I’ve just finished reading Chris Mooney’s latest, The Republican Brain, and I commend it to you all. It’s Chris’s best, IMHO, intellectually (though not narratively) a sequel to his earlier best seller, The Republican War on Science. Or, perhaps more accurately, the new work is a response to that earlier one, an attempt to figure out why Republicans have become so (and increasingly) divorced from reality, why as a political movement, the G.O.P. has committed itself to so much that is, simply, objectively, wrong.
Chris and I will be talking about this later today as part of my monthly gig as a host for Virtually Speaking Science. You can listen here at 5 EDT or later (after about midnight) to a podcast that will also be available through iTunes. You can also join the live virtual studio audience in Second Life — throwing questions at us from either venue.
We’ll start with Chris’s argument: that a broad body of research from a variety of fields — psychology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and more — produces a reliable, reproducible nature and nurture account of systematic differences between conservative and liberal brains and minds. In this account, conservatives act out of the quadrant of motives and neural systems that characterize “Closed” or resistant-to-new-experience personalities…and this renders them less able to respond to facts and/or argument that challenge essential beliefs. Liberals, or those who fall into the”Open” pattern do the opposite.
That’s the most simple minded cartoon of an inquiry into a lot of research that supports Mooney’s essential point: there are fundamental attributes of how our minds work that shape whether or not we can accept or work very hard to ignore things like the reality of human-caused climate change, or the fact that tax cuts do not increase national revenue.
I find the book really persuasive on that score — but I do have a few points I’m planning to push Chris on. One’s a historian’s thought — not so much a criticism, as a note that the vigor of reactionary denial of reality always ramps up at times of great change. I’m thinking of a marvelous, if less-read-than-it-should-be book The Vertigo Years, Philipp Blom’s essayistic narrative of Europe’s schizophrenia from 1900-1914 — that tension between the legacy of Victorian assurance and the reality of massive cultural and social dislocative change.
As I noted in yesterday’s post, we’re smack in the middle of just such a period right now. The Way It Used To Be is simply unavailable to whole swatches of society who are now terrified by what’s going on with technology, social life, culture, the hierarchy of privilege. That terror invokes exactly the kind of neurological and cognitive response Chris is talking about — and I’d like to go more into the implications of history, of the contingencies of time and place, especially as they bear on his suggested solutions to the problem of a Republic in which close to half of the political class (and their supporters) are delusional.
The second point I plan to push him on is a bit of “both sides”-ery he permits himself. He argues that the benefits accrue both from the virtues associated with the conservative mind — he mentions loyalty, decisiveness, perserverance, among others — and those tied to liberalism: flexibility, openness to new information, invention. My problem with this is that it is not a symmetrical opposition. Decisiveness, for example, is an attribute that can accrue to either shoot-from-the-hip types or reflective ones; rejection of valid information or the disdain for expertise is not. I can guess at what Chris might say, but I’m not sure…so I plan to ask.
That said, the most important part of the conversation, I expect, will be on what to do about the very real problem that the Republican Party now resembles nothing so much as King Canute’s court. Chris has long argued for better framing of liberal and pro-science arguments, and in this book he points at the need to couch fact in great stories. He doesn’t go deeply into this — most of the book is laying out the case for the reality of material differences of mind and brain between the ends of the political spectrum — but I think he’s right, and I want to go deeper into what that might mean.
In any event, check out the book, and come listen in (or the other way round).
Image: Egon Schiele,Agony (The Death Struggle), 1912
Cross Posted at The Inverse Square Blog
MonkeyBoy
From what I’ve read and heard about Mooney’s book (including things from Chris himself) he basically sets the opposition up as a “schmuck/non-schmuck” distinction which precludes asking why the schmuck position (being willfully stupid or easily scared) can be advantageous.
Of course for the rich promoting this schmuckitude can help them preserve their wealth and power. The big unanswered question is – why do the non-rich go along? Which needs some answers rather than the black/white one that they are just schmucks?
Linnaeus
I’ll give it a look, though I have to say that my initial reaction to arguments that naturalize categories like “liberal” and “conservative” is one of skepticism. That said, I don’t want to prejudge too much without reading the book.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Alas, m_c, we hardly knew ye.
