Nicholas Kristof’s recent NY Times editorial notes the following difference between liberals and conservatives suggested by a recent study:
…conservatives are more likely than liberals to sense contamination or perceive disgust.
This reminded me of a certain relative, whose face I have seen scrunching up in an “ew, yuck!” reaction a number of times over the years. I immediately shared it to Facebook, and almost as immediately regretted having done so. Though my politics aren’t far left, I’m reasonably sure most of my Facebook Friends are more conservative than I am. Would they perceive my link as a personal attack?
Facebook is a terrible venue for polemic. It might have been different during its first couple of years when everyone using it had to be a student. These days I’ve got a range of Friends from parents to former girlfriends and coworkers, teen-aged children of friends, people I know from school or church or work: in short a diverse group. Not only do they collectively hold a wide range of viewpoints, but also a wide range of interest or tolerance for divisive issues in, say, politics or religion. It’s easy to offend, and in the resulting argument, if one loses face, one loses it before an audience whose ties into one’s identity or self esteem may run center-of-the-earth deep.
The larger point is that liberals and conservatives often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren’t a result of a deliberative process.
Perhaps just seeing the words conservative or liberal in one’s Facebook feed hits a person down low, in some sub-rational breadbasket where food for emotional response lies undigested. For me there is also some additional emotion that I take as frustration that such things can’t be discussed at a purely rational level. The words are so loaded in different directions that we get hung up in misinterpretations, as we might with a false cognate like abuse/abuser:
AMERICAN GUY
But honestly, dude? I'm happier without her.
FRENCH GUY
I think, my friend, that you abuse yourself.
AMERICAN GUY
I what??
A couple of years ago I used the word progressive in a conversation with a more conservative friend. He asked me if I didn’t think it was funny that liberals had taken up the practice of referring to themselves as progressives, his idea being that they were deliberately attempting to disguise their true nature (as I later thought, like Adolf Eichmann taking up residence in Argentina and calling himself “Ricardo”). I felt a surge of anger at this because it seemed like an oblique criticism of my own use of the word. I felt that I had chosen the word for its specific sense of “advocating change for the better” (in contrast to the more freedom-centric term liberal), and not as a deceit.
Thinking about this now I’m sure that if not deceit, it was at least an attempt to avoid using an incendiary word that I knew we would never interpret the same way. At some point it just doesn’t seem worth it. Who, bearing the surname Hitler, wouldn’t have changed it by the end of the war, even without a direct relation to the Führer? One could of course say “look, my family has had this name for hundreds of years and we have a proud history. We’re not related to that infamous other Hitler, we despise his memory, but it has nothing to do with us and you should accept us for who we are.” Even the most rational among us are unlikely to extend a dinner invitation to the Hitlers without feeling a certain Angst. (I am still somewhat astonished that a majority of Americans were able to get past the “Hussein” issue in an election so soon after the era of Saddam).
I’d hate to see the word liberal disappear in American use. There’s much good in it. Indeed, many policies we think of as being typically conservative or Republican — such as support for an unfettered free market — are liberal in the classic sense of the word. In the meantime I think I’ll stay clear of it and its supposed opposite on Facebook. After I share this, at least. I can’t quite seem to give up hope on a more rational discourse.
Since I agree wholeheartedly with absolutely every word, I think this little essay is brilliant. I couldn’t have said it better, and were it a bit shorter I would have business cards engraved with this message.
I heard Colin Powell say much the same thing recently, as he is under attack for trying to have a rational discourse. The poor guy! He’s living my life since we came out of the closet, so to speak, to work for Obama last year.
I have to say, though, it has been a good and enlightening experience, indeed, an enriching experience to be on the receiving end of the sheer weight of the condemnation and disapproval voiced at fever pitch by those who…love me? I am chastened and saddened to think that perhaps at times I have done this to others.
I must check into further into Wood’s Tea.
Yes, those pesky topics: politics and religion. Those topics, banned from polite conversation are the only ones that really matter, and they determine how we should treat every living person, animal and thing on this planet (the planet itself for that matter)- not to mention consider the substance of every other possible dimension! These topics lead to true intimacy with other people and critical thought, both no-nos in our culture, which makes us all leery of posting links with anything loosely associated politics or religion on social networks such as FB.
