Liberalism as Socially Motivated Cognition
I have mentioned a research study by the APA entitled, Political Conservatism as Socially Motivated Cognition, that appeared biased against conservatives. The study pointed out that there had been little research done on the traits of liberals--but they must have overlooked this article in Clio Psych's Journal from 2003. Here is an excerpt from the article that mentioned research on liberals from 1982--I guess the writers of the APA's biased article did not see fit to go back that far.
And if you ever wondered why some liberals seem wishy-washy at times--this paragraph from the same article might explain things:
Hmmm.... I don't agree here that it is lack of self-esteem that would cause liberals to seem spineless. I think it is their desire to avoid responsibility at any cost. And speaking of spineless liberals, here is another way they avoid responsibility for murderers, they just nominate them for a nobel prize--thanks to Sissy Willis.
Update: It seems like I have struck a nerve in a number of readers with this post, so let me clarify my thoughts. My intention with this post was to point out that the original APA article on Conservatives stated that there was little published about the psychological traits of liberals. The article I linked to pointed out that there was such a study and it looked just as negative as the one that was published by the APA about Conservatives. I was mocking the way one could exploit this research much in the same way this press release from Berkeley did with the APA article in which they mention Rush Limbaugh and Reagan as right wingers like Hitler and Mussolini. I should have made these points clearer. In addition, the "spineless liberal" term was a bit over the top but I have very strong feelings about celebrities who rally to get murderers sentences reduced or released. The legal system should deal with this, not a group of actors. It just makes me think of the Norman Mailer fiasco.
Research on the psychology of radical activists helps us to understand this mismatch between Chomsky's ideas and his personal style. In the 1970s, Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter administered Thematic Apperception Tests to a large sample of "new left" radicals (Roots of Radicalism, 1982). They found that activists were characterized by weakened self-esteem, injured narcissism and paranoid tendencies. They were preoccupied with power and attracted to radical ideologies that offered clear and unambiguous answers to their questions. All of these traits can be found in the work of Chomsky and other anti-imperialist intellectuals.
And if you ever wondered why some liberals seem wishy-washy at times--this paragraph from the same article might explain things:
The unwillingness to offer alternatives reveals a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. If they offered their own policy ideas they would be vulnerable to criticism. They would run the risk that their ideas would fail, or would not seem persuasive to others. This is especially difficult for anti-capitalists after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has also been difficult in the war against terrorism because Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are such unsympathetic figures. Psychologically, it is easier to blame America for not finding a solution than it is to put one's own ideas on the line.
Hmmm.... I don't agree here that it is lack of self-esteem that would cause liberals to seem spineless. I think it is their desire to avoid responsibility at any cost. And speaking of spineless liberals, here is another way they avoid responsibility for murderers, they just nominate them for a nobel prize--thanks to Sissy Willis.
Update: It seems like I have struck a nerve in a number of readers with this post, so let me clarify my thoughts. My intention with this post was to point out that the original APA article on Conservatives stated that there was little published about the psychological traits of liberals. The article I linked to pointed out that there was such a study and it looked just as negative as the one that was published by the APA about Conservatives. I was mocking the way one could exploit this research much in the same way this press release from Berkeley did with the APA article in which they mention Rush Limbaugh and Reagan as right wingers like Hitler and Mussolini. I should have made these points clearer. In addition, the "spineless liberal" term was a bit over the top but I have very strong feelings about celebrities who rally to get murderers sentences reduced or released. The legal system should deal with this, not a group of actors. It just makes me think of the Norman Mailer fiasco.
posted by Helen at 1:09 PM
57 Comments:
Regarding liberals: "I think it is their desire to avoid responsibility at any cost."
Wow, there is a stereotype if I ever saw one. This is what makes the blogoshere so "great" I guess. Anyone can say anything, regardless of how reckless, angry, or ill-informed it is.
And they can say it on other people's blog comment sections!
To anonymous 2:47--
I see you have mastered step 1 of Scott Adam's rules for commenting on the internet: "Turn someone’s generality into an absolute."
To get more tips on how to debate on the internet, please see my previous post on Scott Adams rules for how to attempt to make others look stupid.
I think that psychologists are losers who freely trade in stereotypes. It's a professional hazard, since they study personality.