Dee Loralei
I’m very interested in this book. So I’ll do the podcast later.
Tom, I read in the Graniad the other day, sorry no link. that a director was working on a screenplay on Newton’s time as the Exchequer. Has he been in touch with you? Will you send him your book? (Can’t remember the directors name either.But he is known for bang,bang, shoot ’em ups, I think.)
Redshift
So many books I need to read…
Tom Levenson
@Dee Loralei: Alas,no — I am not now involved in that project.
As to what may come? Who knows.
Mino
I just wish I believed that the Republicans had a cogent plan, even if it was a Skull and Bones conspiracy.
I think they are just barking mad. And maybe climate change has done it. The last straw, so to speak.
Redshift
@Linnaeus: I haven’t read the book yet either, but based on Tom’s brief description, it doesn’t sound like its argument is that conservatives’ brains are just inherently broken — note the mention of nature and nurture.
Hill Dweller
Over at Maddow’s blog, they’ve got video of Republicans in Michigan rushing through more voter suppression legislation, despite not having the requisite 73 votes.
The Republican party is nothing but fascists, but no one outside some Democrats and a handful of journalists seems to care.
Brachiator
How could this be reliable and reproducible? I can easily imagine some scholar in the 16th century declaring that there was an essential, reproducible difference between Protestant and Catholic. But would anyone try to suggest such a thing today?
How is this anything more than an assertion that a small political division of a small number of people in the United States in the 21st century is supposedly a universal trait of all human beings? Does this liberal vs conservative schema work in Japan or India? In Iraq?
Are there liberal and conservative scientists? Are one group of scientists always “right?”
Some of this reminds me of the assertion not too long ago that birth order was destiny.
And is it that one must be “liberal” or “conservative” in all things? Could there be the equivalent of bisexual thinkers?
It seems to beg the question to assign traits such as loyalty, decisiveness, perserverance, to a “conservative” mind and other traits to a “liberal” mind. This seems arbitrary or back filling.
In any event, it will be interesting to hear Chris Mooney make a case for his beliefs (for now, I couldn’t even call it a hypothesis).
Linnaeus
@Redshift:
Yeah, I did see that mention, so I don’t intend to dismiss Mooney’s argument out of hand. It’s just that the territory he’s going into is fraught with peril, for good historical reasons. But I’m willing to see if Mooney navigates that territory successfully.
Redshift
@Mino:
A friend posted a link a few days ago to an article about how we may be irreversibly on the path to a “state change” in the climate (which I’ve read elsewhere.) I replied, “In the movies, the threat to the world is evil. In the real world, it looks like it will be selfishness and stupidity.”
I’m very interested in the historical context Tom talks about discussing. It would be somewhat comforting if there were evidence that this insanity is due in part to historical conditions that we will eventually emerge from (though if it’s due to the pace of change and that keeps accelerating, I’m not sure we will). Of course, that may come too late for the climate system in any case.
TenguPhule
Or we could take the simpler solution and exterminate them en masse for being too stupid to live.
Linnaeus
@Brachiator:
Hence my initial question that I will be thinking of when I read the book: how does Mooney deal with the historical, social, and culturally contingent nature of terms like “liberal”, “conservative”, etc.?
middlewest
Mooney’s a smart guy on some things, but his understanding of politics is pretty poor.
terraformer
What bothers me the most about the “meta” conversation these days is that the GOP is never called out on their demonstrable lies.
Instead, we’re faced with “both sides have a point” nonsense that disallows cogent, objective discussion.
It’d be one thing if the GOP and its minions said and acted based on non-factual beliefs and they were immediately and consistently pushed back on, but it’s quite another when these beliefs are given support and credence and painted as worthy of discourse.
Imagine most of it is due to the fruition of a decades-long, concerted effort to either purchase outright or intimidate media outlets to control messaging. Fear of backlash from the howling monkeys is also part of it, and the resulting withholding of funding. It’s like we have a shadow Ministry of Information.
DFH no.6
I don’t know.
I’ll probably read the book (I liked his War on Science).
