The concept that intelligent people, after some thought, need to come to the exact same conclusion, especially regarding something as amorphous as politics, is a bit of amazing logic.
Let’s take, for example, the current economic crisis. Is it more correct that tax cuts or fiscal handouts will fix the economic crisis? The correct answer is that no one really knows for sure and it could well be that neither works. Still, people will choose sides based on a number of criteria, but neither will be correct. It’s really an unknowable answer, at least before something is attempted.
Just because you know some people who are conservative and intractable in their beliefs does not mean that all conservatives are intractable in all of their beliefs. I certainly know some liberal people that believe some crazy ass shit and also wouldn’t change their position despite evidence to the contrary “That’s just what they want you to believe!”
Posting threads generalizing conservatives from the actions of a few opens up liberals to the same spurious generalizations.
As I opined in this post, I believe that conservatives seem to have a greater need to believe that their (invariably liberal) opponents are not just wrong, but totally without morals, courage or indeed any merit at all. This can lead to intelligent conservatives claiming to believe some pretty dumb, easily disproven things.
Liberals are also susceptible to this: all ideologies have their orthodoxies, and no one likes to admit they’ve been wrong. And there are dumb people on both sides of the spectrum.
But whether it’s because of the greater unification of the post-Goldwater conservative movement, or something inherently inflexible in people who align themselves with the conservative side of current issues, I see more ‘smart’ conservatives convince themselves that the strawmen they make up are real.
E.g., I can’t think of a equally-widespread liberal counterpart of the conservative tactic of making up ridiculous ‘politically correct’ phrases like ‘vertically challenged’, and then claiming straight-faced that such phrases were invented by earnest liberals.
Actually, he intended to go in much earlier–except that the Grecian army was putting up a tougher resistance to Mussolini than expected, and Mussolini needed Hitler’s armies to bail him out. By the time that had resolved, it was almost winter. Now, Hitler knew that it was unwise to start the push to Russia so close to winter, but he was very impatient (plus, he absolutely hated Stalin), so he did it anyway.
This isn’t the difference between liberals and conservatives, though.
From where I sit in a relatively liberal town in a relatively conservative state, I’ve known a LOT of liberals – some college-age, some leftover hippies, some octogenarians. Smart, stupid, in-between, what all of them had in common was the love of freedom and the belief that everyone deserves a fair and equal chance, that everyone truly is equal, just like it says in the Constitution.
Conservatives are marked with a thorough dislike for bullshit. Don’t tell a conservative “just trust me, it’s true”. Don’t tell them “We know what’s best.” If it quacks like a duck, it’s a damn duck. Don’t make excuses as to why you’re depressed or violent or angry – others have done more with less, so pick yourself up and drive yourself forward. Your success will mean that much more when it comes.
Are there conservatives who have a deep love for liberty? Yes. Are there liberals who take no shit? Yes. But my informal sampling finds that not only do the above characteristics seem to define the liberals and conservatives I know, they also seem to please the same people.
We don’t discuss politics: some of the conservatives genuinely liked Obama, but most of them thought he needed more experience (yeah, I know). They didn’t like McCain’s pandering much either, for that matter, even the particularly conservative Catholic couples. It’s weird: they don’t hate their gay friends but they don’t support gay marriage. They don’t hate the pagans they know, they just think they’re a bit daffy. One of the very staunch libertarians among them gave me a ride from the Democratic caucus to go to lunch and back. Yes, he knew I was caucusing for Obama. But apart from some very gentle ribbing it just wasn’t an issue.
It’s okay, fellow lib-buddies. It’s okay. They’re people too.
That’s the problem. The Liberal definition of intelligence boils down to “Boy he’s smart! He agrees with me!” or “Boy is he stupid, he doesn’t agree with me!”. They take a single issue, and if a person’s opinion isn’t agreeable on the subject, they get labeled as stupid. Ben Stein, for example.
Either that, or the smart social conservatives are just referred to as ‘evil’ so that their intelligence can be discounted. Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfield, Dick Nixon, Powel, et al.
I’d like to challenge this statement. I believe, for the purposes of this thread anyway, that liberals are actually okay having their system of thinking and their values challenged. They might not–probably will not–budge an inch off their initial positions further than most conservatives, but they enjoy having those discussions, rethinking what they think. reconsidering what they have thought to be true or valid.
