Liberal Psychology

Well, firstly, you say that my critique of the conservative mind-set doesn't really apply to most conservatives, that the conservative label is broader than I appreciate and that conservatives can't really be easily pigeonholed as the Bible-wielding Neanderthals that liberals try to make them out to be. But I believe that I fairly explicitly laid out, in my thread about the nature of the conservative mind, how it is that a vestigial primate "alpha" mentality accounts for a wide range of conservative positions. As for focusing on pro-war and anti-abortion politicians, well, they aren't just straw men for my analysis, they epitomize the core nature of the conservative mentality in a quite naked fashion. You then go on to "educate" me about the fact that the typical conservative is not a fire-breathing meanie (ironically as I read your piece my eyes keep getting drawn to a picture of Ann Coulter to the side of it), I'll grant that many conservatives are relatively decent and benign in most contexts. Of course back during the Civil Rights era many of the conservative Southerners who showed their support for the Klan and became complicit in its cruel crimes by acquitting Klansmen of murdering freedom riders and bombing black churches were also, under ordinary circumstances, the salt of the Earth, the kind of good neighbors who'd put themselves out to help a neighbor in need, but there was still darkness in them that came out when the issue of civil rights came up. The same holds true for conservatives today, many conservatives are nice enough until it comes to their socio-political stances, and then their inner darkness and inner caveman rears its ugly head. I refer you to the concept of "the banality of evil". You then give your own psychoanalysis of liberals. Which distills down to the not very original theory that "guilt" lies behind the liberal's politics. Well, first of all let me say that I don't really identify as a liberal, I prefer to describe myself as a leftist. There is a distinction with a real difference. A liberal isn't really a radical, all-in-all he believes in the system, he just feels that it needs to be reformed in certain ways. You could say the same about many conservatives who aren't off too far to the radical right. Most middle-of-the-road conservatives believe in the system, they just want to tweak it a bit according to their ideology. Liberals and conservatives really are both variations on the same pro-Establishment theme. Liberals subscribe to what you could call a soft version of the conventional worldview that justifies the Establishment, and conservatives take a harder line. Leftists, on the other hand, reject, in a more fundamental and radical way, the whole Establishment, status quo, and its conventional worldview. I'm a leftist, not a liberal. But, loosely speaking, the term "liberal" can still be used to label some of my social views, so I'll stick up here for liberals as well as my fellow leftists. A sense of guilt very well may have something to do with determining the views of some liberals, I can't speak for them all because liberals really are diverse and can't all be pigeonholed as guilt-ridden. I can speak for myself and tell you that I haven't a shred of a sense of guilt about the unjust status quo of the global village. I don't identify with the perpetrators of injustice, I identify with its victims. As the adherents of liberation theology say, I make a "preferential option for the poor". I think identifying with the underdog and the victims of socio-economic injustice is really where the stance and passion of many liberals and lefties comes from. Compassion, not guilt, is the key emotional factor in liberalism. This is simply difficult for conservatives to accept or fathom because they're somewhat challenged when it comes to compassion. This isn't meant as a catty jibe, just what I consider to be a statement of fact. And lacking an understanding of compassion, and having much to feel guilty about since they support the unjust power structure of capitalism, conservatives naturally think everyone else must also be poisoned with guilt. Conservatives project their own sense of complicity in the world's injustices onto liberals and revile in others what they need to come to term with in themselves. You then say that "Communism and leftism THRIVES on the rabble of society", what a lovely way to refer to the poor and working classes of society. This tells one exactly what a kindhearted place your own conservative views come from. This is what I meant above about the banality of cruelty, one-on-one you're probably an okay fellow, but as soon as you get started on your socio-political views your dark true colors, you inner conservative meanie comes out. As for your criticisms of Soviet-style communists, I've never been a fan of or identified with that sham and shameful brand of socialism. And yes, there are those in the socialist camp who've exploited the philosophy of socialism to gain power and dominate their societies. But the same can be said for democracy. The Founding Fathers of the US were aristocrats who didn't want too much real democracy, who intentionally set up a system that keeps the economic elite in the catbird seat of real power. Don't take it from me, read some of the writings of the participants in the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention, they weren't men of the people, they were men of the world who wanted a system that would ensure their continued privileged and powerful status. And that's what they created, but it was The Enlightenment and democracy was the zeitgeist so they piggybacked their class agenda on it. The question is, does this make democracy a bad idea? No, of course not. And neither does the way some have used socialism to "enslave" their people make socialism an inherently bad idea. Socialism remains an inherently ethical and compassionate program for a more fair and humane society, good and sincere people merely need to take it back, the way they need to take back democracy. You then say that the psychology of all leftists is identical to that of the communists. You don't really make much of a detailed case for this assertion, and of course you can't since it isn't true. You want me to acknowledge the diversity of the conservative camp but you lump all lefties into the same contemptible category as the totalitarian regimes of China, Cambodia, the Soviet Union, etc. So there's a lot of variety among conservatives but liberals and leftists are the ones who are monolithic. Come on, you're just playing tit for tat here. You then make a negative, classist generalization about the education and intelligence of the working poor and go on to lump them into the category of "the weak-minded" who are easy prey to left-wing demagogues. How nakedly superior of you. And your repeated use of terms such as "weak", "weakness", "weak-minded" confirms that you fit into my analysis of alpha male conservatives who value strength and look down on the poor as weak losers. Thanks for lending some inadvertent support to my thesis. Then you say that conservatives are people who just want to be left alone, that would be a tad more believable if conservatives weren't always trying to make everyone else in society hew to their traditional values, if they weren't always out there in society's face demanding to have their way on questions such a gay marriage that really don't affect their quality of life in America. No, apparently conservatives just can't stand to let their values be flouted. We're back to the conservative's need for social dominance. So much about what conservatives say and do takes us back to their need for social dominance. As some of your own words here go to show, conservatives are hardly the easygoing and earnest champions of family and freedom that they portray themselves to be, their mentality is not all sweetness and light.