But, despite the alleged “broad body of research from a variety of fields”, I don’t think we know nearly enough yet about how our brains work to postulate what causes people to be “liberal” or “conservative” in their beliefs, perspectives, and approaches to our grand human experiment of civilization.
I’m pretty much a material reductionist, so I think there’s a chance we might someday, but I’m not sure we ever will (any more than I expect we’ll ever really know what “consciousness” is, even though it also seems to arise from the construction and activity of our physical brains). Even if we do, we are currently a long way off.
matoko-loko would say differently, of course, but I notice she’s not been around these parts lately.
Since I find conservatism can be nicely summed up with “I’ve got mine, fuck you” I think conservatives are just assholes who are politically active.
So, whatever set of neuron connections and electro-chemical neurological activity makes someone an asshole pretty much would also make that someone a conservative.
Brutus
So, it looks like all Romney has to do now, with five months to go, is run out the clock. Don’t answer questions. Don’t talk about what you don’t want to talk about. Only grant interviews to Fox News and talk radio. And wait for election day while the economy sinks Obambi and the Super PACs do his dirty work with their loads and loads and oceans of unlimited corporate cash.
Not looking good for Obambi…
ericblair
@Linnaeus:
Especially since the particular constellation of beliefs varies over time and between countries as well; American conservatives and liberals can get suddenly whipsawed by what, say, a German conservative or liberal thinks is a fairly obvious logical conclusion. Besides, at least in the US, the labels don’t correspond well with any actual philosophy.
terraformer
I’d also add B. Russell’s quote:
But I’d argue that based on the supreme craziness of the GOP and its minions in the past 30 years, the quote should be revised to state that yes, it does indeed include what opinions are held as well (e.g., women have the right to control their own bodies vs. the GOP tells them what is acceptable and what is not).
terraformer
I’d also add B. Russell’s quote:
But I’d argue that based on the supreme craziness of the GOP and its minions in the past 30 years, the quote should be revised to state that yes, it does indeed include what opinions are held as well (e.g., women have the right to control their own bodies vs. the GOP tells them what is acceptable and what is not).
samuel
Is this shill peoples books day or something? How do I get in on this shill action?
So I guess this is sort of what we accuse the right of when they astroturf yes?
Way to go Cole you sell out!
catclub
@Redshift: In the real world, it looks like it will be selfishness and stupidity.”
Likewise, if there is a salvation it will be enlightened self-interest rather than altruism.
The article about saving Atlantic fisheries (important if true!) was in this line.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@samuel:
No.
scott
I agree this is thought-provoking stuff and interesting to discuss, but I always get nervous when people start reducing political differences to essentialist theories of The Other. Conservatives have a checkered history of doing this to explain race differences from the 19th century to Charles Murray, and it’s great as comfort food for your side but less so as science and even less so as political argument (“the reason you’re wrong is that your brain sucks!”). Mooney is a reputable guy, and I’m sure that the actual evidence he discusses provides some support for his conclusions, but I’m pretty much done with social scientists getting bored with having too many variables to deal with and advancing A Total Theory To Explain Everything (ev-psych anyone?). Whatever its value to us as a religious guide, the Bible says they by their deeds you shall know them, and that strikes me as a pretty useful yardstick instead of breaking out the EEG or the MRI.
Dee Loralei
@Tom Levenson: Dude send him the book! It should make a great and exciting movie. I want you to be involved dammit!
Linda Featheringill
The Republican Brain sounds interesting. You can get it on Kindle for about 10.00.
The Vertigo Years really sounds fascinating, though, perhaps because I know how the overreaching story of that time turned out. [I’m not so sure about what’s going to happen in the next couple of years.] It’s also available on Kindle through Amazon and is now on my wish list.
Rob in CT
I cosign #25.
muddy
I like the painting, the color and the flat positioning of the figures reminds me of Oetzi and Bog People.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
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@scott:
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Co-signed, both of you.