My sense is that conservatives don’t enjoy such conversations one tiny bit. “Let’s consider that the Founding Fathers were totally screwed up in their assumptions…”
That’s not the choice, though. We have the option of tax cuts or fiscal stimulus or both. Labeling a fiscal stimulus with the derogatory term “handout” has the effect of closing off debate without really analyzing the issues.
And yes, nobody knows 100% for sure what will work, but we’ve been amassing pretty decent economic data for seventy years now, so it’s possible to put forth macro theories that can be compared and analyzed against that data. Certain theories will hold up better than others against the historical data, and lumping all theories together is intellectual laziness.
I don’t like the whole “Conservatives are dumb by definition” thing in the OP. I disagree with that.
But I do think there might be something to the idea that conservatives are less willing to rethink their ideas. So I started a new thread in Great Debates here.
He made a mistake. Intelligent people make mistakes. He’s hardly the first person to cock up a war. That he was even in a position to cock up a war against half the world is about as close to proof as it gets that he was a smart cookie.
You are directly contradicting the OP, you know. Let’s try this
“The violin and fiddle are different instruments”
“No they aren’t!”
“Well, the musical style, context, and sound are completely different”
“Gah! Stop it! No they aren’t”
“In fact, lots of fiddle players shave the bridge flatter so they can play double stops easier, so strictly speaking, they can be physically different.”
“Stupid Conservative! Shut up! Shut up Shut up!”
“I’m just trying to say that hypothetically, its not that far out to consider them different instruments.”
“I’m totalling going online to tell my liberal friends how stupid you are to even consider such a ridiculous thing! I can’t believe your inflexible thinking! I’m so clearly superior to you because I won’t even consider your proposition for a single instant! Where’s my latte?!?”
While I agree that there are “dumb” people on both sides of the political spectrum, the OP gave some concrete examples of a lack of willingness to listen (and a lack of memory that one’s incorrect information had been corrected), not of “dumbness.” Rather than throw out the true statement that dumb people exist everywhere, can responders post concrete examples of liberals doing the same thing? I assume they can, so I’d like to read them.
If you’ll re-read the second clause in the paragraph following the line you quoted, I think you’ll see there’s no need to challenge it.
I too have had conversations like this with conservative friends. While I have had similar conversations over the years with dogmatic leftists, they’re all pretty far in the past.
I know exactly the type of conservative the OP is talking about. I have a few of these blind irrational conservatives in my world too, but they are certainly not representative of ALL conservatives.
But insufferable, they are. No arguement here. I have a friend (and I use the term loosely) who calls the current economic situation ‘The Obama Recession’. When it is pointed out that the recession started long before Obama was even elected…he goes off on this long ridiculous explanation of the psychology of the stock market. Some of his points are valid, but he stretches them to absurd lengths to draw his foolish conclusions.
For some reason this jackass loves to discuss politics with me and actively seeks me out. It’s fucking painful.
Obviously I exaggerated for effect, but it was quite obvious that Hilarity N. Suze was quite unwilling to even discuss it. “And you were just now told they weren’t. By an expert.”
This thread is pretty funny. I’m a Libertarian, so I’d like to think I have a more objective point of view about what differentiates Conservatives and Liberals. What the OP seems to me is most like a combination of a small sample size and confirmation bias. In my experience, the distribution of idiots is roughly equal between both ideals, as is the number of people who stubbornly cling to their beliefs, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. What separates Liberals and Conservatives isn’t intelligence, morality, or anything like that, it’s simply a matter of what values they hold most dear and thinking someone an idiot for having an opposing belief is on par with thinking the same of someone who doesn’t like the same music you do.
That’s not to say there aren’t some people who are genuinely dumb or evil in a particular point of view, but in philosophies are large and encompassing as Liberalism and Conservativism, they’re each bound to have their fair share.
This is all really just a natural human reaction anyway. It’s easy to dehumanize your opponents, it makes it easier to think of them as unintelligent or immoral because you don’t understand their motivations or their reasoning. We do this all the time when we consider our “enemies” from something as major as a war, like Islamic Fundamnentalists, Communists, Nazis, whatever, or something as minor as a sports rivalry. So, really, can we stop with this whole “Republicans/Democrats are evil and they want to destroy the country!” please?