Commenter “AesopFan” explains my own position vis à vis liberal Democrat friends and family, for the most part
Here’s the description [emphasis mine]:
[From] JFM > “These are educated people who always take the news at face value. I can’t understand this. It drives me crazy.”
When they only see the news from one side, in which so much that we know about is omitted, distorted, or flat out invented, their opinions become understandable.
Not correct, but understandable.
Sadly, rectifying their erroneous impressions is time-consuming and requires background that they just don’t have.
I access probably ten times as much political and social news as most of my Democrat-voting family and friends, since I’m a Poli-Sci addict, and there is no way I can get a long enough hearing from them to convey all that information.Change stories are interesting: so many are like Neo’s, where the sudden, unexpected, discovery that their news sources have lied about something important motivates an investigation that reveals many, many more lies.
It’s hard to know what that tipping point might be, for any individual.
The other problem is that they really don’t even want to know — literally; a recent group email from my family made that clear, in a rather off-hand fashion.
I won’t disturb their delusions, because there isn’t time in the day.
And even though they are all very nice, moral, generous, kind, productive, hard-working, intelligent, and educated (when that word had meaning), they are totally dependent on the Regime Media for their information.
And they believe the propaganda.
I would say that’s a correct depiction of 95% – perhaps even 100% – of my Democrat family and friends. In addition, some of it is a description of 20th century me – except for the part about not really wanting to know.
Perhaps the “want to know” versus “don’t want to know” dimension is the one that ultimately decides whether a person is open to political change or not. I will add that I believe that, for most of the people I’m talking about here, the “don’t want to know” crowd is usually intellectually curious about other things and open to taking in information. It’s just that politics taps into a much more emotional area of the psyche, in many instances the same one occupied (or not occupied, depending on the person) by religion. And then there’s the added dimension of the high social cost of leaving the fold. It’s huge, and when I went through my change it’s something of which I was naively unaware, which made the change easier for me.
When the media is lying – and lying in unison – and the vast majority of the people a person knows read the same sources and get the same information, an edifice of belief is built up. Much of it is based on distortions, omissions, and lies. But most of the time the person doesn’t know that or even suspect it. Sources on the right have been so demonized – for example, “Faux News” – that it usually precludes watching them. And if someone comes along to challenge the person’s point of view, unless the listener is highly motivated to sit and listen for hours, the challenge can easily dismissed by the listener as error or ignorance on the part of the challenger. That’s because part of the narrative the listener has taken in is that the other side is listening to lies all the time and basing their opinions on lies.
As I’ve described in my change story, there were some special circumstances for me that meant I was able to keep an open mind. I was so naive at the time the process began, post 9/11, that when I started reading many media sources online instead of the few print sources as I’d read before (consisting mostly of the Times, the Boston Globe, and The New Yorker), I was unaware of the political orientation of the authors of my new online sources. I was instead evaluating their logic and veracity in three main ways. The first was whether the authors were making logical points, the second was whether their predictions about future events were mostly accurate, and the third was whether they quoted public figures correctly when I checked against the transcript of a speech or interview. I found that some sources were consistently much better than others at doing those things. And after a year or two of this sort of close reading, I discovered to my surprise – I might even say to my shock – that those more reliable sources were all on the right.
One of the reasons I was able to do this was because I had recently separated from my husband and was very lonely, and therefore had a great deal of time on my hands. I had moved to a new place where I only had a friend or two. My son was now grown up and living several hours away. I was getting my news online for the first time in my life because I didn’t want the hassle of disposing of stacks of old newspapers. And so, without even realizing it, I was also reading conservative sources for the first time in my life, as well as the usual liberal sources I had always read without even thinking they were biased. I discovered that they were.
It’s not that sources on the right were free of bias. It’s just that they fulfilled those three criteria far better than media on the left did. That was really a huge turning point for me.
And then I discovered Thomas Sowell’s books, and that was another watershed. He brought it all together in a framework and provided structure for what I was already noticing and thinking in a far more disorganized way. After that, there was no turning back.
And so here I am.
The 3 close friends I’ve recently become estranged from due to politics are exactly as described.
My change was back in the 80s. I was a registered Democrat. Owning a house and watching taxes go up and up… is what changed me. Interestingly enough,who pushed me over the edge was a Republican, Weiker who brought the income tax to CT. I’ve been an independent since and identify as a conservative.
