General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What I've learned about conservatives in the last few months [View all]lunatica
(53,410 posts)We make a mistake of thinking that hate and fear are a function of rationality. What the conservatives you're talking about do is based on emotions, not thinking. They live life following their emotional knee jerk reactions which they never even think about. They are ruled by hatred and anger and feelings of vengeance and moral turpitude. They hate for whatever reason, probably having to do with some fundamental self hatred and their reactions are automatic and this is what they believe is normal.
I've known people who are like this whose idea of raising their kids is to snarl or scream at them constantly and to yank at their arms and slap them on the back of the head to get their attention. These parents lack any ability to see the pain they cause or the confusion they create for their children. It was the way they were raised and therefore it's normal to them. They have no concept nor can they understand of any other way of acting. If they see pain or confusion in their children's eyes they think they must teach that child to be tough, just like their parents taught them. This means there's a very profound self hatred which has been beaten into them. Sometime in their own childhoods they had to accept that abuse as inevitable and strive to emulate it. And the ones who escape it and turn out to be decent people are invariably the more intelligent ones. The ones who actually do think and do use reason.
It's pretty well known that abusers are the victims of abuse themselves. There is no thinking involved. Just emotional knee jerk reactions which they adopted in order to live through it.
When people react based on their emotions they are ruled by their anger and hatred. When they begin to think about how they're reacting they are beginning to rule over their emotional reactions. The problem is that it's far, far easier to react to their hatred than to try to control it through reason.