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Tom L @top,
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A question worth asking Chris Mooney, I think: if his hypothesis is correct, in what way can we take positive, achievable action on it? The world he describes sounds to me like one in which liberal brains and conservative brains will be locked in eternal warfare without compromise or resolution. A pair of boots stomping on each other’s faces, forever. That is a pretty bleak way to look at things. Even if true, wouldn’t it be more productive for us to focus on the aspects of our politics which do not fit this schema?
Roger Moore
@Mino:
I think they have a very clever plan. They plan to take what they can while they can and be dead by the time the really nasty consequences roll around.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Brutus: Awww, Taco’s back. You need a new schtick, it’s way too easy to pick you out of the mob.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Brutus:
Yay! PAIN!
Bring on the PAIN!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@samuel: Damn, and we get the return of Derf today as well. Jeez.
Amir Khalid
Off topic: it’s almost time for the Holland-Deutschland football thread.
Valdivia
Haven’t read the book but plan to listen to the podcast.
catclub
@Dee Loralei: I hope you have read Neal Stephenson’s ‘System of the World’ — substantial asections on Newton as head of the Exchequer. Plus guns and cannons that are probably not in Tom Levenson’s book.
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
Gouda?
Southern Beale
Stupid Shell Oil has not learned what the internet is for and has created this totally awesome Ad Generator to voice your support for arctic drilling. Or perhaps this is another Yes Men stunt, I do not know. Either way, it’s hilarious.
slag
Skeptical but keeping a liberal mind.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
An open question… Which no one seems to be asking.
If brain architecture is destiny, and Unlimited Corporate Cash is the true determiner of election results… doesn’t that kind of undermine the whole notion of Democracy?
Our system is built upon the Elnlightenment notion that we’re each a semi-Sovereign individual, capable of reason and judgement. Those core assumptions are now under attack.
If we’re all just bio-machines that can be trained (or bullied) into thinking/feeling/voting however we’re supposed to, why even bother counting the votes anymore? Seems like a waste.
(My question is still semi-rhetorical, so please don’t call me a Fascist… I don’t want to abolish elections. I’m just wondering what basis we can use to justify our current system, since the models used to develop it are being invalidated one by one).
slag
@Southern Beale: But why do they always make it so easy? I smell trap.
catclub
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: “If brain architecture is destiny, and Unlimited Corporate Cash is the true determiner of election results.”
Ask Governor Whitman Of California. The answer may be no.
good2go
There’s lots of literature supporting this idea in post-WWII/holocaust psychological thinking. Fromm’s “Escape from Freedom” and “Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,” and Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence” are the first ones that pop to mind. There’s much, much more out there in the past 70 years for those who pay attention.
Brachiator
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
Seems to me that it would be hard to justify any system, and society would be reduced to one of Darwinian struggle for existence, in which supposedly “conservative” and “liberal” types battled for dominance. And since one type could never be said to be superior to the other, it would not much matter which one ever came out on top.
catclub
@slag: I could not resist. But find I am thoroughly unoriginal. They will now have my throwaway yahoo email address. Enjoy.
ETA: “I smell trap” I figure they are using it to determine by crowdsourcing, which images have the highest impact.
The Fox, the Bunny, the Bear.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Southern Beale: They couldn’t be THAT stupid. Could they?
Well, my afternoon’s booked now.
RareSanity
Tom,
Not only is this not a symmetrical opposition, I question the very premise of the statement. I know that, for the sake of brevity, there’s a lot of paraphrasing, but that general notion seems wrong-headed, on its face.
The problem with it is, those qualities are not mutually exclusive, and the “conservative brain”, will always indulge in the worst extreme of each. If the conservative brain, is in fact, “resistant to new experiences”, it means that those people will have those traits, to a fault.
For example, they will be loyal, at times in spite of, information being available, that their loyalty may be misplaced (supporters of George W. Bush). They will persevere, at times rejecting information that should give them pause (war with Iran after the fiasco in Iraq). They may exhibit decisiveness, without taking, even a small amount of time, to consider the consequences of the decision (war in Iraq).
There is not one positive personality trait, when paired with a closed minded person, can not be corrupted and made negative.
There could be made arguments about open minded people and personality traits, but as you said, the influence of an openness to new ideas, is not symmetrical. There is far more damage to be done, in general, from doing things consistently wrong, because of the rejection of new ideas, then there is from doing things wrong, and being open to learning the lessons from it.