I have found that my liberal friend also have a very small list of “canonical sources” they will accept information from, the foremost being the New York Times. Attempts to show them 1) concrete examples of how the NYT has botched major stories or 2) how the media landscape has changed dramatically over the last three decades generally come to naught.
My turn to the conservative dark side started after 9/11 when I realized that we were facing in Radical Islam an example of an apocalyptic spiritual movement and that modern liberalism has absolutely no methodology to understand apocalyptic spirituality in any form. I knew that we were in for a hard slog ahead. History since then has shown my early fears to be absolutely on point.
I suspect that Liberal Friends of the Neo Commentariat are poor candidates for change.
They are older, mostly comfortable and successful, so why should they change? Only a very few will.
I see the 2024 changers mostly among blacks, hispanics, working-class, non-degreed, males and the young.
What would it take to wake them up that their news was biased or wrong? If the whole Russia hoax or the Hunter Biden laptop ruse weren’t enough I don’t know what will be. These stories were so patently manipulated and lied about that only a simpleton could not see the truth and yet…. half the country, at least, believed and many still do. Propaganda works and works very well. The masters of manipulation have mastered their art.
huxley:
You’re somewhat correct but by no means for all. I have a not-inconsiderable number of friends who are not well-off financially and a few who lived mostly paycheck-to-paycheck. I also have many relatives who are young. Not all the older ones have degrees, all most do. My family is actually somewhat racially and ethically diverse. I see no differences politically in those groups. The only ones who have moved to the right are me and my ex-husband as well as one young one who’s rather well off but a bit of a rebel.
CultivatingMan:
You only see the lies as obvious because you get some of your new from the right. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t see it as obvious at all. Au contraire.
Many, many months of my presumptions being challenged by Rush Limbaugh gradually opened my mind.
huxley:
I see the 2024 changers mostly among blacks, hispanics, working-class, non-degreed, males and the young.
——————
Because it’s relatively easy for the ethnic groups on your list to see the gap between their self-appointed “allies” condescending attitudes and their real, lived personhood – and real life economic and social issues.
Similarly, the working class can see quite clearly that they are disdained.
Which makes it easier to look for better information sources.
Regarding “older and comfortable” – there has been a sort of mini-epiphany among older “liberal” Jews who are shocked to discover that their grandchildren are intolerant Antifa thugs. And a parallel epiphany among assimilated young collegiate Jews who are shocked to discover they are still “dirty kikes”.
What will come of this? Some have already shifted their philanthropy to specifically Jewish causes. I am sure will no longer vote Dem in a knee-jerk reaction.
See my SOB comment. Also this has taken on a religious cast, absolute evil v. absolute good.
Strikes me that Neo has a large number of people she terms “friends”.
I would call them acquaintances. My circle of true friends, those in whom I confide without hesitation, are very few in number.
Cicero:
This wasn’t a treatise on the different levels of friendship, but I have about five or six very close friends, another five or so I’d say are pretty good friends but not especially close, and then a larger circle – although hardly a huge one – of casual acquaintances.
Then there are relatives. Most of those are in-laws (I’m still on very good terms with my ex and his family), and nieces and nephews and their kids. Then of course my brother and his family and my son and his. Plus one cousin and a few second cousins. I have a smallish family, but it adds up once you include the in-laws and the generations.
It’s pointless to argue policy. I do not hate Trump sufficiently. End of story.
The ” mostly peaceful protest ” of 2020 should have woken anybody up that the media is corrupt if they saw the videos being posted on social media of the destruction or if they viewed it themselves.
I remember a friend of a friend on FB dismissing the Antifa and related destruction in one of those west coast cities. She said something like ” It’s just a few blocks. ”
Some of these people just do not process or think like conservatives do.
I try to dig in to narratives and find out what facts are being left out and if those left-out facts invalidate the narratives. I don’t always succeed, and I don’t always put in as much effort digging in to narratives I personally like even though I try to make myself do so.
When I was a teenager I was left-leaning because I grew up in a religiously conservative community, and whenever I dug into the narratives I was hearing there, I found stuff missing that caused problems. But then I got into college, and instead of being at home there, I found that their narratives had problems too, and that pushed me toward the right.
It took me a while to figure out that there wasn’t some magical team of people out there with their narratives matching all the facts. It was something you had to watch for in any community you participated in.
