Why are Liberals so condescending? An in depth examination in the Washington Post

[Mira]

by
Gerard Alexander
Special to the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403698.html

It is a long, involved and fascinating read, pretty perfect for a little Sunday introspection.

I am not good at presenting snippets, but here is my favorite paragraph

Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling's 1950 remark that conservatives do not "express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas."

During the 1950s and '60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival.
In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to "the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind."

:rofl:
:)

[spanone]

1. let me know when the story is....why are conservatives so ignorant?

[mix]

2. Conservative thought has been an utter failure, that's why liberals dismiss it.

This has nothing to do with condescension.

[Toucano]

3. Conservatives haven't changed much.

How can the way liberals regard them change or evolve?

It is condescending to regard someone who's ideas are inferior as INFERIOR?

Provocative.

[mix]

6. But clumsy too.

A crude rhetorical game...shift discussion away from the essential--the failures of modern conservativism--and fixate on the putative behaviour of liberals.

[Toucano]

15. Excellent point. n-t

[Gman2]

4. It also was shopped around, to find someone to write it.

They let it be known, that they wanted a piece on Leftie arrogance. Pure SHIT.

[Greyhound]

5. What a slanted piece of crap. There were so many false assumptions and outright lies in the

first five paragraphs that I didn't even finish it.

[lunatica]

10. +1

They're projecting, as usual.

The fact is they feel intellectually inferior because we talk way over their cement brained heads without even meaning to.

[EFerrari]

12. Why do liberals beat their wives? Yeah, propaganda in the WaHo, surprise.

[hfojvt]

18. for starters, the way it makes Obama into a liberal voice

when he seems to be far less liberal even than I am.

Continuing on, Alexander seems to dismiss the possibility that liberals talk about conservatives as liars because they actually read and hear conservatives telling lots of lies or clear untruths. Like how they often tout the idea that "tax cuts increase tax revenue" and then trot out tax revenue data to support it. Except the data is obviously dishonest to somebody educated in economics because a) it doesn't include inflation, and b) it includes FICA taxes which were increased in the 1980s and logically grow with a growing population.

Also, about the vast right-wing cospiracy. It's not so much "brilliant and sinister campaign tactics" as it is a superiority of financing. Rich people will pay other people lots of money in order to peddle lies that save the rich people even more money in taxes. Alice Walton, for example, donated over a million dollars for the re-election of George W. Bush. That's kinda pocket change since she saves upwards of ten million dollars a year from the Bush tax cuts.

I might also note Media Matters report on how newspaper columnists are dominated by conservatives and centrists (and their report is soft even because it lists Maureen Dowd and Nat Hentoff as liberal writers even though Hentoff is somewhat rabidly anti-choice and Dowd "won" at least three silver stars in the "war on Gore" where she played a leading role.) The rightwing conspiracy involves far more money and power than it does brilliance.

[State the Obvious]

7. Follow-up story: Why are Conservatives so Hypocritical?

:sarcasm: ::shrug:

[stillwaiting]

8. I guess when a political movement has been so completely obsessed with painting me

and others that share my values as EVIL, TRAITORS, SATAN'S MINIONS, etc. it becomes kind of hard to want to be nice in return.

At least for me it is.

[mix]

13. that's a great point nt

[snagglepuss]

9. It is a fascinating article. Thanks for posting. You actually provided a

terrific snippet. K&R

[MicaelS]

11. This are the really true parts.....

Frank argued that working-class voters were so distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on "guns, God and gays" instead of economic redistribution.

And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" about job losses. When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that "I said something that everybody knows is true."

Conservatives HAVE bamboozled middle class whites with the 3G memes. All this "Family Values" stuff is just a way of blinding those voters to the facts they're going to get screwed economically, sort of like "just ignore what's behind the curtain" in the Wizard of Oz. None of the Republican PTB are going to live by the "Family Values" they propose, that has been proven repeatedly by all their affairs and divorces.

[On the Road]

19. Not All Liberals are Condescending

but enough of them are to antagonize people on the fence and create half the Republicans in the country. And are so blind to it it's not even believed when it's pointed out.

Part of what makes Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, and Jon Stewart so successful is that they avoid this appearance. Part of what sunk Al Gore was exactly this, even if it wasn't deserved.

Being turned off by condescension is one of the most powerful political motivators. Everyone here knows it from right-wing idiots. But a lot of people don't recognize it when it goes the other way.

[Political_Junkie]

14. LMAO

"Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival." - Pretty well sums it up for me.