But hey, I didn't mean you, Helen. You shouldn't take it personally. It was just a generality, not an absolute. Spineless liberals who lack self-esteem may confuse generalities with absolutes; I don't.
weakened self-esteem, injured narcissism and paranoid tendencies
Maybe this is why when I'm around liberals something I or my children say is taken as an insult, insensitive, sexist,(whatever it is when your kid says something that could be derogatory of gays), etc. or maybe we're just rude, insensitive, and judgemental.
I'm not going to chide Dr. Kuperberg, who I hope is simply reminding everyone that generalities are both unwise and inaccurate.
I have listened to a large number of so-called liberals in academia rail against folks more conservative than themselves (even moderate Democrats), name calling and insulting those people loudly and with venom. Why, there are several famous liberals who have suggested that conservatives just aren't as smart as liberals (suggesting the opposite, at least for the pundit who brayed that nonsense).
Of course there are many conservatives who say bad things about liberals; it is a sadly polarized society. But find me a few in academia. Good luck.
That being said, two wrongs do not make a right, as the children's saying goes. But I would hope that everyone would be polite to our host, who is providing us with a forum for discussion.
"Eric Blair"
Helen, where to begin disagreeing with your post???
1. "They were preoccupied with power and attracted to radical ideologies that offered clear and unambiguous answers to their questions." - The first part of that statement applies to lots of people, including lots of conservatives, and the second part also applies to lots of religious fundamentalists of all stripes. In fact, humans tend to see non-existent patterns and causes when faced with a random series of events.
2. "The unwillingness to offer alternatives reveals a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. If they offered their own policy ideas they would be vulnerable to criticism." - Many liberals are VERY willing to offer alternatives. Many of them are also very willing to see criticism of themselves and their alternatives as caused by stupidity, ignorance and bias of their critics, while simultaneously ignoring their own stupidity, ignorance and bias.
3. "...it is easier to blame America for not finding a solution than it is to put one's own ideas on the line." - It is easier to blame America because it is much easier to see an effect of the criticism and to feel that the critic is "making a difference". Feeling hated may not be as good as feeling loved, but it's better than feeling completely ignored. An American criticising somebody 10,000 miles away will almost certainly be ignored and will feel powerless as a result.
4. Do you remember the "fundamental attribution error" in your training. You seem to have forgotten all about it.
That will do for a start.
Everyone avoids responsibility at some point in their lives.
Do not act as though you are immune to irresponsibility or unaccountability.
It is interesting that you mock those who are against the Death Penalty, yet you make no mention of the fact that the State of Texas probably executed an innocent man.
That is the problem with the Death Penalty. There is no guarantee that overzealous prosecutors will release exculpatory evidence to Defendants. There is no guarantee that innocent defendants will not be killed.
Clearly, it does not deter crime. States that do not enforce a death penalty actually have lower murder rates than states that do.
Whatever symbolic value that could be obtained from killing those convicted of heinous crimes is entirely minimized when innocent people are also killed by the government.
From a state treasury perspective it actually costs more to execute an inmate than it does to incarcerate that same inmate for the rest of his or her natural life. Why waste taxpayer dollars?
The Death Penalty, in its current form, is unacceptable. Until the government can provide a 100% guarantee that the person they are executing actually committed the crime for which they were convicted, the Death Penalty should be abolished.
Boy, liberals sure have thin skin don't they?
Regarding the death penalty, anonymous 6:34 said: "Clearly, it does not deter crime."
Clearly, you've never heard of Kenneth Allen McDuff. Many women are alive today because McDuff was sentenced to death and executed by the State of Texas.
Anon - anout your anti-death penalty rant. if Texas did execute an "innocent man", boo-hoo!!!
In fact, I think the death-penalty is badly underused. There are a lot of people sucking up good, fresh air, and taking up space in the USA, sitting in various prisons, and wasting up taxpayer monies, who never can be rehabilitated, and who are a danger to all law-abiding citizens.
"...fact that the State of Texas probably executed an innocent man."
Nice qualifier! Guess it wouldn't do to point out that "probably" negates this as "fact". From the Chronicle article to which you link (written with poorly concealed bias: "Neighborhood officers... had never successfully pinned a crime on Cantu."? This is the language of a factual report? LOL!), the conviction was based on eyewitness testimony. Recanted? Little bit late, now. If this witness perjured himself, he should receive the same penalty as the man he falsely accused. (And no Clintonesque "Everybody does it" defense. Perjury really is a serious matter. Regardless of the wishes of certain liberals.) But do we believe this recantation? Sounds like our witness is trying to rehabilitate his reputation in a community which despises breakers of "...the neighborhood code of silence."