What’s kept me on the right is essentially morals plus economics. It’s not like the right has a monopoly on good morals and good economics, but the right’s morals are closer to my faith and the right’s economics are closer to reality.
Since the Left has captured almost all the institutions that we used to trust to tell us what was true, I find that a lot of their narratives are bogus. But I’m not naive enough to think that if the right recaptured them that would fix everything, either. We’d still all be required to think critically and remember that just about everybody is trying to sell you something, and you should probably find out what it is and why as part of your due diligence.
My “friends” are scattered, due to having made their acquaintances in various times of my life.
I have a lot of friendly acquaintances who have a hard time with me because, in my retirement, my wife and I are involved in numerous causes such as Meals on Wheels, tutoring immigrants, various other issues. When something comes along at the church, I frequently check in and deal with it. Rides to the doctor for shut-ins, that sort of thing.
Mentoring kids at elementary school.
But, as one guy said at the end of a course of discussion group work, thanks to Aubrey for being on the “periphery”.
Most of my contributions are in the form of….that’s not true, with examples.. Books are not being banned. Search terms for parents and school board issues if you’re interested.
Derek Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s back, according to body cams. That one caused some consternation.
And mentioning issues the “good” people pretend do not exist. If we want to be good and compassionate Christians with regard to our new neighbors, are we going to have to practice saying, “Her skirt was too short.”? “What was she doing out so late by herself?”
See Rotherham.
So I would say I have a number of friendly acquaintances, but my friends are scattered. I’m not sure any have “changed”. We’ve always been on the center until they moved the road when we weren’t looking.
Thomas Sowell combines a frightening amount of intelligence., with an equal amount of common sense. He is probably the smartest human alive.
Jon baker:
You write, “The ‘mostly peaceful protest’ of 2020 should have woken anybody up that the media is corrupt if they saw the videos being posted on social media of the destruction or if they viewed it themselves.”
“If” is the most important word in that sentence, IMHO. I know plenty of people who just didn’t follow it. None lived in the cities with riots, however.
And if they did follow it, they followed it on the MSM, and felt any rioting was minimal and blamed any damage on local governments. They also believed George Floyd was foully murdered by the racist Chauvin, and that such a murder of a black man by a white cop is not all that unusual.Again, to learn something different, you’d have to do research and read sources that are not on the left/Democrat side.
@neo: None lived in the cities with riots, however.
Unfortunately, plenty of people did live in the cities with the riots and still convinced themselves it was “mostly peaceful protest”.
And on the other hand, I have visited downtown Seattle a few times since then, and while drugs, graffiti, shoplifting, and panhandling are up, you can still go there safely in the daytime and do normal city stuff.
Niketas:
Exactly. The areas involved WERE relatively small and easy to avoid, even at the time. For people in the neighborhood it was different. But that’s a somewhat small group in the scheme of things, especially in deep blue cities.
My college roommate (a recently retired dentist so he has at least some comprehension ability) does not believe any of the points I bring up and refuses to do independent research to prove me wrong. He’s a neo-luddite who won’t read anything I send to him, saying “it was hacked” (what he meant by that is unclear). When I urged him to go to a source he trusted, he said that may also be “hacked” and then he warned me not to believe everything I read on the internet. I thanked him for sharing such sage (and hopelessly cliched) advice. To summarize, he doesn’t WANT to think that his thinking could possibly be wrong. I stopped trying a while back. One last thing that might explain a few things about him. He was living high on the hog in his younger days. When his MD wife left him 12+ years ago and he experienced extreme financial difficulties, he still spent too much. He has had several accidents recently and his medical insurance is minimal. He has to make small monthly payments just to keep the wolf from his door. His take on it? “That’s the kind of health care we have in this country because of Republicans.” None of it was his fault. Were I a cruel person I would have told him the story of the ant and the grasshopper. I assure you I didn’t but man did I want to.
Neo, thanks for your commentary on my comment.
It is very frustrating to not be able to talk about very important things with the people who mean the most to us, because it’s both infuriating (that they don’t even want to find out the truth, or at least consider alternate view points) and depressing (how can we fix what’s wrong in America if people are defining “wrong” in such different ways?).
Also, self-censoring as we do is bad for our blood pressure and mental health, but when the alternative is alienating family and friends (why does that seem to only go one direction?) we do it anyway.
