Posted on 03/23/2018 9:25:24 PM PDT by marktwain
I recall reading or hearing of research to determine the level of understanding of opponents political arguments by conservatives and leftists/liberals.
The research, as I recall, showed a list of policy questions, and asked the recipient, who was self identified, as conservative or liberal/leftist, to give the opposite sides arguments on each policy question.
My understanding was that conservatives consistently understood and knew the opposite sides arguments, while liberal/leftists were ignorant of the conservative arguments.
I have been looking for the source of this research, but have not found any.
Is this research a myth, or is there an actual source?
The left is contemptuous of our arguments. They are indifferent to our reasoning. Their typical response is: “Why? Because FU!”
They scoff at any publications of conservative literature as “faux news”.
The left is contemptuous of our arguments. They are indifferent to our reasoning. Their typical response is: “Why? Because FU!”
Liberals tend to have feminine natures. The men are very weak. I’ve gotten to know many personally, without letting on that I am Pro-Trump (I avoid political topics), and these poor guys—to a man!—sit there and tell me all about their insecurities and emotional turmoils.
(They’re even worse than the people jumping off the Trump train and jumping back on every other day.)
I think your sources theory is good, but the fact is, these are emotionally immature children who wouldn’t check a conservative source to begin with. They have their nice little world they live in, which they build to strengthen their fragile egos, and to let in stuff that messes up the narrative of a massive war between good and evil—with them being the Jedi knights or some such thing—is simply impossible.
The rest of the liberals are the minorities, and they simply look towards their own racial priorities and benefits. They actually are far more rational than their keepers.
This was run annually or semiannually by Pew.
Last one came out last December.
Search on “Pew Republican Democrat knowledge”. You will get a good number of articles on the Pew survey.
That is, Republicans always do better on politics.
If you mean something different - that is, understanding the other sides arguments, that was Jonathan Haidt. Look him up.
It would stand to reason the Leftist wouldn’t have a clue of any other perspective than their own. Try having a discussion with your liberal sister school teacher, or your liberal brother in law.
Never mind!
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Watch any movie with a “conservative,” and he’ll be a racistsexisthomophobe yokel. Demonization is their game, and when you see your opponent as sub-human, you don’t try to understand him. You prep your little high school brownshirts to march him into the ovens.
I have generally found that most people are rather conservative traditionally in one way or another individually. Unfortunately, there is a great percentage who collectively are brain dead and are Zombies to Liberalism, Socialism and anything that FEELS good collectively. The typical Liberal is just mentally ill in general.
Here’s what’s at that link:
Haidt describes a study in which he examines how well liberals, conservatives, and moderates understand each other. From page 334 of The Righteous Mind (emphasis added):
When I speak to liberal audiences about the three “binding” foundations – Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity – I find that many in the audience don’t just fail to resonate; they actively reject these concerns as immoral. Loyalty to a group shrinks the moral circle; it is the basis of racism and exclusion, they say. Authority is oppression. Sanctity is religious mumbo-jumbo whose only function is to suppress female sexuality and justify homophobia.
In a study I did with Jesse Graham and Brian Nosek, we tested how well liberals and conservatives could understand each other. We asked more than two thousand American visitors to fill out the Moral Foundations Qyestionnaire. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out normally, answering as themselves. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as they think a “typical liberal” would respond. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as a “typical conservative” would respond. This design allowed us to examine the stereotypes that each side held about the other. More important, it allowed us to assess how accurate they were by comparing people’s expectations about “typical” partisans to the actual responses from partisans on the left and the right)’ Who was best able to pretend to be the other?
The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal.” The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives. When faced with questions such as “One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal” or ”Justice is the most important requirement for a society,” liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree. If you have a moral matrix built primarily on intuitions about care and fairness (as equality), and you listen to the Reagan [i.e., conservative] narrative, what else could you think? Reagan seems completely unconcerned about the welfare of drug addicts, poor people, and gay people. He’s more interested in fighting wars and telling people how to run their sex lives.
If you don’t see that Reagan is pursuing positive values of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity, you almost have to conclude that Republicans see no positive value in Care and Fairness. You might even go as far as Michael Feingold, a theater critic for the liberal newspaper the Village Voice, when he wrote:
Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they causeany more harm)3
One of the many ironies in this quotation is that it shows the inability of a theater critic-who skillfully enters fantastical imaginary worlds for a living-to imagine that Republicans act within a moral matrix that differs from his own. Morality binds and blinds.
Very helpful, thank you.
I found this from theamericanconservative.com:
Haidt helped devise a questionnaire that gauged moral views by eliciting test-taker responses to statements in five categories: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Haidt likens these moral groupings to the five taste receptors of the tongue (sweet, sour, bitter, savory, salty). It turns out that liberal receptors failed to engage on questions of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Conservatives, on the other hand, reacted to all five moral categories more or less equally. Haidt’s conclusion is that his fellow liberals are morally tone deaf. “Republicans understand moral psychology,” Haidt concedes. “Democrats don’t.”
Like they even care. If it isn't their argument they don't care about any counter argument. They just ignore it, and call you racist or some other derogatory name to shut you up.
http://quillette.com/2018/03/10/psychology-progressive-hostility/
They have their nice little world they live in, which they build to strengthen their fragile egos, and to let in stuff that messes up the narrative of a massive war between good and evil—with them being the Jedi knights or some such thing—is simply impossible.
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Well put. To Liberals/Progressives, the truth is a matter of what they want it to be.
Thanks. Very helpful.
I watch some conservative Christian TV, and although I think that some televangelists are frauds or creeps, Christian TV - at its best - actually exhibits a more perceptive analysis of current events than the MSM. They really see what’s actually going on in this country.
There are a lot of “liberal” trolls on conservative web sites, and I think that they are there because they imagine themselves as brilliant intellects who can shut down conservatives with a single word of wisdom. Typically, they are mediocre intellects, at best, but they think they are so smart!
Easy. Thinkers can stop thinking, but thoughtless cannot start thinking.
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