The substantive political issue in this post is that Stanley Williams, who is on death row in California, could be granted clemency by Governor Schwarzenegger. Arguing that Williams deserves clemency does not remotely amount to "avoiding responsibility" for anything. That is a conflation of accepting responsibility for your own actions and piling responsibility onto other people for their actions. Desmond Tutu did not commit murder and he is not on death row. Tutu takes full responsibility for everything that he has ever done, as far I know. Here he's talking about something completely different; he's talking about clemency for someone that he has no personal connection to.
Undoubtedly the famous Norman Mailer and Jack Abbott case will damage the parole cases for thousands of convicted murderers decades into the future. But in this case, Schwarzenegger isn't even thinking about paroling Williams. All that he is considering is commuting his sentence to life without parole. If anyone cares to consider the argument for this, instead of psychoanalyzing those who argue it, it is that Williams has a lecture circuit in prison in which he counsels teenagers against gang membership and crime. He can speak with some authority, since he founded one of the gangs that they might join.
So what message would it send to everyone that he has talked to if they cut short his speeches to execute him? He has been carrying water for the system for years, but the system might not care. His would-be executioners want to send him to exactly the same place as if he had sat in his cell and stared at a wall. What message would it send to anyone in prison who wants to do any good for the world?
It isn't even about saving money, because the death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole, even in states where liberals are few and far between.
Indeed, to talk about avoiding responsibility, there are a lot of people who ditch the responsibility of self-restraint when it comes to the death penalty. They have an itch to see convicts executed, even when they have no connection at all to their crimes. I have heard that when Gary Gilmore asked to be executed by firing squad, the state was inundated with letters from volunteers.
Here we are again debating the issue of gun control and crime. I remember the day John Lennon was shot dead. Same goes with the shooting of Ronald Reagan. In both cases, the mental state of the criminal came to the fore. We know that something needs to be done about people with mental/psychological issues having access to guns or other weapons.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10214838/
Should this burden be shouldered by the psychological profession or will it violate doctor/patient privacy?
There was a time in my life when I would have agreed with the Berkeley blurb. Like when I was a student there, during my flaming liberal days. 20 years later I returned my alumni association card in pieces when they gave Bill Clinton a medal for something, but that's neither here nor there. I just want to point out the creepiness of labeling someone else's political inclination a psychiatric pathology. This has a grand history in the Soviet Union, where the "treatment" for dissidents involved extended convalescence in mental hospitals.
Having said that, I'll vouch that my own former liberalism may have originated in my youthful social inadequacy and impecuniousness. The world frightened me, my own darker impulses frightened me, I couldn't understand people with different points of view, so I projected my own ignorance and nastiness onto them and decided whoever disagreed with me was evil and/or stupid. Likewise, I felt that my own brilliance was not being adequately recognized or compensated by society and I attributed this to the greed and/or foolishness of others. This thought pattern mapped quite well onto my identification with liberal causes and issues.
Or it did until I was knocked out of the center of my own little universe by the arrival of my kids, and my need to succeed at a job in order to feed them. I had to focus on the needs of others before my own. For me these new thought patterns mapped onto a conservative philosophy better than a liberal one.
I won't generalize my experience onto anyone else. Or at least I'll try not to. However, I am curious... if you've switched political identities, what was your catalyst?
I just want to point out the creepiness of labeling someone else's political inclination a psychiatric pathology. This has a grand history in the Soviet Union, where the "treatment" for dissidents involved extended convalescence in mental hospitals.
Agreed.
"...something needs to be done about people with mental/psychological issues..."
Ok. What? At what point of eccentricity do we deprive a person of liberty? How do we determine when a person's threat to society/himself outweighs his right to his freedom (or his politics)?
xray_dude: I agree that labelling people by their politics is a social pathology. That's something that liberals do.
I was a liberal too, once. That was back when I stole candy from children, cheated regularly at chess and solitaire, and demanded government rescue for every wrong thing that I did. I tried to stifle my aggression by wearing pink, but I ended up just lashing out.
Now I'm a much better person.
