Liberal Michael Totten says liberals are more interested than conservatives in foreign culture, but less interested in foreign history. Here are some excerpts from his essay, which includes links to other POVs:
I found this observation interesting, though I’m not sure I agree:
That is possibly the stupidest and silliest assertion I have ever seen. On the basis of this alone I name this idjit a nitwit.
Harumph.
Note to self:
Whenever you see an OP from the ghost of Christmas past on issues that don’t have a US zip code, think of the hamsters and don’t waste time and bandwidth.
This is slightly ridiculous.
The only way to settle this would be to do a large scale study, testing people on their interest and or knowledge of the world outside their own country, together with some sort of political questionnaire testing their political leanings. It could be done, but hasn’t been i suspect, because it would be a waste of time and money!
Why does correlations between interest in overseas matters and politcal leaning matter? Surely its the political position itself we should be debating here, not some characteristic of the person holding the view. If someone believes that authoritarian governments are better than liberal ones then we can debate that, but discussing whether that person likes peanut butter sandwiches, or is interested in foreign affairs is silly.
What you think of people holding “liberal” views is irrelevant. What is relevant is what you think of the “liberal” viewpoint on various topics, and what you can say to back yourself up.
Most of my history professors were liberals.
I’m a bleeding heart liberal, and I’m a history buff. And I haved a Bachelor’s in history.
If anything, I would think liberals would be MORE interested in history, because it and culture are tied together. You have to study history first.
History has told us time and again when you treat people like shit and oppress them, you breed resentment, and a situation that is ripe for communist sympathies, december. People usually turned to communism out of misery from right wing oppressors.
Think about it.
It’s not much of a debate response, but I would have to say this is the most ridiculous, partisan nonsense I’ve read in GD since the moon hoax threads. It is absolutely the worst GD thread since then.
december, I don’t for an instant think you actually believe something this absurd and unsupported by any objective evidence.
I don’t see where the debate is, should move this to IMHO as a poll. Just another leading BS post. I’ve lived in Asia for nearly 20 years. While there are a lot of republicans or conservatives out here, most of them could give a toss about the people, language or culture. This is a gross generalization, but my ancedotal experience puts those short timers out on an expat package doing their 2 year career ladder climb are like that.
You know when SARS hit China, the expats have fled like rats from a sinking ship. Dang near every one of them can’t speak even basic Chinese.
By and large, those who care enough to learn the language or culture and actually like being in China are liberals. That has also been my experience in Asia.
Please people, there shouldn’t be any partisanship. This is quite simply a bi or multi partisan issue: the underlying article is idiotic, inane and worthless posturing by an attention seeking twit.
The cite comes from a liberal who knows a lot of history and wishes his liberal colleagues knew more of it. I agree that one cannot determine percentages, but I think we can identify a certain strain of thought.
Another liberal blogger says that some some leftists he knows have engaged in a years-long course of education in international history that was “doctrinaire propaganda from a…didactic point of view.” (I think that’s what he meant. His wording is convoluted.)
In other words, some on the left have a view that the history of the world can be adequately understood as a reflection of bad deeds by the United States. They think the US caused Pinochet to take power in Chile, rather than just being one of his supporters. They don’t know about the internal Chilean causes for Pinochet’s rise to power. They think the US is responsible for Saddam ruling Iraq, just because the US supported him in the war against Iran. They don’t know the steps he went through to gain power, nor do they know about the government he replaced. They think the US caused bin Laden to take power, merely because we supported him against the USSR. They think the US caused the economic problems in Latin America, ignoring the local economic situations within each of those countries.
This POV can be misleading. Those who blamed the US for Saddam’s power had trouble believing that Iraqi people would welcome the US soldiers. It didn’t occur to them that the Iraqi people blamed Saddam for Saddam’s power.
I don’t mean to say that most liberals think this way. I do think that the Nation often takes this POV and some posters on this board do, too.
