Thursday, March 17, 2011

How Conservatives View Liberals

There's an interesting post by Enoch Root at POWIP called, "How Liberals Feel – or How Krauthammer Got It Wrong," that looks at how we on the right view liberals, and whether or not our viewpoint is correct. After referring to an article from 2002 that characterized liberals as stupid, Root notes that Krauthammer's position has evolved.
a few days ago, Mr. Krauthammer put forth a more nuanced (or if you prefer, definitive) position regarding the Great Chasm — and why compromise is impossible. I don’t have the quote in front of me… but if memory serves it went something like this: The fundamental difference is that Conservatives think Liberals are naive and emotional… while Liberals believe Conservatives are evil.
That formulation has been around for a long time, and in my opinion it is largely accurate. But Root thinks it gives liberals too much credit. Although he doesn't say so directly, it appears he thinks we should see liberals as evil -- much as they view conservatives, except that our views are correct. But first he makes some points I agree with about how liberals viewing conservatives as evil explains many things.
First, it explains why Liberals often come across as pompous and condescending.

It explains their absolute intolerance of diversity of thought.

It explains their violent reaction when they don’t get their way.

It explains their hostility toward any who dare to challenge their Worldview.

It explains their knee-jerk demagoguery and intransigence.

I guess that list is also without limit. But you get the point.

It also explains why they hold their many false assumptions with the fervor of religious belief, and react with outrage when those assumptions are challenged, as if you were an evil heretic. But here's where my opinions of liberals diverge from Root's.
When Conservatives say liberals are just naive, we are being too charitable. ... When conservatives say they are well-intentioned, we are in denial. They are not on the whole well-intentioned. Sure, there are many hippy-dippy, pot smoking liberals who believe in live and let live. But this is an unfortunate caricature. One that tends to make conservatives underestimate our foes. The most dangerous liberals are incredibly pragmatic. They are incredibly deliberate. They have objectives and formulate strategies to achieve them. ... My point is that when we call Liberals naive, we are being naive. When we say that perhaps “they love too much” we are throwing pearls before the swine. Think Machiavelli and you’ll be closer to the truth.

He goes on in this vein. In my opinion this is dangerously close to conspiracy-theory thinking, viewing liberals as evil-minded plotters determined to inflict their monstrous designs upon us. This is the type of thinking that leads people to argue that Obama wants to destroy the economy, or that Democrats want to keep the poor helpless and dependent on government only for political reasons. Are there people on the left who are purely cynical manipulators, interested in power and nothing else? Of course. But I don't think that's a reasonable characterization of the majority of liberals. The evidence indicates that most liberals really believe their ideas and policies are good, not just for gaining and holding power, but for human progress. I'll give one detailed example of liberal thinking based on a recent discussion on a liberal blog, and my reading of related material on other leftist sites.

Let's say you suggest that poor people are somehow responsible, even partially, for their own conditions, and mention practical things they might do to improve their situation. This goes over on the left much like arguing with a conservative evangelical Christian that good works make more sense than salvation by faith. You are blinded by your "privilege" and don't understand that poor people are helpless victims of an oppressive and broken system. Expecting them to do things to help themselves is just downright insensitive. There's a long list of excuses for why your suggestions, no matter how practical or obvious, just won't work. You can even point out factual errors in their assertions and assumptions, or their failure to reason logically. It doesn't matter. Like religious beliefs, their assumptions about the poor are part of the liberal creed. The same creed sees the poor as hard-working people struggling to get by and make ends meet. Good luck pointing out that many poor people have made horrible decisions in their lives, and that plenty waste too much of what little money they have on things like cigarettes, liquor, lottery tickets, and other luxuries they can ill afford. Like people of all social stratas, some poor people are in fact stupid, ignorant or lazy. All of this goes against the liberal creed that the poor are helpless victims who can only really be helped by government assistance -- and no matter how much government assistance there is already, it is never enough. But does the left's outright rejection of reality with regard to the poor mean that most liberals want to keep poor people in a state of poverty for political reasons? I don't think so.

