OKAY: I WAS WRONG

Ramesh must have been having a bad day yesterday. The editorial page article by Jost et. al. defending their research on political conservatism is simply terrible. It is terrible not because of what it says but rather how it distorts what they previously said in thier research. They claim that they did this research as arm's length unbiased academic research and their findings have been distorted by an irresponsible press. As much as I hate to defend the press, they interpreted what Jost et. al. was saying in their reprehensible articles correctly. (Indeed, the cause of the press's interpretation was most likely a Stanford university press release that described the research. Having read the original articles, I do not believe that a journalist would have the patience to read the things in the first place.) Anyway several points need to be made.

1. The press did not create the pejorative terms to describe conservative or conservative beliefs, the researchers did. The terms dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity to describe conservatives appear throughout both articles (They wrote two articles. The original article and then one responding to a criticism of that article. Both articles appear in the May issue of Psychology Bulletin) but most prominantly in the abstract of the original article. In the abstract of the reply article, the following terms to describe conservatives also appear, "lack of openess to experience; uncertainty avoidence; personal needs for order, structure and closure; fear of death; and system threat." They then repeat these claims in the first paragraph of the article itself. Moreover, they repeat these claims throughout the article and the follow-up Reply article. In short, despite the protests of the authors, the pejorative description of conservatives is not due to any misinterpretation of the article by the press but rather the content of the article.

2. The most outrageous comparisons of conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh to Hitler and Mussolini is based solely on their claim that all preached a return to some idealized past. This is a claim that remains unproven. I do not remember Reagan championing such a thing nor have I heard Limbaugh champion such a notion. If one could link political ideologies to Hitler and Mussolini by one possible similarity then on the basis of their support for and creation of social security, New Deal liberals could be placed in the same camp as these two. Furthermore, German Greens could be linked to Hitler as they share certain reverences for nature. In the Washington Post article, Jost et. al. simply do not address why they rely so heavily on such a tenuous link between Reagan and Hitler and Mussolini.

3. They selectively attribute motivations to conservatives (from their Exceptions reply). "American conservatives may support a market-based economy (which introduces uncertainty and risk) because it preserves the status quo and results in inequality of outcomes even though it may conflict with personal needs for stability and security." In other words, if a policy has an impact that conflicts with their hypothesis, they will search among other possible impacts until they find one that is consistent with their hypothesis. In short, it is impossible to test their hypothesis. This is not science.

4. Finally there is no control group. Suppose that everything else these guys find is true, it does not prove that these are "conservative traits." These may be human traits and by focusing only on research examining conservative (and fascist) beliefs, they are attributing to conservatives, personality traits that exist in people of all political ideologies (and even among those who are completely apolitical). This too means that Jost et. al.'s research is not science.

To understand how completely these guys are out of touch with reality consider this statement in their Exceptions Reply, "(Reagan's) chief accomplishment, in effect, was to roll back both the New Deal era and the 1960's, which was also the goal of former Speaker of the House of Represenatives Newt Gingrich and many other neo-conservatives often regarded as advocates of change." In addition to being factually wrong, there is a logical error. Why would rolling back the New Deal and 1960's be a goal of Newt Gingrich and Neo-conservatives if that had already accomplished by Reagan?

Another statement in the Exceptions Reply illustrates the contempt and bias these researchers have for conservatives. "there seems to be no shortage of ideological rigidity among right-wing emigres from Cuba living in the United States, as demonstrated by the Elian Gonzales case." It is simply unclear to me (and unexplained by them) how the Elian Gonzales case illustrates any such thing except the author's hostility to hispanics who do not follow the liberal party line.

I realize this email is long (and probably late given that Remesh's original post was from yesterday and about yesterday's Washington Post editorial page), but my main point is that we should not be decieved by an academic's self-serving description of his own research. Consulting that research to determine what it says and its purpose is much better. We do this with regard to many other kinds of research, we should also do it with psuedo-psychological research into the psychology of conservatives, especially research by Dogmatic Liberal ideologues who think it is reasonable to liken conservatives to fascists and Nazis.

I see you couldn't answer most of my posting...I'm not surprised.

Exhibit 1 in the "lack of subtlety" case - attacking arguments I never made.

You said earlier "If conservatives aren't dogmatic then who is?

The answer to your question is liberals, as I prove above. Don't run away from your arguments. While one can argue that their is an element of dogmatism in any philosophy, by definition, there is no question but that dogmatism is a central element of leftist thought in modern America.

While the left talks a good game about tolerance and acceptance of the other as we can see in examples of where the left actaully rules, disagreement with orthodox (leftist) thought is not only *not* tolerated, but generally punished.

One can see the extremes of this in communist and fascist countries, but speech codes, hate crimes, and all the rest provide a window on the same authoritarian impulse here in the US.

As the rest of my earlier posting shows, along with the original author that started this thread, the creators of this study engaged in a mix of simple ad hominem, projection, and ideological dogmatism to produce their Orwellian document.

