Liberal intellectuals, however, do this more radically, reflecting their greater privilege. But in wishing this, they condescend. Such a distance separates them socially from those they would help that the poor become people fundamentally unlike themselves. So liberals find it impossible to expect from the poor any self-reliance at all. In short, they empathize without identifying.
Most conservative experts come from backgrounds closer to poverty than their opponents.
For them, too, poverty represents weakness, but they are more afraid that they might become weak and poor themselves. To them, poverty is threatening, not just regrettable. So they moralize rather than condescend. They reprove the poor for misbehavior as they would their own children. In short, they identify without empathizing.