Comrade Dread
@Southern Beale: It’s a parody. If you read their About link, it sort of gives it away when it says that Climate Change that could potentially kill most of mankind is a possibility, but people prefer the certainty of more oil.
Pretty damn funny though.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
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In his book Shield Of Achilles Philip Bobbitt suggests that there has been a bi-causal relationship between democracy as a system for establishing the legitimacy of the State and the evolving technology of warfare from the late 18th Cen thru the 20th, specifically the era of great power wars requiring massed infantry formations made up of low-skill short-service conscripts. Basically states needed lots of bodies to fight and win their wars, and well motivated bodies at that, and the states which were most successful at doing this were the ones which empowered their citizens politically and culturally, giving them a sense of participation in and ownership of their own polity, i.e. something worth fighting for.
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If the highly trained long-service professional US military today is an exemplar of what to expect in the 21st Cen rather than an exceptional case, we may be reaching the close of that era. Which means that democracy as we think of it may be superceded by something else as a means for establishing the legitimacy of the institutions which govern us. What replaces it will not be entirely non-democratic since such transitions in the past have tended to retain bits of the system which came before them, but it won’t be democracy in the mid-20th Cen sense that we understand it.
Mino
@Southern Beale: That gallery is snarkalicious.
Brachiator
@RareSanity:
This assumes, incorrectly, that ideas are not really right or wrong, but just old and new, or that new is inherently superior to old, without regard to the actual content of the idea.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
But Napoleon organized some of the largest armies, encouraged a professional military in which individuals rose to power through merit, not a hereditary officer class, and in the beginning gave his soldiers something to fight for and empowered them politically.
And it is hard to see a lot of military actions after the 19th Century (the Spanish American War, for example) as having much to do with democracy.
Tonal Crow
Tom, what of the idea that Republican denialism is simply a side-effect of the victory of Republican propaganda?
In other words, Republicans once knew that their lies were lies. However, they have since spent decades repeating those lies ad nauseam, and listening to each other repeat them, and listening to Bobo mainstream them, and listening to cowardly Democrats accept them as at least arguable, if not true.
This repetition has eroded the knowledge that the lies are lies, replacing it with the understanding that the lies are the truth.
Comments?
toones
Is this the same guy that was a guest on Bill Moyers’ show recently and seemed like he was desperately “treading water” intellectually the whole time while defending what seemed like contrived points he just made up?
That guy?
RareSanity
@Brachiator:
No assumptions made, or inferred.
If an idea is rejected because it is new, how can it be evaluated to determine validity?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
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Napoleon’s armies are one of the examples Bobbitt cites in favor of his thesis. His officer corps may have been made up of long-service professionals but the increasingly large formations they led used a greatly simplified version of the highly intricate tactics which were characteristic of late 18th Cen armies. Napoleonic tactics (for example skirmishing) began as a necessary adaptation to the limited skills and experience of the levee en masse produced out of the French Revolution and subsequently refined by N and his officers. And Napoleon deployed a limited form of national liberation ideology in support of his conquests, an ideology which, while not exactly democratic, was still empowering of the masses of ordinary people compared with the ideology of his enemies, at least in theory if not in practice. The American Revolution and the wars of the Napoleonic era began the period of gradual democratization that Bobbitt discusses, they were the starting point, not the end- or even the mid-point of that process.
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This is obviously a grossly oversimplified version of events, but it is a large topic to cover in a couple of blog comments.
cokane
I dunno if I ever bought these physiologically deterministic arguments about conservative v liberal.
How do you explain bloggers like John Cole, Andrew Sullivan, and Charles Johnson (of LGF), who all switched?