My favorite example of “I wish I’d said it anyway” is from a strictly-family gathering for social reasons, where we did, actually, discuss our varying viewpoints of the ANWR drilling controversy, which was not quite the flash-point for vitriol and cutting ties that Trumpism and woke-ness has become.
We were citing chapter and verse (so far as was known at the time) that the world would NOT end if oil were extracted there, which the others objected to with the usual leftist talking points, but no serious rebuttal.
One of them said, obviously sincerely, “You and [AesopSpouse] are so smart, I can’t understand why you believe that way!”
To which I wanted to reply, but didn’t: “If you think we are that smart, why don’t you listen to us?”
******************
(Not bragging, especially in this company, but AS and I together have 5 college degrees and have worked in the legal, engineering, and computer fields (despite my MA in poli-sci as I’ve explained elsewhere), and I’ve taught college classes in programming.
The other Republicans in the family are a rocket-scientist project director and a nurse. The opposing team has only 2 post-graduate degrees (English and IIRC Sociology); their professions are in generally white-collar but not intellectually challenging fields. We did the research to reach our conclusions; they just read the NYT and listen to NPR.)
@ chazzand > “Were I a cruel person I would have told him the story of the ant and the grasshopper.”
My earliest suspicion that the culture was taking a turn downhill was when the children’s books began altering that fable to make the Ant into a Big Meanie who should have helped the Grasshopper anyway, instead of a cautionary tale about wasting the summer days instead of preparing for the winter.
Most often the imprudent insect was depicted as a musician or artist who would “pay” for his (they were both always male for some reason) support with his talents, but that didn’t change the main point, which was that the Ant hadn’t stored enough for both and the Grasshopper was responsible for gathering his own winter supplies.
Postscript: When our clueless friends and family question how in the world Trump gained such a following, it probably isn’t productive to tell them “they built that.”
If they had bothered to listen to our side, and do some checking around, the frustration and resentment on the right would never have reached the boiling point that it is at now.
See this comment on yesterday’s post, and my reply in re “The Steyn Maxim.”
https://www.thenewneo.com/2024/08/23/the-democrats-2024-campaign-its-lies-all-the-way-down/#comment-2757994
M J R on August 24, 2024 at 3:27 pm said:
Turtler’s (2:11 pm) point . . .
“The failure of the GOPe establishment and several of its candidates helped discredit them and pave the way for the party to get taken by storm by an outsider with at best secondary interest in conservative ideology and theory who spent much of 2016 being backed by the left as a spoiler.”
. . . calls to mind a point I read somewhere — I wish I could quote it verbatim — to the effect that when respectable spokespersons fail to address issues that are of genuine concern to large portions of the populace, said populace will turn to non-respectable spokespersons who will give voice to those concerns. Enter Donald J. Trump.
Perhaps a quick glance at Romans, 1: 18,32 will provide somthing of an explanation. For those not inclined to do so, I shall briefly explicate by saying that there are some who simply do not believe the Truth because they choose not to believe in favor of remaining in their comfortable ignorance. After all, if one denies that the train is coming, one can comfortably remain in the middle of the tracks, at least for a while. This has been the case since Eve chose to believe the serpent. But she eventually found out that he lied, much to her, and our, regret.
Excellent post, fascinating responses.
“My earliest suspicion that the culture was taking a turn downhill was when the children’s books began altering that fable to make the Ant into a Big Meanie who should have helped the Grasshopper anyway, instead of a cautionary tale about wasting the summer days instead of preparing for the winter.”
At least PIXAR got the story correct in their mega hit, “A Bug’s Life” where the grasshoppers get their due for trying to extort the ants. Way back before “woke” in 1998.
I greatly enjoy reading your commentary Neo – in addition to obviously being a very intelligent and widely-read individual, you are inquisitive and devoted to the truth as best you can discern it. And to top it off, your writing is ultra-clear and never fails to communicate your points very well.
Like Thomas Sowell, who you cite in this column, I have never read something you penned and thought, “well, (s)he’s off-point there”.
Next time you shake the tin cup, I promise to toss some hard-earned coins into it. After all, that’s the ultimate endorsement of the value I place on your work.
“Okay Guys, Let’s Stop Calling Them Liberals”
https://williamjhellmann.com/2021/06/04/okay-guys-lets-stop-calling-them-liberals/
Not to brag, but I have 1 college degree, a worthless B.A. in English Lit. And it took me 6 years to earn it.
As I said: not to brag.
