Liberalism is a Psychology
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
An excellent link to an excellent piece. Bravo on the find.
I think resentment drives a lot of liberals. Scratch a liberal, you'll find an antisemite, btw.
But the major part of the thesis is correct, no other activity allows one to feel so smugly superior without achievement, sacrifice, merit or any other discernable cause. The Barbara Joan Streisand effect.
Fascinating. I've always wondered what makes a liberal tick. This explanation makes a lot of sense. Not so much a "pyschology" as a mental disorder.
Good article!
(Vanity) Hint: We can only speculate as to how many fathers of the fifties generation and beyond, would become the psychological whipping posts for the nation-destroying fools of today.
And all because they simply did what they thought was right.
George Orwell nailed it.
The positions they take may seem political, but they're really all about their own sense of moral superiority. For instance, they hate the war (good) but support the troops (good, also). They love justice (good) but support world-type courts (good, also). They are patriotic (good) but European culture is really very sophisticated and civilized (good, also).
If you disagree with any of their premises, you're not only less good, but hard-hearted (bad), insensitive (bad), uncultured (bad), and a real backwoods yahoo, to boot (bad).
My liberal correspondents really hate the voice of the people. In particular, Free Republic. They are quite disturbed that the peasants now have a voice through the internet. Therefore, they have to denigrate conservative sites.
They'll cherry-pick a few of the shall-we-say more "exuberant" posts on a long FR thread to prove their point that FR is populated by thugs, potty-mouths, unfeeling country-club types, manic right-wingers and the like.
In other words, freepers and other conservatives, Free Republic and other conservative forums are unforgiveably beneath the strata of rarified air found in the liberal eastern elite salons, high exclusive political and diplomatic circles, the world of leftists-only acadamia and the incestuous networkings of the various MSM outlets.
A liberal's worst nightmare is picturing the pitchforks and torches of neanderthal American peasants swarming across the moats and disrupting the smug, egotistical and holier-than-thou occupants of the baronial manors or ivy-covered ivory towers in this country's centers of power.
Leni
I agree with the divisions of Liberals and leftest hangers-on. Liberals want the world to be a place its not; peaceful, safe, free of polution, where everyone has an income and they don't have to work too hard to get it.
Hangers-on are people like Jesse Jackson who just feel they are better off supporting this cause because they directly benefit from it, not because they believe in it at all.
The same is true of republicans of course. There are some that just hold on because they are financially better off; not because its the right thing to do, or the practical thing to do.
The price of admission of course, is renunciation of one's American-ness, and the embrace of anti-capitalism. Once paid, you get all sorts of peer-group accolades, and a tremendous sense of BELONGING. Unlike the conservative camp, which is composed of individuals, liberals are TRIBAL, replete with all the trappings of primitive tribalism; ceremony, mythology, and powerful symbolism all play a role in maintenance of the tribe's ideological and psychological underpinnings. They are CONNECTED by their own embrace of victimhood, or that of others, and the narcissistic dopamine rush such an embrace provides.
I cannot deny the author's assertion that being a liberal fills certain inner voids. This is why young people succumb to liberalism's allure in such great magnitude.
When I began to question liberal tenets openly, I found out how quickly they will dispense with you. This is a very revealing defense mechanism. REASON is like kryptonite to them, try to inject it, and they will toss you with dispatch.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
Winston Churchill
When you rule your life by emotion the facts get lost.
Mal, you started something really great! Up until now, few haved questioned where liberals have come from, and if the first posts here are any indication, then when these excellent responses are all in, some nerves will surely have been touched.
ITS A CULT!
Excellent post. However, I expect more: Specifically, how do we use this to our bes advantage?
I'm not a psychologist, and neither are many (if not most) of the contributors to FreeRepublic. So how does a psychologist deal with a psychosis?
Now we can use the term "Liberalism Syndrome" or LS.
Witness the standard Liberal form of "discourse". This includes the "first amendment" to use coarse and vulgar language, to verbally batter a perceived opponent "by any means necessary" in order to win a "perceived self-interest" argument (check out DU forum threads).
Liberals subscribe to the "ME TOO" argument as a "unifying" theme. I've seen it happen in every single instance -- perhaps best illustrated in the movie "Annie Hall" -- wherein the Woody Allen character brings up "politics" ("the grassy knoll") in order to avoid saying directly to the Carol Kane character -- that he isn't in love with her anymore.
Thomas Lifson has covered this in an article entitled "The Liberal Bubble" at American Thinker
I have found most instances of domestic battery, personal assaults to occur in the blue zones. Why? Did someone forget, in midst of altercation, to remark that Bush was "Evil"? Would that have staved off the conflict?
Liberals use the "single-lobe" approach to problems through a unifying theme of creating the "evil strawman".
Imagine, should the strawman disappear -- all those great nasty forms of discourse in Liberal-land -- would be directed at each other -- at other liberals.
Ergo, liberalese, to the liberal mind, is about "group cohesion". In order for Liberals to have this "group cohesion", there has got to be a unifier. That unifier is "evil Republicans".
President Bush has made tremendous strides and dings into that appellation, working with both Dems and Repubs.
This has continued to frustrate Dem leadership. Ergo, their plan to pick off Republicans (DeLay, Rumsfeld, Cheney) in hopeful attempts to Moderate the Bush Plan while perpetuating the "unity" syllogism within the Dem rank and file.