I also dislike it, because the meaning of conservative and liberal, left and right, have switched so frequently over time. I think it’s silly to pretend that there’s some timeless inherent quality in human physiology that explains why people today are conservative.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
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World War I is the exemplar. As a result of the massive demands it imposed, both directly via mass conscription into the armed forces and indirectly thru the strain imposed upon civilian societies as a result of their mobilization in support of total war, it either reformed or destroyed almost every pre-war regime involved in the conflict, most noticeably those which did not derive their legitimacy from some form of mass politics. Even the US was not left untouched; both directly via the income tax and indirectly via changes in our political system, and in a more subtle fashion as a spurring impetus to what later came to be called the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans, it democratized our society. What the Great War did not decide, what was left open for the rest of the 20th Cen to settle, was what form of mass politics would become dominant in the wake of the collapse of the pre-war monarchies and empires: liberal democracy, communism, or fascism.
jl
I will try to listen this evening and I guess will have look at the book, but don’t want to spend much on it so going to have to search some internet used book sites.
From what I have read of the extracts and Mooney’s articles, I think his conclusions go way beyond the evidence.
I’ve been reading a lot of neuroeconomics, so have gotten some idea of what we can know about brain function and how different parts of the brain correspond to different notions and logical frameworks for how decisions are made.
So, yeah, I guess there is some evidence that people with different political views seem to use different neurological processes in reaching decisions and evaluating evidence, and reacting to evidence.
But is that because people who politically self identify with what are currently labeled liberal and conservative ideologies have different brains (either because of their development and experiences since birth, or becuase of different genetics or some kind of vague cultural evolution in different subpopulations) or because people in the two groups are simply making decisions in different emotional contexts?
From what I have read, we know next to nothing about how emotion and what we conceive of as rational decision making interact to determine how the brain functions in making decisions and forming opinions.
So, even the idea that there are two different types of brain seems a stretch to me, given the very crude knowledge we have. Let alone speculations about how those two supposed types of brain developed.
I’d be interested to see what the historical time frame was for these studies. Does the evidence all come from a given historical cohorts of individuals who grew up in a specific historical context?
And Mooney is a little arbitrary in what he considers to rational and irrational belief, and how he approaches that topic does not correspond very well to what economists, and a lot of neurobiologists would define as a good theory of rational decision. And I’m not saying that their ideas are right, just that there is a very different way of viewing rationality than Mooney’s is all.
Edit: what bothers me about the evidence, is that I have seen very little research that combines what we know about rational decision making in emotionally neutral contexts, and how strong emotions direct how rational decision making is done inside the brain. And current experimental methods may be too crude to do that.
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Agree that Napoleon’s army exemplified an empowering of the masses, but it was in no way democratic. Similarly, the coalition armiies that fought and defeated him also felt empowered, but were not democratic.
The South American wars of liberation were a very mixed bag, especially for the indigenous populations. And the Indian Wars in the US did not deliver democracy to Native Americans.
As outlined here, Bobbit’s thesis does not appear to stand up very well, but his book sounds interesting, and I will check it out.
@RareSanity:
An idea may simply be different, and not particularly new. Or, oversimplifying the hell out of science, an idea which is more useful or which better explains the world is superior to a prior idea which does not explain the world as well.
It was a new idea, newer than Einstein’s theories,at least, that neutrinos could travel faster than light. The new idea has turned out to be incorrect.
I have not yet read the book being discussed, but there appears to be an emphasis on the liberal mind being flexible and open to new ideas, but it also appears to value the novelty of an idea over any idea of its value or utility or usefulness. This may not be what the author intends.
Moik
Public debate between liberals and conservatives always reminds me of the courtroom scene in Idiocracy. You can make an impassioned, well reasoned, empirically sound argument all you want, and the rebuttal will always be something along the lines of pointing out how you’re a “total dick”, and you “talk all faggy”.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
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I give it a strong recommend. It is the sort of book which is just as valuable for the things the author gets wrong as the things which sound plausible and persuasive, because it makes you think thru in detail where and why he is wrong, and it gives you an interesting set of analytical tools, ones which do not necessarily lead to the conclusions he favors, and which may prove handy in thinking about other topics besides the ground covered in the book.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I agree with this part… though IMO we’re reaching the end of the “Boots on the Ground” era. I expect to see a future of drones (for tactical combat), cyberwarfare (for strategic combat– why bomb your factories when I can just hack them, along with your banks and power stations?), and small teams of expensive, highly-trained men a la Seal Team 6.