I’m a vocal critic of the Omaha Public Power District Board of Directors with respect to net zero. All the directors are college educated and two are engineers.
I’ve told them a number of times that all the predictions of climate doom have been wrong for the past 50 years. So why are doomsters right now?
They ignore me.
The thing of it is, they are on the path to tripling rates and spending about $28 billion because they won’t even examine the other side of the story.
Cornhead,
CT went down that path and the residents are now paying over $.30/kwH and still rising. I keep in touch with my old town and people are shocked; but they voted for it, and probably will continue to vote D. As we’ve been discussing the last few days, it’s very hard to break through the mental wall these people have built up, even if it affects them directly in their finances.
I wonder what it takes for the people to change their mind and I’m not convinced there is any one thing or even a combination of things. People want to be lead and be in step with what is fashionable even if it is contrary to their own economic self-interest.
One would think that the disaster that was covid (closed economy, closed schools, worthless masks) and the Floyd riots would change people’s minds, but apparently not. Are people that stupid? Did they forget that fast? I guess so.
Most the inflation we experienced was avoidable. Don’t people realize that? Don’t they go to the grocery store?
If Harris does win, we could have an economic collapse like in Venezuela or Weimar Germany. If the US dollar is displaced at the reserve currency, we are in major trouble.
I meet a Chinese film director at the bar of the Casa del Mar in Santa Monica. Chance meeting. I asked him about life in China and why the people put up with it. “As long as people are making money and can take vacations, they’re happy.”
American history is very different from China’s. I guess there needs to be an employment and financial collapse to wake people up.
I lay lots of blame on public schools, today’s colleges, the popular culture and the media. We need to reverse the Gramascian march through the institutions. Maybe JD Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy can do it.
Most of my close friends and family have passed on.
However, only my younger brother and his family have been deeply committed Democrats. They have lived their lives according to conservative principles (hard workers, saved and invested, reached a comfortable retirement.) but have always believed the free-market system is stacked againstthe little guy. Never once complaining about the ATT stock my sister-in-law inherited from her parents. Never once complaining about the bonus my sister-in-law received from m her employer, Merril Lynch.
They looked upon their financial situation as some kind of “luck” that most people didn’t have.
They never saw a government program that they didn’t favor. I pointed out many times that the government had no money of its own, that all they can spend is our tax money or borrowed money. They would agree, and yet soon forget it as they supported new government spending.
Fortunately, things never got so heated that it affected our relationship. We traveled many times with them and had some wonderful times together.
Whenever I think about the differences in political beliefs and values, I always go back to Steven Pinker’s book the “Blank Slate.” If Pinker is correct, (And I think he is.) we inherit our personality traits, and they don’t change much over time. If a person is born with an incurious nature, they will probably change little over time. If there weren’t so many incurious people, propaganda wouldn’t work very well.
People who change their ideas due to experience are born with naturally curious minds. The changers here are among those people.
I think the chances of large numbers of Democrats changing their minds about political issues can only happen if we experience a cataclysmic economic failure. Even then, many will not discern the connection between government over spending and their situation.
IMO, this tendency among humans to see the world differently, has led to a lot of our wars, famines, revolutions, economic collapses, and other major historic events. And the beat goes on.
AesopFan (2:15 am) laments:
“If they had bothered to listen to our side, and do some checking around, the frustration and resentment on the right would never have reached the boiling point that it is at now.”
Well-put.
I searched for your comment citing The Steyn Maxim, and lo and behold, here it rests, from March 8, 2021! You have located my buried treasure (thanxabunch), and here it is:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/03/08/orwellian-equity/#comment-2545236
“Cue the Steyn Maxim, which I have quoted on more than one of Neo’s threads:
“‘The political class has refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it.
. . . .
“‘If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.'”
Yes!
— — — — —
And now, here’s a germane quotation that I have in my back pocket, that I can and shall reproduce verbatim:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/674-liberals-claim-to-want-to-give-a-hearing-to-other
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
— William F. Buckley
What anchored me on the Constitutional Republican side of politics was a class I took down at Wayne State University in Detroit back in the mid-1970s while majoring in History. I don’t recall what the class was called, but it looked at the origins of the Enlightenment, and the goals. Then there was a book called The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century which sealed the deal. I was already a Christian and believed in the theological doctrine of “The Fall”, so it was not a large step to believe that ALL belief systems that don’t acknowledge the corruption of mankind would inevitably lead to tyranny. There is a straight line between the Progressive movement in the 17th/18th century and the French Revelation and the Reign of Terror, to Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to Stalin, to Hitler/Mao/Pol Pot, etc. Power itself doesn’t corrupt (man is already corrupt), but the more the power, the more it will attract the worst of the worst.
