the moderates of the world. As a young man I labeled myself a conservative (what else for a boy raised in Wheaton)because I believed in limited government and a narrow interpretation of the constitution. Over the years something happened to both me and the definition of the tern conservative.
While I started becoming more respectful of the opinions of others and more concerned about their welfare, the “conservatives” started expanding the role of governmnet and reinterpreting the constitution to legislate their concept of morality and to justify war after war.
I do not want to be associated with these conservatives, but I cannot stomach the thought of being called a liberal. So I call myself a moderate. Do you have a better word?
Call yourself what you like, Jim. You’ve been on an honest journey. But not being able stomach the thought of being called a liberal begs the question, “By whom?”
…where is the “like” button on this?