So all you people who support the Death Penalty have no qualms about innocent people being swept into the execution net? What if it were your father/mother/brother/sister/child?
Of course, why should you care about innocent people being executed by the government? Its much more interesting to play semantics than concern yourselves with poor, innocent defendants.
Culture of Life indeed.
Anonymous 11:27: The most enthusiastic death penalty advocates have no thought of it happening to anyone that they know. Making a total stranger pay the ultimate is a convenient way to claim that you believe in personal responsibility. Just not necessarily for yourself.
In this case there isn't any real doubt that Williams is guilty. The question is whether the system cares that he has done good for the world while in prison, or whether instead it will play out "personal responsibility by proxy" to the maximum.
Again, Schwarzenegger is not talking about ever letting him go, or about saving money by killing him.
One other detail that has been lost in the discussion: The article in Clio Psych does not once mention the word "liberal". Chomsky does not call himself a liberal. In fact, he severely criticizes liberals in almost the same terms as people here do. He thinks of them as effete and cowardly.
Greg,
Take a deep breath....
Take a deep breath?
Why I do believe that is the phrase of the rather common species of the caterwauling conservative. One can easily identify this brand of conservative by observing whether he or she, when presented with an argument that tests their pre-conceived notions, responds by mistaking passion for one's deeply held beliefs as "wild-eyed" or "crazy."
"Take a deep breath" is also a common phrase uttered by the caterwauling conservative when confronted with an argument that they can neither comprehend nor counteract.
Caterwauling conservatives enjoy spending their days pointing out how anyone who disagrees with George W. Bush is a traitor to their country and hates the troops. They also enjoy blaming the liberal media for portraying Iraq as a land where insurgent attacks are increasing week by week, rather than the real Iraq: happy fun land, where even in the green zone you can obtain some souvenir shrapnel.
At the risk of pouring gasoline on a flamewar, I don't think anyone who remotely calls herself or himself a liberal should ever bring up Noam Chomsky. He is typical of the kind of ideologue---right OR left---who wants OTHER people to follow rules he himself will not follow.
In particular, Chomsky's constant "class warfare" meme is completely hypocritical on his part. And when someone calls him on it, he admits to the charge. But you see, he wants OTHER people to follow the rules, not him.
Here is a quick reference (plenty others out there):
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1019055.html
Replying by saying that nasty rightwingers do the same thing is quite beside the point. It doesn't defend Chomsky's position, nor does it make his hypocrisy any more palatable.
I am delighted to listen to anyone from the Left on this subject who gives tons of money to the poor. I will not listen to crypto-aristocrats who want a different set of criteria applied to them than for the "common folk" they so clearly disrespect.
And THAT is independent of party affiliation.
Sorry to add to this, but Chomsky gets me angry.
"Eric Blair"
Anonymous 1:24: No, Helen has a point. Even I have been known to troll and overreact.
But it is true that Chomsky doesn't like to be called a liberal. Maybe the Clio Psych article could have been written about someone who doesn't mind that appellation, but as it happens Chomsky does mind.
Actually I can't stand Noam Chomsky for more than a few minutes.
I'm not sure that he is truly insecure or in denial of responsibility, but he is a 24x7 polemicist. Something is wrong with that man.
Eric Blair: On the other hand, I don't know whether Chomsky gives money to the poor, "tons" or otherwise. He might. His son Harry Chomsky, who I once knew personally, stood by leftist principles. (They cannot be called "liberal".) He worked in Guatemala and he also quit graduate school in mathematics to work as a garbage man in Berkeley. Or so I have been told.
Frankly I think that Rush Limbaugh and Noam Chomsky have a lot in common as polemicists. I don't see how someone can think that one of them is just fine and the other is terrible.
One difference is that Limbaugh has a larger audience and a lot more money. Also Chomsky, as far as I know, has a stable marriage and doesn't abuse drugs.
To greg,
As am I--known to overreact--I don't think I am a troll--yet. And you and I agree--something is wrong with Chomsky--but I will not even go there.
Sigh.
I get it. Rush Limbaugh is nasty, too. Nice if snarky touch to jab at marital status and drug abuse, when you know perfectly well that Limbaugh is much more of a public figure than Chomsky---and has to suffer through much closer scrutiny of what one would think would be his personal life.
Incidentally, I hadn't heard about Chomsky's son being a garbage collector (one might claim that his father has the same metaphoric profession). I am no snob about that kind of job: unlike my own profession, garbage collection does something directly positive for society. I am being quite serious here.