The only way to prevent that is to constitutionally prevent power from consolidation. That’s the true genius of the American Constitution. If we had not allowed it to be destroyed by “our Democracy”, it would have, or at least could have mitigated a lot of what we see today. Hence, I’m firmly anti-Progressive in all its forms.
Waidmann
I took an Economics class in college (1957 or so) and that made me a Republican. I doubt the same would result now. My Democrat family was upset to learn I voted for Nixon in 1960. My mother later claimed to have been a Republican all along. I kept my mouth shut.
You’re somewhat correct but by no means for all.
neo:
Which I didn’t say. I qualified both of my claims with “mostly,” i.e. not for all.
I do consider change difficult. Relatively speaking, I argue those more likely to change in this cycle are blacks, hispanics, working-class, non-degreed, males and the young.
I wonder what it takes for the people to change their mind and I’m not convinced there is any one thing or even a combination of things. People want to be lead and be in step with what is fashionable even if it is contrary to their own economic self-interest.
Cornhead:
Humans evolved to survive in tribes. Sticking with your tribe isn’t a matter of fashion but survival. It’s less true today, but still true enough.
That’s the way our brains work.
huxley
We have a lot of tribes available. Question is why pick whichever one you have a hard time leaving.
Since neo’s commenters seem to agree that virtue-signaling is a big deal for the left folks, one may ask if there’s a right-wing version.
Given my immediate circumstances, I kind of feel I’m a tribe of one, so that’s not relevant to me.
Other folks?
Perhaps left wingers need to belong more than right wingers. Former can’t abandon thinking like their tribesmen? Can’t risk leaving the give and take of virtue congratulations? Can’t get along without them?
We have a lot of tribes available. Question is why pick whichever one you have a hard time leaving.
Richard Aubrey:
You are born into a tribe — which you do not pick. It’s not easy to break free from that and it’s risky to do so.
I see no difference between the right and the left in this respect.
I think the dimension that is lacking in these people is skepticism of authority. I’ve thought about this quite a lot trying to come up with the answer to the exact same question you are. I think the answer lies in part at least with childhood experience of authority. Was early Authority (parents, teachers etc) *good* to the child? Sure, it might have made honest mistakes here and there, but was it basically loving and life affirming? If so, the child grows up to believe that Authority in the adult world (politicians, mainstream media, bureaucracy etc) is also basically good and honest, and has its best interests at heart. This describes pretty much everyone in my family.
Now, me. My childhood experience of authority was that it was clearly and obviously malevolent. Without going into the details, I was basically made the scapegoat of all the family’s woes by my parents, despite being (or probably because of being) the highest achieving member. This spilled over into my early school years, where I was ruthlessly abused by several early childhood teachers. To my childhood self it was clear: Authority was evil, lying, and had anything but my best interests at heart.
For a while as a young adult I held onto to the belief, first, that Authority was good, and it was me who was ‘bad’. Then a bit later, that Authority as a whole was good, and my childhood experiences of it could be explained away as an aberration. So I continued to believe the lies of the Government and the MSM etc, It was only later still that I realized I had been right all along: Authority at large in the world was evil, and everything it said and did should be instinctively distrusted. So now, when I hear an MSM report on anything, I expect it to be a lie, just as surely as I expect the sun to come up in the morning. And when I hear a Government plans to do X, I expect X to be bad for the population and purposely against its interests.
To my family however, this position is ridiculous, now matter how obvious the lies and the evil acts are. And it’s because they cannot make that fundamental leap of worldview formed so early in their childhood. They are cognitively unable to let go of the idea that while Authority may make the odd mistake here and there, it would NEVER purposely try to lie to them or hurt them. And so, for example, they all got their COVID vaxes, because Science and Medical Authorities are GOOD! And they believe the MSM for the same reason. It is a bridge they cannot cross no matter the amount of reason or demonstration provided. They will, unfortunately, have to learn the hard way.