"Waahhh!!! Those big, mean, uh...liberals are picking on us!" :rofl:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

16. 'Condescending liberals' of the US unite-A response by Dan Kennedy

Alexander's piece, published on Sunday, is filled with dubious assertions and strawman arguments from beginning to end. But it was not until I was almost through it that I came across a passage so ridiculous that I burst out laughing. Alexander writes:

"Some observers have decried an anti-intellectual strain in contemporary conservatism, detected in George W Bush's aw-shucks style, Sarah Palin's college-hopping and the occasional conservative campaigns against egghead intellectuals."

Whatever case liberals wish to make against Bush, I am reasonably confident that it has nothing to do with his hail-fellow-well-met persona. His unthinking blunders into war, torture and trillion-dollar-plus deficits have rather more to do with it.
...
It's hard not to be condescending in light of Brown's ignorant (or cynical) remarks, or Oklahoma senator James Inhofe's religious crusade against atmospheric science, or the never-ending debate over so-called intelligent design, which is nothing more than creationism dressed up in academic garb.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/feb/09/us-politics-usa

[UTUSN]

17. I voted in the survey - TWICE!1 Well, the poll was on EACH of the 2 pages

It's at 61% that Libs are more condescending, to 26% that Wingnuts are. And whois this Gerard ALEXANDER, oh just somebody who gives speeches to the AEI:

*************QUOTE*******
[e-mail]

Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia. He will be online to chat with readers on Monday, February 8, at 11 a.m. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion. On Monday, he will also deliver the American Enterprise Institute's Bradley Lecture, "Do Liberals Know Best? Intellectual Self-Confidence and the Claim to a Monopoly on Knowledge."

***************UNQUOTE************

[Kurovski]

20. Condescention is a personality trait that can be ascribed to individuals.

it has no regard for party or movement.

Many more individuals on the right have urged to condescend to others, most especially to women. There is no platform on the left that seeks to condescend to people the way the right does to foriegners (be they Mexican, French,or just generally non-american. ) or to LGBT, with the rightwing's stance on gays in the military, they , as an "institution" seek to actively condescend to the armed forces by passing off th idea that the military is incapable of absorbing change.

They condescend economically and spiritually, they believe there is only one worthwile religion, or at least pretend to for political purposes.

Those are actual STANCES held fast by the Right as a group of individuals.

And I saw one of the biggest condescending jag-offs to have ever stole an American office in the person of Dick "The ding-dong" Cheney on TEEVEE today.

[OHdem10]

21. Are Conservatives so lacking in confidence that they lash out and

accuse others when the guilt lies with them/

Who tries to tell us how to live? Who tells the world
we are immoral. Who accuses us of being unpatriotic??
Who wants to put their "brand" of religion out there
for us all to believe??? Who accuses us of being Godless
when the majority of Democrats are religious???

This Condescending mess is their way of attacking
educated people. Many are self-conscious and imagine
educated people look down on them. Without finding
the truth they lash out and call liberals condescending.

I must say some liberals ask for this attack. Most of
us do not. I thank my lucky stars that things worked
for me to become educated and this is why I think the
Education issue is important.

We all need to remember on both sides, the accident of
birth should not be the decider. As Jay Rockefeller
says, by an accident of birth I was born Jay Rockefeller,
I could have just as easily been born into very serious
poverty.

[DailyGrind51]

22. Michael Medved is the most condescending person alive!

If callers don't agree with what he purports as evidence, he talks to them as if they were 3-year olds.

[whatchamacallit]

23. Oh brother...

"This condescension is part of a liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever."

The thing that has "impoverished" American debates is the impoverished, totally inflexible, ideology of the right. These musings on the value of bipartisanship only seem to appear when democrats are in power. Fuck that!

[Zoeisright]

24. Conservative thinking is an oxymoron, like giant shrimp.

They don't think - they just have cruel kneejerk reactions to any situation. They're always wrong, they're always stupid, and they're always selfish and mean. That's just the truth.

[bluestateguy]

25. Some people deserve to be condescended to and talked to like they are children

For example, people who say that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, birthers and people who say that Obama "raised" middle class taxes.

I apologize to no one for that. Those people were never voting for our side anyway.

[undeterred]

26. "conservative thinking"

is an oxymoron

[The Doctor.]

29. Not entirely...

They simply 'conserve' on 'thinking'.

[The Doctor.]

27. The sin is not in the sinning, but in the pointing it out.

How many times have you heard; "You call me ignorant simply because I disagree!", or some variation?

I lost count.

You tell them something, explain it carefully, they continue on with the same lies/errors/ignorance, and you tell them they're being ignorant...