Another fundamental mistake;

I think that describes at least the sense of the social conservative movement - it certainly describes a personage like Pat Buchanan, popular to many here, who left the Republican party because in his view it wasn't conservative enough.

Buchanan left the Republican party because he drifted ever further left on economic issues. He has become an ardent protectionist. The Reps remain largely free traders. While he is not a liberal over all, as he still is a social conservative, describing Buchanan circa 2003 as being in an example of the far right is completely off base.

In a limited way (something you might have gathered from reading the paper) - only in the sense of believing in some sort of ideal past that present day America fell short of.

While Hitler did romanticize elements of the German past, he did so only to laud the Germans as a race. He was a futurist if anything, claiming that he would perfect society and government and usher in a thousand year Reich of utopian rule, and focused on wholesale societal change.

Again, this millenial utopianism is a central aspect of leftist thought. While Hitler's version was different from that of Lenin, Mao, or modern leftists, the idea that the perfection of mankind is possible if only we reject the social structures that exist now is just not present on the right, which has no illusions of heaven on earth.

...something you might have gathered from reading the paper...

I have already read four accounts of the papers (I believe there are two) from trusted sources, but to satisfy you I will read the papers themselves. I doubt I will encounter any significant suprises. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini were conservatives by any definition, and any author who claims otherwise --- which clearly was done in this paper, unless all the reporting on the "meta-study" has been erroneous --- is an idiot. I'll come back and clear up your misunderstanding about conservatives and free markets -- for the second time -- after I examine the study.

As for the tactic of claiming that you were talking about immigration policy when you used the term "middle-class whites," implying that non-white American citizens and conservative bigotry towards them were the furthest thing from your mind, I find it highly disingenuous --- borderline dishonest really.

While he is not a liberal over all, as he still is a social conservative, describing Buchanan circa 2003 as being in an example of the far right is completely off base.

Neither Hitler nor Mussolini were conservatives by any definition

I'm not sure what I'm being accused of, but let me clarify my point. There is definitely a racial tinge to the discussions here on immigration policy and overseas outsourcing. Conservatives here who clamor for government restrictions on commerce (e.g. restrictions on H1B visas and tighter immigration controls) are doing so primarily to protect white middle class jobs from competition and as such can only be said to support laissez-faire economics only to the extent that it doesn't put white middle class jobs in jeopardy.

While Hitler's version was different from that of Lenin, Mao, or modern leftists, the idea that the perfection of mankind is possible if only we reject the social structures that exist now is just not present on the right, which has no illusions of heaven on earth.

Ask people who consider themselves conservatives if think society overall is better today than it was in the 1950s. G. Gordon Liddy has a book titled "When I was a kid, this was a free country". Hitler wanted to set up the Third Reich - i.e. a resurrection of the past imperial Germany glory. The very word "fascism" traces to the "fasces" carried by officials of the Roman Empire - Mussolini saw himself as restoring the Roman Empire.

The differences between conservatives and liberals do tend to be between placing the ideal society in the past vs. in the future.

Buchanan doesn't consider himself a leftist and most of his supporters don't consider him or themselves leftists either. The Southern Agrarian movement, which seems to have been a big influence on Buchanan, isn't a leftist movement either. It is possible to be rightist and anti-capitalist.

To begin with, I specifically stated Pat was not a leftwinger...you should read more closely...but not the icon of the far right you are trying to make him out to be.

In the normal usage of the terms right and left, capitalism and free trade are right wing. Protectionism and corporatism/socialism are left wing.

Whatever his supporters wish to call themselves, this is the nature of the political divide. Pat moved left on economics. I urge you, like I would have urged the authors of this study, to actually read conservative writers and not just grab text out of context. Pat's flip was a dominant issue of discussion just a few years ago within conservative circles.

Further, I'm rather interested to here about how rightwing Pat's associate Lenora Fulani is...

Neccacary, that doesn't look correct either. (Hee,hee)

Ahem < assume air of distinction >yes, were it so, however, I was referring to the two s's, plural, the ones that come first, not the second occurrance, when there is only one "c".

< / air of distinction >

I found the paper, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (37 pages), and the rebuttal written by Greenberg, and Jost's response to the rebuttal. I won't be able to read it all tonight.

But what strikes me right off the bat is that it's very strange to question the need for a control group for this large study, as you did. Clearly the authors are shooting for scientific credit with this "meta-study," an absurd prospect without a control group.

The study has been out since May and is already a laughingstock. I feel pretty confident that it will soon become a notorious example of skewed science -- a Darkness in El Dorado of psychology, if you will -- after some heavyweights in the field have a chance to study it over the next twelve months or so.

In any case, I will read it and get back to you in the next few days.

The differences between conservatives and liberals do tend to be between placing the ideal society in the past vs. in the future.

Again, you need to pay closer attention to what is written.

