Posted on 01/01/2014 5:44:45 AM PST by Kaslin
The Beltway consensus seems to be that 2013 was a bad year for the same reason nearly every other recent year was bad: polarization and partisanship. Personally, I can think of plenty of more important things to worry about than partisanship. Democracy is about disagreements, and partisanship is often a sign of healthy disagreement.
But polarization is a bit different. It speaks not just to a lack of basic agreement about what kind of society we should live in, but a breakdown in understanding and respect among Americans. There's a lot of them-vs.-us talk these days on the left and the right. And while I'd never want to live in a country where we all join hands and sing "Kumbaya," maybe a bit more understanding wouldn't be all bad.
So I have small suggestions for New Year's resolutions for both the right and left in 2014. For liberals, maybe you should try to accept the fact that you're not the non-conformists you think you are. And for conservatives, perhaps you should consider you're not necessarily the irrefutable voice of "normal" Americans.
The thought occurred to me while reading "The Liberal Illusion of Uniqueness" in the journal Psychological Science. Apparently it's a well established finding that liberals tend to think their views are more rebellious than they are. They feel a "need for uniqueness." And that need can stand in the way of seeking commonality with other Americans.
Conservatives don't crave uniqueness. In fact, they are more likely to overestimate the extent to which there is a consensus around their beliefs. In other words, liberals bristle at the notion that they're conventional thinkers, while conservatives are too quick to assume everyone thinks like them.
I'm not a huge fan of subjecting politics to psychological analysis. It often lends itself to the pernicious idea that people with "healthy" minds have certain political views and that people with unpopular notions aren't simply wrong -- or have different preferences -- but are somehow sick.
Still, something about this finding rings true to me. One of the most impressive achievements of liberalism is the perpetuation of the myth of liberal rebelliousness. One of my favorite things to do when speaking on college campuses is to point out to students how conformist they are. (College students are a lot like that mob in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" who chant in unison, "We're all individuals!") I point out to the students that their professors are liberal. Their school administrators are liberal. Hollywood, the music and publishing industries are all overwhelmingly liberal. The mainstream media are liberal. "But," I ask them, "you think you're sticking it to the Man by agreeing with them?"
Meanwhile, lots of my friends on the right often seem to take it for granted that there's a vast silent majority of Americans pitted against a small cabal of elitist pinheads and would-be social engineers. As a conservative, I believe there are a lot of pinhead social engineers (see: Bloomberg, Michael). But I also understand -- or at least try to -- that there are millions of Americans who see these people as leaders who speak for them and address their needs.
Ironically, both the conservative false confidence in consensus and the liberal false confidence in uniqueness have a similar downside: smugness. Evidence for this is about as hard to find as straw in a haystack. Liberals often talk as if only the backward masses disagree with them, and conservatives often assume that only overeducated weirdos and radicals could object to their agenda. Hence Barack Obama's infamous explanation for why rural Pennsylvanians didn't support him: They were too busy "clinging" to their God and guns. Tellingly, conservatives took that line as a badge of honor.
Smugness is also the chief source of political problems for both the left and the right.
Conservatives have become far too insular, too often rejecting the need to persuade those who don't already agree with them, arguing instead that ever bloodier doses of red meat will grow the coalition. Liberals have become far too content with the myth of their uniqueness and the pretense that they are brave polymath iconoclasts who know what's best for you better than you do.
Maybe, just maybe, if both sides resolved not to take their most flattering myths for granted, America would be just a bit less polarized.
Hopefully this will work beyond today.
(1) Obama is the smartest guy in the room.
(2) Government is the solution to all problems.
(3) The Tea Party is an evil, racist organization.
(4) The Republican Party is different from the Democrat Party.
(5) The Republican Party represents conservatives.
(6) The Chamber of Commerce is on our side.
(7) You can spend your way out of a deficit.
--- I could go on all day.
i,m stil trying to wor off last night..................................
This article is dead on. I grew up in Mississippi and believe it or not have several liberal friends and acquaintances there. As I think about them, they all have a deep need to be unique. Because Mississippi is deep red, identifying as liberal serves their need.
They all seem to suffer from healthy doses of w. guilt.
It's actually much simpler than that: most of us just hate the fraudulent lying communist faggot sonofabitch.