Cornhead: “If the US dollar is displaced at the reserve currency, we are in major trouble.” Not picking on you, but when I see that assertion, I am not quite sure just how that will work out. My (vague) understanding about a reserve currency is that it provides us with some political and economic leverage we would not otherwise possess. But it has also allowed us to borrow “from the world” in a rather irresponsible manner, so losing our reserve currency status might in fact be good for us, forcing us to face the reality of fiscal and monetary responsibility and adopting better economic strategies, etc. We need to remember that money is a surrogate to store the value of wealth, not the actual wealth itself.
I would welcome clarification of this “doom” assertion if someone has one.
JJ: reference Pinker and non-blank slate and “IMO, this tendency among humans to see the world differently, has led to a lot of our wars, famines, revolutions, economic collapses, and other major historic events.” When I consider our mix of evolved inherited personality types across our populations (and the modern world is more mixed genetically and geographically than at any time in history), I am beginning to wonder if this variation is not a feature (of natural selection and survival) rather than a bug. If you are the top predator, you need the challenge of another top predator to help keep you strong and “improving”. If we could actually logically analyze everything and come to a reasonable agreement about them all, we would not need to compete and thus might decline in many of our capabilities??
huxley
It would be hard to connect the actual circumstances of my tribe and growing up and…anything. There was something of everything.
My father and most of the men of his age were WW II veterans. Which means….? My folks were college grads and my father a college football player and Infantry officer.
Went to a cookie-cutter lower middle class high school from which all sorts graduated, or to put it another way, all sorts later on could look back to it.
Graduated in psychology from Enormous State University in 66. Two year med deferment gave me time to accidentally run into a couple of items I hadn’t anticipated–civil rights in MS, couple of other items. Did lax and judo.
Lots of my then-colleagues were or still are left wing. Couple of my civil rights folks are Harvard profs on the left side, others profs at other schools and kind of lefty.
I got into the civil rights thing because, reading the campus paper, I saw a picture of a woman I’d known in high school. Without the picture I wouldn’t have read the article and gone to speak to her and her husband about the program (they went to Canada, not Fort Benning) and got involved. Accident.
Spent a couple of years in the Infantry.
So I was all over the lot.
My “tribe” is exemplified in various discussions by, as I say, contradicting the various assertions, with the facts and search terms to follow up.
I have no fellow tribesmen to encourage me, no group to belong to. No anchor here other than I figure we ought to get our facts right.
However, I am more inclined than my lefty acquaintances to go past what Sowell calls, iirc, “first order thinking”. As in, “and then what?” “and after that?” Not just, “that sounds warm, fuzzy and makes the normies mad” as a scientific process.
Point is not to be all autobio on folks, but to make the point that there is no discernible connection between me and any tribe whose positive vibes I need.
I suspect this is more true of the right wing than of the left.
Perhaps a partial tribal substitute, from De Tocqueville’s point of view, something along the lines of the rightly conceived American meaning of the phrase now spilling incongruously from the mouth of Gov. Walz, i.e. “mind[ing] your own business”, (DiA, Vol. II, chapter V.):
Chapter V: Of The Use Which The Americans Make Of Public Associations In Civil Life
It should be no mystery. Your family like mine are American progressive Jews. Religious or not, they believe being Jewish compels one to be committed to Social Justice which they inevitably define as political socialism or even communism. They will align themselves with movements that are aligned with Anti-Semites and/or Anti-Zionists. They see only Anti-Semitism on the right and ignore the dominant voices of Anti-Semitism of the Democratic Party. They are inured to Jewish Students be blocked from UCLA and Columbia with no consequences. Even if they are concerned, it only temporarily diverts them from returning to the fold and blaming conservatives in general and Trump specifically for growing Anti-Semitism. I see little change coming and expect close to 70% of American Jews voting for Harris who will go full throttle in delegitimizing Israel as an ally and promoting the ascendency of Iran as the main power in the ME. And if Israel is severely damaged or even annihilated in a war with Iran, these American Jews will blame Trump
Alan K
Lord, that’s harsh.
My suspicion is that the Democratic Party at street level is a concatenation of people making identity affirmations and expressing their hostility to the rest of the population (or their fanciful image of the rest of the population). A few of them can be shaken loose by bad outcomes, but not many. It was not this way 40-odd years ago. I don’t imagine the secular Jews in the Democratic Party electorate are much different. I’m open to pleasant surprises.