In my opinion, most liberals who hold to the creed regarding the poor genuinely believe in their ideology. They really think that poor people are just victims of an unjust oppressive system, who can only be helped by massive assistance -- assistance which of course always involves more taxes and more government programs. They sbelieve that more handouts are the best way to help poor people. In other words, they truly see their ideas and policies as the way to help the poor. It isn't just cynical exploitation, although it might appear that way on the surface.

I do the occasional post where I highlight some left-wing blog post and call it "Laughing at the Left," because in my opinion, many left-wing views should be greeted with the derisive laughter that they deserve. I'm firmly in the camp that sees much of the left as naive fools, because the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that most should be regarded as fools, rather than as deliberately malevolent. There's nothing naive about regarding the left as naive. Obviously fools are often dangerous. But that doesn't mean we need to act like the left and assume evil motives on the part of our political opponents.



12 comments:

  1. How would you explain "Obamacare" in the context of your arguments that leftists are just naive do-gooders? I don't entirely disagree with you, but I think there is much more malevolence and authoritarianism than you ascribe.

    If helping people was the goal of that health care reform law, then it seems to me it would have been crafted to actually help people. It's pretty short on help and long on authoritarianism. “You have to pass it to find out what’s in it” sounds a lot more like “Let them eat cake” than it does “Power to the people” or “Free to be You and Me.”

    Whatever their motivations, the left’s machinations invariably result in misery for the masses and power and privilege for themselves.

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  2. I would explain it as follows. The left sees government as the answer to almost any problem, and views individuals as needing to be led and taken care of for their own good. It rejects personal responsibility and scoffs at any notion that a free market could possibly provide better solutions than government. It also views everything through a class lens that sees poor people as helpless victims, the rich as exploiters, and capitalism as at best something that needs to be tightly regulated and controlled in the interests of "fairness." Government is there to "do good," it isn't a necessary evil.

    There is also a general hostility to corporations. How many times have you heard a Democrat -- not even a hardcore leftist -- refer disparagingly to "big oil," big pharma," or the "insurance lobby"? When you have a left-wing mindset that the health care system is fundamentally unfair and broken, and dominated by evil, greedy corporations, and your solution of choice to solve any societal problem is more government intervention, a program like Obamacare is going to be seen as a positive step (unless you are a hardcore leftist who rejects it as a weak compromise and a sellout of true socialist principles). The fact that it doesn't do what it claims is irrelevant, since any increase in government authority and control over health care is defacto a good thing. If you can't have true socialized medicine, which almost everyone on the left wants, Obamacare is at least seen by its supporters as a step in the right direction. It's because we need more big government to make life fairer for everyone.

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  3. SSo, the thousands of pages Obamacare were a demonstration of the altruistic nature of naive leftists? I doubt it. The whole episode was nothing more than a demonstration of power and a means to maintain it. “We won.”

    They are motivated by power and their incessant need to tamp down those they consider intellectually inferior. If altruism is the left's motivation, then why aren't people like Al Gore and Michael Moore living in one-room shacks and riding bicycles and occasionally floating over to Cuba for their 3rd world-class health care?

    We could tie ourselves into philosophical knots over what motivates leftists, but it isn't very constructive. It's the kind of epistemological fluff that leftists love. It's enough to remember that the result of a leftist civilization is grim repression at best. It's sufficient to review Russian history and various parables by Orwell and Rand to see the results of supposed well-intentioned leftists. Screw their goddamn motivations. You'd be better served by studying their tactics and opposing the retrograde, totalitarian bastards.

    Is it far-fetched conspiracy theory to attribute malevolence to leftists? We may not devolve to the point of Stalin’s purges or Mao’s Great Leap forward, but a glance at our media ought to give you pause. Take Wisconsin. Are you noticing lies, lies by omission? Obama and Trumka and NPR aren’t simply pot-smoking, misguided unicorn jockeys worried about your welfare, my friend.