Their response?
Not, 'Gosh, why do you say so?', but; "See, all you can do is call me names!"

They employ stupid as a tactic, and think it's just a viable debate tool.

They make it impossible to avoid condescension.

[Jester Messiah]

28. "Liberals."

It is impressive writing that can convey a sneer in text. Anyone who uses the term "Liberal" in the same mode as N*gger doesn't deserve an audience, IMHO.

[MisterP]

30. oo, oo, I know! it depends on how you define "liberal"

many "liberals" were part of the McCarthy-era 50s consensus that erased the history of the roaring 20s and Popular-Front, New-Deal, laborist 30s and 40s

Christopher Brookeman's "American Culture and Society" noted a disenchantment with "ideology" that identified socialism with Communism, and Communism with Stalinist totalitarianism; Arther Schlesinger (that born lackey) demanded a "vital center" of democracy and consensus not subject to revolution or ideology. Liberal proto-neocon Daniel Bell listed "the acceptance of a Welfare State; the desirability of decentralized power; a system of mixed economy and of political pluralism" as the liberal-conservative stance of the West against the Eastern Bloc.

Richard Corber's "In the Name of National Security" thinks that Cold-War liberals sought to shift attention from the material world to the individual's subjective experience of it by defining reality in such a way that it did not lend itself readily to Marxist analysis."

Penny von Eschen's "Race Against Empire" noted that, in the 40s, racism was seen as an element of public discourse and a consequence of slavery. This changed in the 50s--the era of Behaviorism and rational-choice theory--it was transformed into a disease, a psychological problem, that would be resolved with modernization of a backwards people or "cured" by technocrats in white coats. It was individual, not structural--a view that erased history and context. (I found this in Thomas Bender and Grob and Billias's "Interpretations of American History.")

every time a liberal said, "We're not Commies, because they're traitors and murderers," that was another endorsement of McCarthyism

every time the NAACP purged itself in the name of liberalism, every Eleanor Roosevelt-ADA attack on McCarthy as too embarrassing to the noble cause of anticommunism, only strengthened Joe and his legacy; Inoye told Ollie North that he had acted so badly and criminally that he had become Communist-like

nevertheless, modern-day liberals (left-of-centers) are condescending because the right has been brainless and/or heartless since the 1780s

[Orsino]

31. Conservatives dismissed thinking first. n/t

[the other one]

32. Conservative MO is to ascribe their own faults to liberals.

Cons create huge deficits - call liberals "tax and spend"
cons never win a war - call liberals " soft on foreign policy"
cons steal elections - claim "voter fraud"

and the list goes on

[struggle4progress]

33. Why Is Gerard Alexander Such An Asshole? (Ketchup is a Vegetable)

... Gerard. Buddy. There’s nothing conservative about American conservatives anymore. Barry Goldwater would have been tossed out on his ass in Minneapolis and called a “faggot,” and I daresay that your vaunted Ronald Raygun would be made to wear a funny hat and sit in a corner. Your folks aren’t “conservatives” anymore. They’re “lunatics” ... The point is, actually, that The Washington Post is a piece of shit of a newspaper. First there were the “salons,” when it was exposed that the paper was planning on selling access to editors and reporters and other luminaries. Then, it published a piece by an obviously biased source as news. And now, as it turns out, WaPo actively sought out this piece of shit opinion column by Gerard Alexander ... http://kiav.net/?p=3645

[struggle4progress]

34. Is this the Gerard Alexander who periodically crusades against Europe's holocaust denial laws?

[struggle4progress]

35. Chris Mooney's response:

... Let me go on the record as saying that I am no fan whatsoever of intellectual condescension. I think there is way too much of it on my side of the aisle. So I should be at least somewhat sympathetic with this author, one Gerard Alexander of the University of Virginia.

But here’s the problem. He gets my book’s arguments almost entirely wrong. First, I don’t argue that conservatives “disregard evidence.” The problem is that they make up their own evidence, using their own “scientists” to do so. They then use this pseudo-expertise to disregard expertise and consensus–a very different thing.

Second, I never argued conservatives were arguing “cynically.” It was obvious they believed what they said on matters of science. After all, they had their pseudoexperts to bank on.

Finally, I clearly distinguished between distorting the facts of science on the one hand, and making economic, moral, and policy arguments on the other. So a sentence like Alexander’s last one completely misses the boat: “Evidence of the costs of cap-and-trade carbon rationing is waved away as corporate propaganda; arguments against health-care reform are written off as hype orchestrated by insurance companies.” This stuff has nothing to do with the arguments of The Republican War on Science ...

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/tag/gerard-alexander/