What I do know is that Harry Chomsky is a well regarding musician today:
http://www.berkeleysymphony.org/who/musicians/musician_1649.htm
But the point remains: defending someone by saying someone else is just as bad or worse is hardly a good defense.
I said it before, and I will say it again: I dislike hypocrites of any stripe, left or right, who are judgemental of others while demanding a "free pass" for themselves. It is aristocratic, Hollywood thinking. You bet you can find rightwingers who do that. My point was focused on Chomsky, who insults people for doing things that he himself does in private. Especially when he could invest in "green" areas...but chooses not to, so that he can make more money.
Sort of like Michael Moore investing in Halliburton.
But I am not defending Limbaugh, folks. I am casting aspersions on hypocrites who claim moral or ethical superiority to others...
And I have given up too much time to Chomsky. That time is gone forever! The fault is mine....
"Eric Blair"
xray_dude,
Our experiences are remarkably similar. I came from Palo Alto public schools and graduated from UC Berkeley in the early 1970's...at the height of the antiwar movement. My radical environmentalist beliefs were based on my own ignorance of public vs. private property concepts. Two years of travel through Central and South America in the late 70's showed me first hand the effects of both fascism (Brazil, Argentina, Chile) and communism (Nicaragua, El Salvador). Then, like you I had children and had to focus on the needs of others and get serious about making my way successfully in the world.
Why is it that so few make a right-to-left political transformation? I believe it is obvious: the older and more worldly you become, the less willing you are to compromise a realistic view of the world in order to accommodate a belief system. Conservatism's presumption is that a bias towards the traditional makes sense within the context of a given society because the tradition has grown out of what was viewed as resulting in good lives. The older you get the more the obvious wisdom of this becomes.
I was never a "true liberal" but I dabbled at the fringes of the anti-nuke/peace movement -- what some have referred to as the "Christian Left" -- back in the early '80s. I had been strongly influenced by the thinking of certain friends of mine at the time who were very much opposed to Reagan's characterization of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire." They felt that our problems with the Soviets were primarily the result of a lack of communication and cultural understanding.
That all pretty much came to a crashing halt with the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 in the summer of 1983. I was very, very angry. I began taking a long hard look at what really separated us from the radical leftist regimes of the world, and that naturally brought me into contact with William F. Buckley, National Review, Policy Review, and conservatism as a political philosophy.
Of course, marrying the daughter of the man who, as head of the Georgia Young Republicans in 1964, was chiefly responsible for carrying the state for Barry Goldwater in the '64 election didn't hurt either! But as I learned more about it, conservatism simply put a conceptual framework around ideas that I had held all my life...namely (to paraphrase Russell Kirk), the preference of the tried and true over the untried and untested. And as I grew older, started a family, and made my way in the world, those values became even more important to me. Free enterprise, limited government, societal support of traditional institutions like the church, marriage, and the two-parent family...I embrace them because, for all their faults, they *work*, and they work a damned sight better than anything I've seen emanating from the worldview of the Left.
So I guess some would call me an ideologue. But you know, ideology is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as it seems to accurately describe the way things really work, and so long as you always keep the perspective that you COULD be wrong. I try my best to do that.
Eric Blair: As I said, I don't like Noam Chomsky either. Or rather, I find his polemics maddening and I have trouble listening to them.
But your case that he is a hypocrite is weak and doesn't work. Chomsky wants a different law for the estate tax. But that doesn't oblige him to follow that law BEFORE that estate tax becomes law. That's a ridiculous standard and basically amounts to you putting cotton in your ears.
For example, if you told me that Medicare is a broken system and ought to be eliminated, I wouldn't expect you to just waive your grandmother's Medicare payments and write checks back to Washington. At least at the level of open uses of money, you're entitled to play by the existing rules even if you want other rules. Your situation could be evidence that you are naive, but it wouldn't make you a hypocrite.
As far as Rush Limbaugh and Noam Chomsky, all I will say is that the two men make my blood boil about equally. That isn't any kind of excuse for either one of them.
But in all fairness, Chomsky is only disagreeable as a pundit; as a human being he could be just fine. Limbaugh seems almost as odious at the personal level as at the professional level.
