How Do They Get That Way?
Have you ever asked yourself why liberals are so wrong minded, even when their beliefs are proven to be irrational and their philosophy demonstrably faulty?I have come to believe that it is built on self-hatred.Perhaps it was instilled in them by their parents, or by the many other soul-crushing events that can happen to a child as they grow into adulthood. some of you will understand because you have gone through it and have had the strength to overcome it and are quite pleased with yourselves.My Granddaughter recommended the poetry of W.H. Auden so, being a poetry lover I picked up a book of his poems.Now, you should understand she graduated from a state college, well known for its liberal attitude as most of them are.I didn't expect much elucidation from this famous ode-maker.I came across a poem called "In Praise Of Limestone"."I 'm a long way from being a shrink, but it brought back all the shrinkish stuff foisted on me during a great tragedy in my life. I've overcome being in a liberal family, in a liberal neighborhood, among liberal relatives which I managed to overcome as I struggled for rationality.Let me quote the part of the poem that got me started on this diatribe.
"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;That is how I shall set you free. There is no love;
There are only various envies, all of them sad."
The terrible lonliness of being with yourself.Boo-hoo. It is during the emotional 'teen years where this is particularly foisted onto persons, when they are flooded with hormones, and unidentified feelings. It's no wonder they are attracted to philosophies of emotion , where concern for their fellow man overrides concern for themselves. I have no degree in shrinkology, so you might say I'm merely prattling so much garbage. Maybe so, but that poem excerpt is typical of the left, justifying almost anything because it demands sacrifice, and the people have been conditioned to self-hatred. That's why such poetry is typical of the left. You won't find heroes in their literature, or positive aspirations in their fiction, That's why I don't read any "serious" books of fiction. Only thrillers, Where I can identify with the good guys and hate the bad guys.
"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;That is how I shall set you free. There is no love;
There are only various envies, all of them sad."
The terrible lonliness of being with yourself.Boo-hoo. It is during the emotional 'teen years where this is particularly foisted onto persons, when they are flooded with hormones, and unidentified feelings. It's no wonder they are attracted to philosophies of emotion , where concern for their fellow man overrides concern for themselves. I have no degree in shrinkology, so you might say I'm merely prattling so much garbage. Maybe so, but that poem excerpt is typical of the left, justifying almost anything because it demands sacrifice, and the people have been conditioned to self-hatred. That's why such poetry is typical of the left. You won't find heroes in their literature, or positive aspirations in their fiction, That's why I don't read any "serious" books of fiction. Only thrillers, Where I can identify with the good guys and hate the bad guys.
He believed that humans were not equipped to perceive true reality. But, he wasn't talking about quantum physics.
Like Don Corleone said, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer."
Well anyway, "The Comprachicos" described the assault on children's minds in Progressive nursery schools. I never went to a nursery school myself; I also did not go to kindergarten. I started public school in the first grade; but was fortunate enough to have been previously taught phonics at home by my mother. Thus I came out of it able to reason all right.
If children are kidnapped by the State, and taught that they cannot reason and the facts and everything else are to be determined by majority vote, you are going to have this kind of danger in the country.
I people accept partisan politics is related to Moral Foundations Theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_f...
I learned all this from the 2012 book The Righteous Mind.
That book describes five moral foundations: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Sanctity/Purity. There is also a "liberty" foundation, that he presents as an exception, but to me it seems the closest thing to valid moral foundation.
Haidt explains that liberals are mainly focused on Care and Fairness foundations, while conservatives tend to have a balance of all of them.
What Haidt says rings true to me, BUT while I think these "foundations" made it possible for human kind to organize as groups, we do not have to be beholden to them. Haidt rightly says we start out with emotions based on these foundations, and then we post-hoc rationalize a reason-based argument to get to what our emotions tell us. I agree, BUT we can rise above that.
It's hard to rise above, esp consistently, and therefore these emotions do drive us to different policy ideas and we (some of us more than others) post-hoc rationalize how logic and reason supposedly led us to those policies.
The explanation that liberals/conservatives must be just stupid, psychologically damaged, or morally flawed and then patting myself on the back is pure empty calories, and I reject empty calories except for Taco Bell and Mountain Dew.
You rightly talk about emotionalism being foisted on people at a young age. I think emotionalism and post hoc rationalization are the human default. We have to work to overcome them. It's like of like how religion sees the devil as constantly tempting us. Our nature to come up with narratives about how we and people in our group are the good guys is part of human nature. The foible got people to work together to build cities with people beyond their personal family, and now it's like a devil tempting us that must be resisted in favor of reason.
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