Oh for god’s sake, december, the CIA was involved in Pinochet’s coup. That’s pretty much a fact. Not to mention, the embargos against Allende, and then the Chicago Boys.
Not to mention even supporting that bastard was evil. Quit appologizing for him. He’s an evil bastard.
Yeah, SOME people take this view. And some people are spinmeisters for the right. :rolleyes:
As for the US causing problems in Latin America-three words for you:
United Fruit Company.
Two more:
William Walker.
Another three:
School of the Americas.
And finally:
Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
Let’s agree FTSOA that Pinochet was an evil bastard. It is confirmed that the CIA was involved in his coup. Let’s say that the US was dead wrong.
Still, internal Chilean history is most important to understanding this coup. What were the internal political, military and economic situations in Chile? How many troops were loyal to Pinochet? Why were they willing to revolt against the elected government? How did the general populace feel about Allende and his policies? How did Allende’s governance of Chile compare with the governance before him? Would Allende have been overthrown even if the CIA hadn’t helped Pinochet? Simply stating that the US was on the wrong side doesn’t answer all these questions.
I feel that you, December, and the author of this essay are very ignorant about things. First, the essay. I disagree that liberals are not interested in foreign history. I can personally say that I enjoy learning about other cultures and their histories. Also, to learn about a foreign culture, wouldn’t you have to learn at least a small bit about it’s history as well? In any case, I feel that this author is trying to make liberals look like they are unintelligent or uncaring about the world, while at the same time making the statement that conservatives care about it. From what I’ve seen of conservatives in our country, I can say that they couldn’t give a damn about the world, as long as they make money. Now on to December. I don’t understand how you can have such a blind view of things. Just because someone doesn’t agree with America and it’s war, does not make them anti-American or the like. In fact, the people who are anti-war actually care more about the world they live in because, they don’t want to anyone die for this stupid war.
And so we get down to what december really wanted to do, which is find an excuse to attack the ideological other (and with rather pitiful inattention to facticity).
Good lord, let us just let this tripe sink into obscurity.
Collounsbury is right. This post reminds me of the time when I was a teenager and I spent one afternoon with a friend firing his BB gun into a hornet nest in his back yard, then running back into the house to watch the hornets buzz angrily, looking for the attackers, who were watching the fun from the large, sliding glass doors in the back of his house. This was all very pointless, but it was fun watching the hornets get mad as a result of our pointless attack.
That’s what december’s post amounts to. Considering the anecdotal evidence I have this doesn’t even follow, but to be fair, I’ve never done much of a study of it. I’ve noticed that anyone who’s interested in foreign cultures is probably going to be interested in foreign history, as well. The window-dressing of liking “world music” and foreign films is a red herring. I mean, five getcha ten there’s a lot of reggae fans couldn’t locate Jamaica on a map, no matter what their politics.
Anyway, even if this article is accurate, it’s pretty damning of conservatives, as far as their foreign policy savvy goes. I mean, if you’re going to have an opinion of foreign policy you do need to know history, but you really ought to have a handle on foreign countries’ cultures, too. It seems to assert that American liberals and conservatives are both half-baked when it comes to foreign policy. While it’s true that Americans tend to have less of an interest in the world around them than you might expect from the citizens of the world’s preëminent economic and military power, the liberal/conservative breakdown that december and this quarter-baked blogger assert are just groundless, partisan sniping.
Seems unlikely, since both my cites came from liberals.
Yeah, and several conservatives have said that you’re wrong.
What’s your point?
Isn’t that a logical fallacy?
Both your… cites I suppose, articles, came from gibbering twits, whatever their self-identified political posturing.
Garbage is Garbage regardless the political hat.
Jeezus Herbert Christ – are Marx and Engels, the authors of the Communist Manifesto, a work which seeks to cast all of history into a class struggle – are these guys liberal enough history buffs for you?
The OP is whinging joke.