Hitler glorified the German past only to the extent that it upheld the superiority of the German race. He neither advocated nor attempted to enact a return, in any way, to the partial constitutional monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm (and it should be specifically noted, extremely Jew friendly for continental Europe) nor the decentralized feudal Holy Roman Empire dominated by the Habsburgs.

Hitler's vision was a totally centralized, socialist realm purged of tradional religion where he was the embodiment of the state and the national will. All the old structures of the Weimar Republic and the Hohenzollern's empire would be removed.

Mussolini, of course, was a committed socialist who broke with the italian socialists over the question of national versus international socialism during the first world war.

To say that either of these men were traditionalists goes beyond mere mistake into the realm of purposeful deception.

While fascism is not communism, they are closely related, which explains why they exchanged so many basic ideas (death camps, early development of modern propaganda and espionage, the one party system, etc), and it one point were allied against their more traditional enemies - ie the Pact.

They were both corporatist anticommunist nationalists, as opposed to Marxist internationalists, which tends to put them in the right wing category. Don't be distracted by their "socialism" - it wasn't of the Marxist variety or meant to be put to Marxist ends.

This is a common, and deeply flawed, response to the question of the organization of NAZI Germany.

Yes, their name included socialist in it. However, they were socialists not because of their name, but because they favored and enacted corporatist, socialist policy.

The National Socialists, like their internationalist brethern favored control of industry for the good of the state, a comprehensive social welfare net, and the one party system. Hitler added a racialist element to the mix, of course, but then again communists from Stalin to the Sandanistas, had no point in murdering disfavored ethnic groups either.

Hitler even claimed that he found much to learn from Marxism. That he wasn't as dogmatic in his socialism as the fools to his east merely made him more dangerous, not a fundamentally different sort of tyrant.

Further, that the Soviets and Germans were bitter enemies - after being allies - is hardly different from the relations between the USSR and Red China. Yet, no one is willing to argue that this opposition made the Chicoms rightwingers for some reason.

It is instructive to consider that by the 80s, Red China was a western ally and Democratic India a Soviet one. This does not change the fact both the Soviets and Chinese were communists, the Indians and Americans democrats.

In regards to the term "capitalism", all forms of government are capitalist by definition. "Capitalism" is defined as the means of production. All economic entities need capital. The question is who controls the capital. Under Mussolini, fascism was defined by the fact that although companies could still be privately owned, they were told what to produce, how much to produce, where to produce, when to produce etc.

As far as a desire to return to an idealist past, talk to any hippie, commie, or Mussolini facsist to get an earfull about the "good'ole days."

Don't be distracted by their "socialism" - it wasn't of the Marxist variety or meant to be put to Marxist ends.

Do you really think that a student of John Lukacs -- a fact you should know from my earlier post -- is unaware of the distinctions between marxism and naziism? It's impossible to know what "ends" the Thousand Year Reich meant to put its brand of socialism, since it only lasted 13 years, but you can be certain that Hitler's "corporatist" plans did not include a free market. His interventionist proclivities were manifest. He just happened to be a far better economist than Stalin.

But as I said above, Hitler's racialist policies, Volk worship and hypernationalism were more important than economics in terms of the overall tenor of the regime.

By the way, I assume you know that Hitler rejected the term fascism. Mussolini had little success in getting him to adopt it. In any case, neither man was interested in returning to an idealized past. They were anti-Burkean revolutionaries fixated on future greatness. Any sense of nostalgia for past greatness they sought to instill in the masses was done chiefly for propaganda purposes.

I urge you, like I would have urged the authors of this study, to actually read conservative writers and not just grab text out of context.

I've been on this site for at least three or four years - I'm quite familiar with conservative writings and thoughts. To quote Buchanan himself, "if conservatives are not trying to conserve our families and our society, then what is we are trying to conserve?". I'll cite as well Buchanan's 1992 keynote address at the Republican National Convention. While Buchanan is somewhat embarrasing to the conservative movement, let's not play revisionist history and pretend that Buchanan doesn't share the concerns of a signficant portion of the conservative community.

In the normal usage of the terms right and left, capitalism and free trade are right wing. Protectionism and corporatism/socialism are left wing.

In the contemporary and primarily American, use of the terms this is true. However the marriage between free-market capitalism and the right wing only dates back a century. Conservatism, as an abstract philosophy, simply is favoring the status quo. In the US, especially during the Cold War, this meant supporting the free-market and capitalism, with the caveat that the market would not undermine the existing social order.

But as I said above, Hitler's racialist policies, Volk worship and hypernationalism were more important than economics in terms of the overall tenor of the regime.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm not going to rehash to complete analysis of Nazi Germany. The point is simply that Hitler saw the Third Reich as a means of recreating the (fictional) past - different historians will disagree about whether or not Hitler believed in his propaganda or not - it's impossible to tell. The point of the article was the belief in a romanticized past that is shared by conservatives (none of whom have answered my question about whether or not they think society on the whole is better today than in the 1950s).

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