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  4. Funny, but the left views conservatives as Authoritarian Oligochists that wants to regulate everyones sex lives, eliminate freedom of expression and associations (in the name of security) generally ram down a fundamentalist religion 'morals' on everyone who isn't male, white and upper class property owners.

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  5. D,

    "SSo, the thousands of pages Obamacare were a demonstration of the altruistic nature of naive leftists?"

    No, that's the nature of getting any huge bill passed in today's Congress -- every supporter has to have his/her fingers in part of it.

    "Tthen why aren't people like Al Gore and Michael Moore living in one-room shacks and riding bicycles and occasionally floating over to Cuba for their 3rd world-class health care?"

    Because they are hypocrites.

    "We could tie ourselves into philosophical knots over what motivates leftists, but it isn't very constructive."

    Maybe not, but I like those sorts of intellectual exercises.

    "You'd be better served by studying their tactics and opposing the retrograde, totalitarian bastards."

    There's nothing preventing anyone from doing that why also considering their motivations.

    "Is it far-fetched conspiracy theory to attribute malevolence to leftists?"

    It depends on the exact situation. If you mean malevolence directed toward conservatives, then no. They see us as evil. That's why it's ok for them to use any tactics necessary against us. But that's not the same thing as whether or not they believe in the positive effects of their policy ideas.

    "Obama and Trumka and NPR aren’t simply pot-smoking, misguided unicorn jockeys worried about your welfare, my friend. "

    I don't think they are.

    Anonymous,

    We on the right are well-aware of the nonsensical views of the left with regard to us. I spend plenty of time visiting left-wing sites and occasional even entering into discussion with the minority capable of holding a rational debate on some issue.

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  6. So you agree. I knew you would.

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  7. I agree with some things and disagree with others. Motivations and tactics are not the same things.

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  8. You thoroughly deconstructed my diatribe and yet didn't notice that I did not equate motives and tactics. The point I guess I failed to make was that we should concern ourselves with leftist tactics and not their motives.

    I do agree that their motives are interesting, whatever they are.

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  9. I noticed, but after I'd already written all that other stuff :).

    "I guess I failed to make was that we should concern ourselves with leftist tactics and not their motives."

    I agree that from a practical standpoint their tactics are much more important than their motives. My main point is that just because their tactics are odious, doesn't mean they are acting out of bad motives. They just have an ends justify the means outlook.

    Look at communists, and I mean the true believer types, not someone like a cynical old soviet politburo member who was just using communism to retain power and perks. Communists think communism is the best possible system. They don't see it as an oppressive ideology that naturally leads to something like the USSR -- that's why they are always bringing up the same old nonsense about "true communism."

    Since they think communism is the best and fairest system possible, class enemies who stand in the way are obviously evil oppressors. And if you are dealing with evil oppressors, any tactics can be justified since you are fighting against evil to bring about the best possible system.

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  10. Yo bro. You know them little curly-cue things: "quotation marks" ?They have a purpose.

    I copied and pasted what I said:

    "The point I guess I failed to make was that we should concern ourselves with leftist tactics and not their motives."

    And here's my copy and paste of what you say I said:

    "I guess I failed to make was that we should concern ourselves with leftist tactics and not their motives."

    One of these things doesn't look like the other. As a conservative atheist, I figure we ought to have something in common.

    Perhaps, not.

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  11. BTW. Who thinks "pure" communism has good outcomes? Katie Couric and Chris Matthews? Who gives a good god damn what motivates stupid people? Ask my Czech friend how she felt when the "nicely" motivated Soviets invaded her country and members of her family disappeared? Motives? I bet there are millions of people that died in Siberian gulags debating whether communism is "pure" or not.

    Fuck you.

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