Conservatives

[andrewducker]

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative.

Somewhat flailing, especially in associating "conservative" with "right-wing", but none the less interesting.

The defining characteristics were:

• Fear and aggression


• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity


• Uncertainty avoidance


• Need for cognitive closure


• Terror management

The dislike of ambiguity, uncertainty and the need for cognitive closure leads to a latching on to simple answers to questions and a dislike for answers that don't go anywhere. This tends to lead to black and white worldviews, where things are either 'right' or 'wrong'.

For instance, this Bush quote: "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right."

"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.

Glaser acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about conservatism, but not about liberalism.

Comments

[allorin.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm voting Tory in the next GE.

[andrewducker]

"Even after it is completed, we still have many, many fewer miles of motorway than France, Germany or even smaller countries."

Both France and Germany are much larger than us (France is over twice our size, Germany is 50% bigger). I'd like to see which examples of smaller countries they're talking about.

I do agree that new roads are needed, and that the speed limits on the motorways aren't high enough. I'd like to have higher limits that are then rigourously enforced, as the current system obviously doesn't work.

But it'd take a hell of a lot more than new roads to get me voting Conservative.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

I don't care about the new roads.

Frankly, telling me that speed limits will rise to 80mph, and even better, will increase beyond that for 'quiet' times on the roads (ie, we'll have reactive speed limits based on the time of day and expected road usage) is enough to get my vote. Having a party that realises the car is a necessary part of our life now works for me.

It's like that post I wrote a few days back. I fully recognise we've gone too far. Our "have it now, have it all" society has went over the edge. But as I said, it's too late to pull back now. The Labour government effectively seems to be saying "OK, we've built your reliance on your cars. Now we'll stop you using them." And that's a BIG full stop. They don't offer any alternatives, are failing to invest enough money, time or energy inot public transport, and come up with frankly DUMBASS schemes like Greenways (Greenways - let's halve the capacity of our existing roads, that will reduce traffic....).

Seriously, given that I figure every government is much of a muchness on tax, healthcare, etc, I'm voting with my priority - being able to drive my car.

[andrewducker]

I figure every government is much of a muchness on tax, healthcare

Admittedly from a Labour website, but it's stuff I've read in other places:

The 2002 Budget provided the largest ever-sustained increase in NHS resources, putting the health service - Labour's proudest creation - on a sustainable long-term footing. It means a 7.5 per cent real-terms growth in NHS spending over each of the next five years. By 2007/08, Labour's spending on the health service will have more than doubled since 1997.

In the 2002 Spending Review Chancellor Gordon Brown delivered more for education - our number one priority - while increasing investment in transport, housing and the police. Spending on education in England will grow by six per cent over and above inflation each year between now and 2005-06 - an increase of £12.8 billion that means more books and new equipment for our children. Spending per pupil will have risen by 50 per cent per pupil since we were elected in 1997. That means an increase of £1000 per pupil.

We are investing record amounts in fighting crime. Police spending in England is due to rise by £1.5 billion a year in real terms. Thanks to Labour's investment, police numbers are at record levels, with over 131,500 police officers across the country. That means more than 4,000 extra police officers in the last year alone. Our reforms are freeing up police time to get more men and women officers out on the beat.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I suspect this may be a rather biased view, albeit one I emotionally agree with. From that rather dismal list of traits, I'm baffled about why anyone sane and healthy would be a conservative. Then again, I'm about as far from such traits as it is reasonably possible to be.

One of the inherent parts of my spiritual practice is an utter lack of concern with uncertainty, a lack of closure, or in some cases self-consistency. I expect the world to be complex enough that self-consistent models are effectively impossible and am happy working with approximations and never knowing many or even most answers.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

See, I'm not conservative. I'm just voting to be able to drive my car faster. Not a Tory - just someone with screwed up values.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Woops - meant to add a ;+) to that....

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

I agree, speaking as someone who is a 'conservative' (I voted Tory in the last three General Elections), the article read to me like they had started out with an assumption that being conservative or right wing was bad, then looked for the cause of this ailment. I got this feeling from the language used. Most of the traits described are done so with a decidedly negative tilt, leading to a feeling that people only have these views if they have those negative traits. The later deny this, but that doesnt match up with the laguage they use.

I think its also rather dubious to liken anyone with right of center views to Hitler and Mussolini, then make broad generalisations using those examples. Thats rather like classifying left wing thinkers using Stalin as an example.

[andrewducker]

They seemed, to me, to be classifying conservative (small c) people rather than right-wing people.

In the US the two are frequently combined, but by no means always.

The intolerance of ambgiuity and uncertainty avoidance, as well as a general fear of the unknown does seem to categorise the Conservatives, as well as pretty much any authoritarian political movement.

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

In which case I think the likening to Hitler, etc is even more inappropriate.

[andrewducker]

They specifically say that they are individuals with similarities:

but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way

That's the only mention of Hitler, and pulling a disparate group together by finding common themes seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for a study to do.

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

I think the article was written poorly. I could see an ethnography of a particular community as producing useful data, just like any ethnography - inner-city children, New York lawyers, rural farmers, etc. etc.

The three possible missteps that may have happened are:
1. Like any ethnography, is your data useful when looking at a broader range of people? Sure, you interviewed Chicago school kids, but does that apply to schools in London and Paris? Or (as possibly in this case) did you interview too broad a range of people? Perhaps the study should have focused on a particular group of conservative people, or at least a time period.
2. How successful did you enter the population? In this case, it looks like they took written documents, but that has its own risks. Only one type of data collection isn't usually good - I've heard that three is a good number, because three is always a good number.
3. You have to treat the "studied" as equals, not subjects or inferior to yourself. The article suggests that the studied were treated as inferior, but who knows what the study actually looks like.

So, did you wish to "return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form"?

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

So, did you wish to "return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form"?

No, not really.

I dislike change for change's sake, but if a good case can be made for a change, and its ramifications and consequences (as much as is ever possible) thought through, I have no inherant problem with new things.

The inequality question is slightly harder. To borrow a cliche, I beleive in equalty of opportunity but not necesarliy in equalty of outcome.

Everyone should have a fair chance to succeed, as much as is practical in a large and diverse society. But the ultimate outcome of someones life is largely down to them and I have no problem with less able or willing people ending up with a lesser outcome. Which isnt to ay they should be let fall out the bottom of society, but I don't beleive in enforced equality of outcome (i.e. communism) as I think its fundamentaly impractical and inefficient for humans to run a society that way.

The Elitist Dismissal

[(Anonymous)]

The attempt of this study to reduce conservatism down to psychological ailments is a very sad argument. It is elitism at its worst. The study is a very bad example of liberals saying "we're smarter than you, we know you even better than you do." It's sad when you can't accept that people just have a different ideology than you. Then you attempt to use science to dismiss the beliefs by making generalizations about the psyche of a conservative. Arguments that attempt to dismiss others beliefs in any way are poor arguments. You see the same thing when Conservatives say "liberals are just looking for any cause to get behind because they can't function in normal society. Or that protestors are just unemployed hippies looking for a reason to feel vindicated." Studies like this are BS. People believe different things for many different reasons. Get over it, and stop trying to use psychologists to dismiss your opponents.

Re: The Elitist Dismissal

[andrewducker]

If you'd like to identify yourself I'll happily debate with you.

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Wow, so the US has two dominant, conservative parties. @_@