Limbaugh really is a hypocrite, if we can believe the evidence that he violates drug laws. He also insults and humiliates children who happen to be related to liberals, which is a violation of basic family values even if it is legal.
PD Quig: If you yourself have moved to the right, then it no surprise you might think that leftists or liberals must never have tasted conservatism and that most political transformations go in your direction.
For the record, I had a libertarian phase as a teenager and now I think that I know better. I understand libertarian precepts and I still see some truth in them, but I am out of patience for conventional Republicanism dressed up in libertarian jargon. And I have not moved as far politically as many other people I know.
Certainly one famous example is Ron Reagan Jr.
I dislike fencing with the intellectually ambidextrous Dr. Kuperberg, but...
Noam Chomsky says that it is wrong for "rich" people to shelter their wealth and reduce taxation. He does.
Noam Chomsky says that it is wrong for "rich" people to transfer their wealth to their children in order to obtain lower tax rates. He does.
Noam Chomsky says that investors must be moral in their investments, rather than simply maximize their profits. He certainly maximizes his, and specifically invests in companies he deplores publically.
No matter what kind of limbo the Left does, Chomsky wants one set of rules for him, and another set of rules for everyone else. He is an aristocrat and an elitist, just like many of our politicians, actors, and public figures.
You can certainly say that a person has a right to be critical of a system, but it is intellectually dishonest to be critical of a system while actively seeking profit from it. Notice the last part of that sentence: actively seeking profit from it.
I see this all of the time. It is hypocritical, wrong, and the best single indicator of the intellectual elitist movement in America. It is aristocratic in nature.
And yes, right wingers are guilty of this sin, too. It is still intellectually dishonest, and suggests that the person implicated does not have the courage of his or her convictions.
But in the post-Clinton deconstruction of reality, it is perfectly okay to attack a system while directly profiting from it.
I'm sure I'll get dogpiled on this one, but that doesn't mean I am wrong.
"Eric Blair"
Dear Sloan:
Many thanks for mentioning a very great thinker and writer, Russell KIrk. It is interesting how few students today even know Dr. Kirk's name....but look at the names that they all do get to know, instead.
Which proves Kirk's point, in many ways.
I came to Kirk's writings through his ghost stories. I have learned something useful and lasting from everything of his I have read. I recommend his autobiography, THE SWORD OF IMAGINATION, if you haven't read it.
"Eric Blair"
"Clearly, it does not deter crime. States that do not enforce a death penalty actually have lower murder rates than states that do."
A lot of factors go into crime rates. As to deterrence, I don't have exact figures right here at my fingertips, but I can assure you the recidivism rate for criminals who have been executed is very, very low.
Eric: You're just bending and fudging it on all sides in order to defend the pre-ordained conclusion that Chomsky is a hypocrite.
First, the phrase that "it is wrong" for people avoid whatever tax is a fudge phrase that doesn't make clear who is in the wrong. I'm sure that Chomsky would say that the lion's share of the wrong is in the tax law itself, and not in the individuals who follow it.
Second, when you say that Chomsky "wants" any particular rules for anyone, you're fudging there too. He follows the same tax rules that you and I do. There is no evidence that the he would commit tax evasion if the government raised taxes. He also doesn't cover up his finances. Basically here you just ignored my original point, which is that it is not hypocrisy to wait until new tax laws are actually enacted before following them.
In fact I'll make the stronger point that a lot of plutocrats want socialists like Chomsky and liberals otherwise to be suckers. If anyone ever proposes taxes, they want to say, "great, you go ahead and pay them, I still don't have to." In some cases this is seriously intended as an argument not to pay any taxes at all.
As for not investing in evil companies, it is true that Chomsky does rather go overborad in condemning corporate America. But you're rather bending things here too, because all Chomsky has is a TIAA-CREF account and similar, and you're making it out like he's the vice president of Halliburton. TIAA-CREF is an extremely uninvolved form of investment. In the annals of hypocrisy, this is very small potatoes.
Frankly you would do better to attack Chomsky's ideas than to attack the person. Many people agree with him, maybe not many Americans percentagewise, but in absolute numbers it's still quite a few. And many people overseas agree with him on various points. Chomsky only matters to the extent that anyone listens to him, so comments about his personal decisions are off on a far tangent.
anonymous 7:20: And I can assure you that the recidivism rate for suicide bombers is equally low. Maybe recidivism shouldn't be the only priority.