Agree with AlanK
AlanK:
I am always amazed at how some commenters – in this case you – make remarkable and unwarranted assumptions and speak with an air of authority concerning things about me of which they are abysmally ignorant.
For example, as I wrote in yesterday’s comment at 6:02, my family is both racially and ethnically diverse. Secondly, I would say that among my friends and acquaintances, about 1% to 5% are Jewish. And some of those Jewish friends are conservatives, among the only people I know who are conservative.
Irish Otter:
Read my comment above this one.
neo:
I see little change coming and expect close to 70% of American Jews voting for Harris . . .
This is what I agree with.
IrishOtter:
I see.
You might be correct, but on what are you basing your opinion? I’ve seen polls that say otherwise. For example:
Most polls have very few Jews and are unreliable, but this one sounds like it focused on the Jewish vote, at least in Pennsylvania.
neo:
I’ll respond to your question by asking three of my own. How have Jews voted in past elections? How have Jews traditionally categorized themselves in the political sense — as politically liberal or politically (not theologically) conservative? What has traditionally been the ratio of Democrat to Republican Jews?
For what’s it’s worth, in my personal experience the many Jews I have known have voted Democrat and categorized themselves as liberals.
R2L, you make a good point about the need for differences and the competitive drive. I had never thought that deeply about why personalities seem to be DNA derived.
I was always amazed by the differences between my two brothers and me. Same parents, same house, same schools, same teachers, even a lot of common friends, and yet we were so very different in our personality types. If nurture was a major factor, wouldn’t we have been more alike? When I read Pinker’s book, it seemed to answer the questions I had.
It’s true that without variations in personalities, it would be a rather stagnant world. We’d all be Starbelly Seeches and that would be that. 🙂
We have two female cats. They both came from the same litter and have the same coloring. But boy are their personalities different. More evidence of how personalities are inherited, not created by nurturing.
I have no doubt that nurturing has a big effect on how a personality type evolves and learns to navigate the world, but the basic “big five” personality traits people inherit don’t change that much.
My husband, and many our friends (many of them well-educated science teachers, often physics teachers at the top of their field), are the hardest die-hards I know.
I think a great part is that they formed their opinions early in their life. They may have depended on the mainstream media, they may have been influenced by Leftist professors. Whatever the original circumstances, they calcified their allegiance.
I think a huge part of it is theat affiliation with the Progressive Left is considered by academics to be the Good Guys. By joining that group, they automatically gain a group who view them favorably. For geeky and nerdy types, this is like attaining Nirvana. No more feeling ill at ease, lost in a crowd, or socially awkward.
By adhering to the group’s values, they attain social acceptance.
Therefore, they would be very unlikely to kick over the traces and again risk social isolation.
Not belong?
Unthinkable!
I, on the other hand, like Vance, come from working class and hillbillies. I never belonged. Compromise of self is contrary to the values of my family (and may even have a genetic component; it’s the nature of hillbillies to be stiff-necked and unwilling to go along with the crowd).
Hello. Linda’s post just above is interesting to me. Maybe there does have to be some kind of strong influence, or particular crystallizing event relatively early in life to saddle one with an especially durable political or ideological viewpoint. I put it that way because the example of academia that she proposes feels more like something in the category of
* ‘chronic/steady-pressure/over longer-term’
as opposed to some factor that might be more
* ‘acutely/short-term/but high-impact’
for someone else.
It will merit some thought.
@ Philip Sells — my impression would be that people form their initial “ideological position” through your first factor, and change it through your second (see Neo’s change story for her catalyzing response after the acute high-impact realization that the Media she always had trusted lied about a very important thing, followed by research showing the great extent of those lies — if I summarized that fairly).
By adhering to the group’s values, they attain social acceptance.
Therefore, they would be very unlikely to kick over the traces and again risk social isolation.
Not belong?
Unthinkable!
Linda S Fox:
Quite so.
Yet this seems mysterious to many cradle conservatives, who are living out their version of that syllogism.
I was born into a family of beatniks. The first time I smoked pot was at 16 with my mother and uncle.
Guess what my politics were for most of my life.
Guess what happened when I became conservative.
Linda S Fox:
That may be true of many people. But I came from a family in which everyone was a Democrat. I voted solely for Democrats until my mid-50s. What’s more, I never even THOUGHT of voting for anything but Democrats till then. Had you told me prior to that that I would change parties in my mid-50s, I would have thought you a lunatic. That’s how certain I was.