If this is the case, then the success criterion then turns from “who can make the best mass armies and weapons” to “who can make the best drones, hackers and elite squads.”
It’s not clear to me that democracy isn’t the answer to that question… China’s manufacturing engine is formidable, but whether or not that’s enough to dominate the future remains to be seen.
IMO, a culture that imprisons or executes its outliers isn’t going to do as well at harnessing the creativity of its people. But I suppose future history will tell.
jl
To give an example, of what I mean by ’emotional’ context:
How would Mooney’s results have differed if these studies could have been done in the late 1800s early 1900s in US, when the groups the ideological identity of groups who grew up as perceived minority or majority groups differed? Say union and social welfare liberals versus unregulated free enterprise and rugged individualism.?
I wonder if there is any research across cultures? Or is mainly done in US, or English speaking countries, or European cultures?
More I think about, I will get a copy and see what it says. Some of the hypotheses that Mooney spins seem so outlandish to me that I’m prepared to disappointed by the money and time cost that going through the book will entail, but if this stuff is going to be influential, I guess have to look at it to make up my (very rational, mature and well adjusted, BTW) liberal mind.
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
You could also say the same for the Civil War and even the Revolutionary War. But I see your point.
World War II is perhaps a better exemplar, but again, because of the political ideology underpinning the war, not so much the war itself. Although the Allies tried, ultimately they could not deny the legitimate claims of people in the Indian subcontinent or the colonial empires in Asia and Africa that they could fight for the Western democracies, but return to colonial status after the Axis powers were defeated.
However, as we saw in the rise of communist or theocratic regimes, democracy is not the only force chosen for political empowerment.
And although some react with “are you serious,” I highly recommend Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad as an illuminating look at the post Enlightenment world.
The earlier volumes ain’t too bad, either.
RareSanity
@Brachiator:
Any idea, when presented to an individual for the first time, is a new idea to them. It is irrelevant if the idea is new to humanity, at large, or not.
And also, you didn’t answer my question.
If someone possessing this alleged “conservative brain”, is presented an idea, and they reject it, simply because it is new to them, how can they ever evaluate the validity of the idea?
ETA: I get what you are saying about the “liberal mind”, but my question, and your statement on that, is the reason I say that the “conservative” mind is more dangerous.
Jebediah
@Brutus:
Excellent strategy for Rmoney. Avoid any direct confrontation, either with honest media or the President (as in a debate.) Voters will be wicked impressed – forget vote for the guy “you’d want to have a beer with” – now it will be “vote for the pussy who runs away from his opponent!”
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign will run ads detailing how many American jobs Romney destroyed at Bain. And if and when they debate, Romney will come out looking both arrogant and retarded.
Electoral college looking grim for your boy.
Brachiator
@RareSanity:
I tried to answer your question by suggesting that the liberal mind, as talked about here (I am not sure it is anything real) may overvalue mere novelty.
So, for example, an alleged “liberal brain” might insist on the validity of an idea, simply because it is novel, and never go on to investigate the value, utility or truth of the idea.
From this perspective, I don’t see “the conservative mind” as more dangerous, but rather the unexamined assumption that either tradition or novelty has inherent value, or must be strictly followed, can lead to calamity.
But I tend to favor innovation over tradition, but I try to watch out for over-enthusiasm over “the shock of the new.”
jl
One minor point in TL’s post
To
“the Republican Party now resembles nothing so much as King Canute’s court.”
should be added
“without a King Canute.”
samuel
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Still a passionate groupie after all these years. So flattering…an a creepy sort of way.
And a Cole suck hole to boot. What noble pursuits.
Anoniminous
We don’t know enough to justify Mooney’s sweeping generalizations.
As a counter-example, the largest group comprising US Conservatism are descendents of the Scotch-Irish Borderers whose culture is still deeply informed by the practices of ethnic warfare in Ireland circa 1660. This has nothing to do with their neurology and everything to do with their socialization and enculturation.
James E Powell
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
See also, Inventing the People, by Edmund Morgan.
