The Psychology Underlying "Liberalism"

FrontPageMagazine ^ | September 12, 2002 | John J. Ray

[najida]

Good point. Also I think an often overlooked feature of leftist political thought is that we all (or most of us) grew up in a planned economy, one might say a commune. It's called "the family". The family is definitely an example where it's pretty much from each according to his ability and to each according to their needs.

You stole my thought! ;) The end result of the family is to foster independence. We all grow out of the family, our parents stop supporting us and we move on.

[Sam Cree]

bump

[alnitak]

self ping to read later....

[KarlInOhio]

Mark for future reading

[x]

Yesterday, we had an article about left-wing left coast psychologists presuming to "explain" or explain away conservatism, and today this. Surely we can all imagine circumstances in which we would all be liberal or conservative or radical. An unchanging society frozen in caste might well benefit from a certain degree of liberalism or radicalism to prevent its cultural arteries from hardening. A society that has a dynamic base and undergoes frequent or massive change, such as our own would benefit from a policy weighted towards conservatism.

Of course it sometimes does look like all of today's leftist are crazy, but etiquette and common sense demand that argument be focused on objective realities and the alternative courses of action available, rather than on the personalities or the psychological make-up of those one disagrees with. If you always have that psychological explanation ready at hand to dismiss arguments from the other side, you'll miss the rare occasions when they may just be right. The more one relies on psychological characterizations of one's opponents to "win" arguments, the more one loses touch with the facts and realities of the present situation.

If you can convince someone that you have the facts and a better grasp of realities and possibilities you can win them -- if not opponents then unprejudiced third parties -- over to your side. If you just talk about why they think as they do, there's little point in arguing. Too many arguments degenerate into a "Conservatives are from Mars, liberal are from Venus," "Just like a liberal," "Spoken like a true conservative" stalemate that achieves nothing.

[RightWhale]

The first paragraph seemed like a good start. Read a couple paragraphs beyond and might read it all later, but it seems to be off the mark so far. Way off.

[spodefly]

BTTT

[glock rocks]

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Great minds and all that :)

[Brad’s Gramma]

Thanks for the ping. I'll read it later.

[Farnham]

Read later

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

The end result of the family is to foster independence. We all grow out of the family, our parents stop supporting us and we move on.

Actually, this is true only of one particular family type. There are familty structures which do not promote this kind of independence. Although his more recent work appears to have a strain of anti-Americanism, Emmanuel Todds' "The Explanation of Ideology" promotes the idea that ideology is a result of the underlying family structure. This stands in opposition to Marxist theory which proclaims that ideology is a product of the division of labor in a society.

[RightWhale]

The 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights mentions the family as the basic unit of society, but it doesn't define what is meant by family. Maybe the definition has changed since 1948. Perhaps some of the debate leading up to adoption of the Declaration still exists. A family has definite legal meaning, and it includes relation by blood or marriage. But then, the current discussion of marriage comes into play, and probably the meaning of the UN Declaration will change automatically. Some cultures won't like the change.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

"This is long but well worth the read."

Are you sure? I wish someone would just summarize some of these really long articles; especially when it's about liberals.

[two23]

"I wish someone would just summarize some of these really long articles; especially when it's about liberals.

I visually skim the article for keywords that touch on my specific interest, zero in, then save the rest for later. This article was very timely for an ongoing email discussion I'm currently having with a life-long friend who has gone "raging liberal".

[dead]

Bump to pretend that I'm going to read this later too.

[second_semi_annual_toast_throw]

Fraulein, Thank you very much for the welcome. I look forward to contributing to FR. I'm on the "right" side of the aisle, so that's a good start, I would think!!! I appreciate the warm welcome.

[second_semi_annual_toast_throw]

Thank you for the welcome. I appreciate it.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Bumped