Maybe, just maybe, if both sides resolved not to take their most flattering myths for granted, America would be just a bit less polarized
Hard to decide which is less likely - premise or conclusion.
btw Jonah, tell Trixie that it's been fourteen years now, and I haven't missed her fascist website even a little bit !
What is better? To reach mutual agreements with the devil, or the polarization of utterly rejecting him?
What about Hitler? Or Lenin? Would “meeting them halfway” have accomplished anything?
This situation is crystal clear. The Democrat party is a de facto, if not de jure, member of the Socialist International, an organization of leftist political parties from around the world. They all share the same agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International
A hallmark of their beliefs is that nations, as such, are inherently evil and cause war. They see them are arbitrary constructs that bring about unique and homogeneous peoples, histories, cultures, and languages, which socialists also abhor. Thus they are dedicated to the eventual end of the independent nation, as well as homogeneous peoples, histories, cultures and languages.
What they want is for nations to become socialist districts, in socialist economic blocs, that are all part of a unified, one world government. So they work for things like multinational and international government, open borders, unlimited immigration (as long as the immigrants agree to vote socialist), and the destruction of national symbols and traditions.
Eventually, they want single party socialist states, led by an elite upper class ruling over a generic everyone else, who are confined to densely populated urban areas. And everything of value will be rationed by government as it sees fit, because with rationing comes control.
So, the socialists, including the Democrat party, are not patriotic, do not support America or American values, and do not respect our constitution. They reject and despise our national symbols, they hate the American people as a people, they reject the family unit, religious faith, and they want collective punishment against Americans for defying them and their socialist goals.
So let me ask the rhetorical question of Mr. Jonah Goldberg of Townhall.com. Do you seriously for a moment think that we should abandon “polarization” with people like this?
Should we instead desire to “meet them halfway” in having our nation destroyed and impoverished?
Should we impoverish ourselves “halfway” so that they can so overspend our resources that it would take a thousand years to repay our debts?
Should we deactivate our military because by being able to defend ourselves, we are “provoking” other nations to attack us? (Seriously, they have used this argument, specifically against the funding of missile defense.)
The bottom line is that the path of the Democrat party is to destroy all that we have built, to impoverish and starve our people, to tear down what is good and precious, all leading to our horrible destruction, and to do so for a perverted fantasy that has never worked for anyone ever in human history?
Does he really suggest that “we meet them halfway” in this?
It is akin to teenagers desiring to be "cool".
Maybe, just maybe, if both sides resolved not to take their most flattering myths for granted, America would be just a bit less polarized.
Further myths to ditch:
(8) The ‘rat faction of the uniparty favors the middle class.
(9) The gop faction of the uniparty favors the middle class.
(10) Voting much matters.
Extremely well put. I totally agree.
You forgot:
8) America no longer has a free press or journalists.
Perfect summary and warning.
Interesting. Your list is eminently better than Goldberg’s tripe and much more concise.
It is a spiritual battle, we must resist, not try to get along with Satan's minions. So what are we going to do? Vote?
Reading this slightly differently:
We DID ditch Myth... in 2012.
For 2014, we need now to ditch Mitch.
I was hoping that “liberalism is a mental disorder” would be a myth.
It’s not.
Sorry - but this is twaddle. Conservatives, when they act, speak out with logic and forthrightness (for the most part). It is the fact that the R party, supposedly the conservative party, has forsworn the conservative position in favor of occupying the "middle ground" in almost every instance that has the conservative base screaming for red meat.
The dems have obstinately refused to deal with the conservatives, opting instead to demonize not only individual politicians who stand upo to them, but to target whole swaths of people who stand in the conservative tent - most notably the entire Tea Party movement. How, pray tell, does one parlay with a faction who shouts their hatred and disdain of your very existence with every word they utter?
The thought occurred to me while reading "The Liberal Illusion of Uniqueness" in the journal Psychological Science. Apparently it's a well established finding that liberals tend to think their views are more rebellious than they are. They feel a "need for uniqueness." And that need can stand in the way of seeking commonality with other Americans. Conservatives don't crave uniqueness. In fact, they are more likely to overestimate the extent to which there is a consensus around their beliefs. In other words, liberals bristle at the notion that they're conventional thinkers, while conservatives are too quick to assume everyone thinks like them.Thanks Kaslin.
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