An analysis I read by Kevin Newscome explains our trepidation, “We are truly a divided people, who agree or disagree along party, ethnic, racial and religious lines. Much like the priests of centuries past, no decision can be made without first consulting our appointed political or social leaders. We take sides with differing factions within our country, arguing about single issues that are presented to us and whose sole purpose is to divide us into isolated groups. Instead of meaningful debate about the future of our nation, we receive only distractions. .. We seek leaders, but only receive figureheads. We have ceased being Americans. We are conservatives or liberals. We are environmentalists or corporate interests, Catholics or Protestants, hawks or doves, black or white. The people of America are divided among many lines, ultimately under the confines of a system of right and left… we are so distracted by civil war of right and left, we aren’t aware of our country vanishing before our eyes…”
This is the right/left paradigm I’m trying to escape. Why have my beloved Republicans allowed the security of our borders to completely deteriorate? Whose last administration enacted the USA Patriot Act (signed into law shortly after 9-11), by which the government no longer needs probable cause to enact search warrants for your library records, hard drives, or even bookstore receipts? Any one of us can now be labeled a “terrorist” and readily lose our constitutional protections. I believed this was acceptable for a long time, because surely my benevolent Republicans wouldn’t do anything not in the best interest of the American people. Where is the left on this issue now that President Obama is in power? He promised to address the Patriot Act but has instead strengthened it. Why did President Bush proclaim that he “abandoned free market principles to save the free market system” with the bailouts that are a deathblow to the economy? The Democrats are also a nightmare. Why is the Obama administration failing to police deals in which banks participating in the $700 billion federal bailout lent billions of dollars overseas? Why did President Obama say he “will urge banks to increase their lending, and possibly provide some incentives, [but] it will not dictate to the banks how they should spend the billions of dollars in new government money.” (The New York Times February 10, 2009)? The policies of both administrations are eerily similar, and the players have remained virtually the same, which has led me to the conclusion that our leaders are simply puppets of the true powers that be.
A book I read in the early 90’s called “The Planned Destruction of America” outlined a hellish conspiracy theory. I revisited this idea as I watched the Bush administration make my conservative heart faint with the $700 billion bailout. The book explained that the Federal Reserve Act, through the federal reserve authorized a private central bank (a PRIVATE bank and NOT a government agency) to create money out of nothing, lend it to the government at interest, and control the national money supply, expanding or contracting it at will. Nothing has been the same since. We now print fifty cents to every dollar borrowed, and are necessarily headed toward hyperinflation. The powers that be are in the process of enslaving the nations of the world with debt. Our children are now born into a household of $546,688 of debt- this is unspeakably immoral. Our constitutional rights are being destroyed and our economy is in a shambles. We are headed toward desperate times. So I applaud people who have the courage to “swim up stream” and post links to things that spur discussion and debate, even when I don’t agree. But beware, famous evil geniuses like Julius Caesar and Adolph Hitler understood how to use this divisiveness to pave the way for tyranny. Newscome goes on to give a historical perspective: “Caesar captured Gaul (roughly modern France) by inciting civil war between the Celtic tribes who inhabited the area, encouraging them to attack and annihilate one another to the point of total exhaustion. This allowed the future Dictator For Life to march in to (and out of) Gaul not only a hero, but a savior as well. Through his divide and conquer techniques, Caesar portrayed himself to be the only assurance of peace, and through this campaign of propaganda, controlled much of the world. An aspiring 20th century dictator named Adolph Hitler patterned his future empire along similar lines. Hitler,obsessed on the idea of racial purity, and inspired racial and religious hatred to such a degree that an estimated 6 million people were murdered in concentration camps, many from the hands of their fellow countrymen.” Liberals and conservatives disagree on many heart wrenching issues, but just as the great evil leaders of the past used dissension to confuse the people, I believe there is a false left/right paradigm that is today being used to distract us, as a people, from fundamental issues that threaten us all.
Yes I’ve become one of those foil hat people. I’m glad to do my part to add to the diversity of your FB friends Rob!
Dawn, thanks for your feedback — I’m just getting this weblog started, more as a catalyst to get myself in the habit of writing than anything else. I really admire your courage in taking a public stance despite the negative reaction from those close to you. I was involved some in the Obama campaign myself but found it hard to be to open about it around friends that I knew disagreed. I felt an increasing level of frustration during this time and a sense I wasn’t being genuine. Another reason for this weblog…