Recidivism is the great obsession of the American criminal justice system, to the exclusion of every other priority. Many Americans have no faith that any prison experience reforms any criminal; on the contrary, they think that prisons corrupt criminals even more. Therefore, they reason, the only way to reform a criminal is to kill him. In the limit you have the all-or-nothing model of justice, in which execution is the main penalty. It is popular in Arab countries.
"Recidivism is the great obsession of the American criminal justice system, to the exclusion of every other priority."
And the purpose of a criminal justice system other than preventing recidivism is?
Dr. Kuperberg:
You certainly have a right to your own opinion, and an ethos that you no doubt strive to follow.
But regardless of your usual snarkiness and attempts to troll, I maintain that any person who rabidly attacks our society as it is---which Chomsky has long done---should not actively and openly seek to benefit from stratgies that they claim to despise in others. I see that as money grubbing aristocratic and elitist hypocrisy, and you do not. Fair enough.
I will not convince you, and folks like you have yet to convince me of relativism. We should simply agree to disagree on this fundamental idea of citizenship, and move on.
"Eric Blair"
Anonymous 11:26: Instead of making recidivism the top priority, the criminal justice system could, for example, devote more resources to crime prevention. As it stands, a man who gets out of prison to commit a second felony is a far greater political crisis than another man who commits ten felonies without ever getting caught.
Eric Blair: It's quite obvious when I am sarcastic, and I don't think that I completely forget my manners when I do it. There wasn't anything sarcastic about my comments about Chomsky. Even though I don't agree with Chomsky about hardly anything, you're really putting a lot of words in his mouth. If you want to call him a hypocrite, the least you could do is quote him verbatim.
"Instead of making recidivism the top priority, the criminal justice system could, for example, devote more resources to crime prevention."
Can't quite get a grip on what you are trying to say here. The criminal justice system exists to administer justice. Midnight Basketball is the job of Social Services. "...[M]aking recidivism [a] top priority..." is the CJS's appointed role IN crime prevention.
Got me. Why is it again that preventing a criminal from repeating is a bad thing?
This seems to be an elusive concept for some people, so I will try to spell it out as clearly as I can:
The United States devotes colossally more resources to keep aging convicts in prison, per likely crime, than it does to prosecute younger criminals who have never been to prison for long. It might have been reassuring to spend an infinite amount of money on both efforts. But since money is finite, a sense of balance and proportion would be helpful.
"This seems to be an elusive concept for some people, so I will try to spell it out as clearly as I can: The United States devotes colossally more resources to keep aging convicts in prison, per likely crime, than it does to prosecute younger criminals who have never been to prison for long."
Dr. Kuperberg:
What is the source of your statement regarding the relative expenditures on "aging convicts" and "younger criminals"? Your statement is far too vague to be convincing absent supporting statistics and links from official sources, such as Bureau of Justice Statistics or Bureau of Justice Statistics-Expenditures. Is there any reason for me to believe this other than you say it is so?
And it doesn't halp that you preface your statement with a patronizing comment. Are you commenting at this website to engage with other people or to lecture us?
Remember, people: K. is a troll. He is all about getting people all upset and playing games. When he discusses things, he is smart and witty. When he doesn't, he is just irritating.
Don't feed trolls.
Anonymous 7:00:
In your own words, Dr. K is "smart and witty" at times and at other times he is an "irritating" troll. Perhaps you are correct that he is a troll, but I don't see how it hurts to discuss this subject. I obviously arrived late to this discussion and it's probably too late to continue it, but I trust Dr. Helen to handle trolls as she sees fit - including me, if my posts are annoying.
If we can't discuss different views in blog comments, we become an echo chamber of like ideas. That may be satisfying but it's not demanding in an intellectual sense. I may be wrong, but I believe Dr. K is smart enough to deliver interesting thoughts to back up his statements.
In essence, I want Dr. K to "put up or shut up", so maybe you and I agree here. But we are definitely going about it in different ways.
Getting back to offering new ideas and solutions...
I have long noticed this, and I think it's inherent in the very notion of "liberal" and "conservative." A conservative idea -- not a Republican idea or a right-wing idea, but a true conservative idea -- conserves. It supports the preservation of an existing system. Thus, when I expouse such an idea, I am promoting something that has been done in the past, has had some success (I wouldn't promote conserving an idea that didn't work), and has been accepted / adopted by thousands, if not millions, of people. It's not my idea. It's an idea the culture at large has come up with. Now, some may think it flawed, outdated, whatever. We can have that discussion. You can attack the idea, but you are not attacking me.