James E Powell
@RareSanity:
I think the subject’s reaction to the “new to them” idea or statement varies with the importance or emotional attachment that the subject attaches to the “old” or “comfortable to them” idea or statement.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@TenguPhule:
Or we could take the simpler solution and exterminate them en masse for being too stupid to live.
I still think it would be a brilliant idea to start a fund for development on coastal land made dirt cheap by fears of climate change, funded by ads to wingnuts suggesting they can make a profit “sticking it to fear-mongering liberals”, and skimming a percentage off the top – WITHOUT having any of your own money tied up in it, and carefully excluding any liability for, you know, the effects of climate change.
Fools and their money should be soon parted, preferably with a finder’s fee.
RareSanity
@Brachiator:
I’m scoopin’ what you’re poopin’…LOL
I agree that dogmatic adherence to either tradition or novelty, are two side of the same coin, as far as processing information. It’s just that even if you adhere to novelty, you are still going to be exposed to infinitely more options which, of the two extremes, I find more positive.
qkslvrwolf
You wanna grab a beer at meadhall? ;-)
jl
New study says all bony vertebrates evolved from a kind of shark.
Distant Human Ancestor Had Shark Head
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
http://news.yahoo.com/distant-human-ancestor-had-shark-head-171350335.html
So, before we liberals get too all superior about everything, all them dang humans, it’s sharks all the way down.
Hate to be a downer, but Science says so. Remember to be rational, you people.
Jebediah
@samuel:
Write an interesting book.
RareSanity
@James E Powell:
I agree.
The problem is, usually it is the subjects, most significant to society as a whole, that require the new, correct (thank you, Brachiator) ideas.
And so, as a country, here we are…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jl:
__
We have
met the enemyjumped the shark, and it is us!/EvoBioPogo
Brachiator
@RareSanity:
HA. Glad I was able to make myself clear.
I tend to agree, though again I have developed a degree of caution when some want to overzealously push novelty as being inherently better.
As an aside, I think that I respect an openness towards ideas even if, as you say, “it is just new to you,” especially when the person acknowledges that the idea itself is old. A maybe trivial, but fun view of this. I enjoy the YouTube comments of teens and others who are discovering music that is not necessarily contemporary to them or their parents’ generation (or to me), but that they find really grabs them.
On the other hand, I used to know people who could not watch a silent movie. Just couldn’t do it, because they just seemed too ancient. I now know people who cannot watch a black and white movie.
I suppose there are variations of this in politics and other areas.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: This is great news for Republicans.
Brachiator
@jl:
Bite me.
(done purely for the pun, no disrepect intended).
Ben Franklin
@jl:
Dem DEM sharks better get a sharper set of teeth. Good sportsmanship ain’t gonna make it this Fall.
Brachiator
Oh, the shark babe, has such teeth, dear …
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
__
I have a lot of respect for the idea that organically evolved social systems are more robust than designer created systems, which to my mind is the essential wisdom behind classic small-c conservatism. Having said that, there aren’t a great many small-c conservatives left in the US political system today and from what I can tell virtually all of them are Democrats who are tarred with the tag “Liberal”. Irony weeps. Our political vocabulary in this country has degraded to the point where it isn’t much more nuanced or informative than that of chimps flinging poo at one another.
MTiffany
Science is antithetical to Republicans because science is inherently anti-authoritarian.
Hypatia's Momma
@MTiffany:
A-ha ha ha
Brachiator
@MTiffany:
Not entirely true. Scientists can be as authoritarian as anyone else. Unfortunately, science is not a process that can run independently of human beings.
jl
@Brachiator:
A Poem, by me:
Science that makes money for their contributors is sound and true, science that does not is looney, or a plot, and out of the blue.
The Pale Scot
@Anoniminous:
If only the “Irish” could be removed from the “Scotch-Irish Borderers” trope. they’re way more Cherokee than they are Irish. Certainly there was more inter-marriage in Tennessee than there was in Erin. All the Europeans in pre-war Shanghai weren’t referred to as German-Chinese.
But anyway, for some reason this piece brought to mind Oscar Wilde’s comment “In times of great joy, it’s always a comfort to the Irish to know that tragedy is just around the corner.”
Things are always going to change, which bothers invaders and thieves more than than anyone else.