But a liberal idea -- again, not Democratic, not left-wing, but a true liberal idea -- is one which, by definition, opposes that status quo, wants to change it in some way. Which is fine -- the status quo could certainly use some changing. But, where do such ideas come from? Not society at large, but from some individual or small group. And the person who adopts such an idea does so knowing that very few others have. Scarier still, the individual who comes up with their own liberal idea is really putting themselves out there. The idea has no pedigree, no history, no track record of success, no millions of followers. Thus, an attack on the idea is more or less an attack on the individual who thought it up, or who has adopted a contrarian position.
Again, this is NOT to say that all liberal ideas are bad, or all conservative ideas are good. Far, far from it. But, adopting a position in favor of stasis is less risky, both intellectually and personally, than adopting a position in favor of unproven change. Thus, the reluctance of many who oppose the status quo to propose an alternative of their own -- an alternative which will surely be subject to critique.
I believe this also explains the orthodoxy we often see in social and political discourse coming from the left. Promoters of a new, largely untried idea are less able and willing to brook dissent from within the ranks than those who are promoting an existing idea.
Goodness! An OpinionJournalLanche once removed.
I noticed an unusual number of visits to my blog today via this post of yours (wherein you link to my blog), and studying the entrails of your own Site Meter, I discovered James Taranto had given you a hat tip today. Ah, the glory of it all. :)
Interesting that someone would study political philosophy as a character trait. I think it too absolute to combine all liberals together. Liberals are really just a bunch of disparate groups who oppose Republican ideas. Unions and environmentalists have virtually nothing in common, but support of either is typically liberal. Likewise for government workers and socialists.
An interesting study would be to take profiles of as many people as possible and ask their positions on issues. This will allow for traits to be graphed with political philosophy. That I'd love to see...
-Mike, http://www.pusatera.net
Mike,
Me too, that would be quite a study--but it sounds to objective so I doubt it will be done in the social sciences.
What I see are a lot of liberals commenting on the original post trying to deflect rather than pointing fingers at themselves and saying "Yep, that's who and what we are" which just further establishes that they "lack of self-confidence and self-esteem" in that they aren't willing to admit who and what they are, something that been quite obvious to myself and others for quite a long time, including Dr. Helen.
I believe this also explains the orthodoxy we often see in social and political discourse coming from the left. Promoters of a new, largely untried idea are less able and willing to brook dissent from within the ranks than those who are promoting an existing idea.
Mr. Dillenburg,
You had a good post going there decribing liberal/conservative thought, then you went and spoiled it with this final paragraph. Contemporary liberals ARE orthodox, because they are NO LONGER LIBERAL. They have run out of gas, out of ideas, and are no pure reactionary. And anyone who deviates from their reactionary ways gets dogpiled. No ideas, no creative thought, just tired, decades-old nostrums.
The creative thought comes from elsewhere, the neoconservatives for example. You may disagree with them, but they have a new idea or 2.
I think you're confusing contemporary "liberalism" with classic liberalism, which posesses NONE of the orthodoxy that contemporary liberals exercise. These contemporary "liberals" have have become the conservatives, it would seem. What a great country this is!
I'm so glad to see this post.
I was thinking earlier that the intensity of the hatred the left has for George W. Bush is due to a feeling of shame over the performance of his predecessor in the White House. When Bush beat Gore, it was as if the frat boys had been removed and the adults took over.
Now, they have no alternative to his decisiveness and action, so all they can do is carp and wring their hands.
There is a critique of the "motivated cognition" article here:
http://jonjayray.netfirms.com/unschol.html
The idea that Bush is not a frat boy type is absolutely laughable.
Perhaps "weakened self esteem" was intended to mean something along the lines of a perceived challenge to their self esteem. The ideas that challenge their self esteem trigger a reaction to defend their self image. The fact that a reaction results indicates that their self esteem has been somewhat weakened by the perceived challenge.
Actually.....Libtards are suicidal:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/612852/posts
According to Wikipedia, Ron Reagan has always been a liberal.
Perhaps a better example of someone who went from conservative to liberal is David Brock.
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