One-sided debates, prejudice characterize conservative solutions to policy problems
Earlier this month, a group of sociologists published a report in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that demonstrates conservative political thought as “low effort.” In the study, people who were drunk, distracted or under pressure to respond were more likely to express a conservative mindset than a liberal one. The study suggests that “political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.”
Another study published earlier this year in Psychological Science found that children with low intelligence test scores are more likely to grow up to be conservatives, expressing racist and bigoted principles that manifest themselves through political ideology. The study “confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact.”
The results from these studies aren’t much of a surprise. Conservative thought fits neatly into sound bites: “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us” is a particularly popular one. A version of it launched the war on terror, and others are commonly used to paint dissenters from the conservative way as unpatriotic. Universal health care becomes death panels and Social Security becomes a Ponzi scheme. Illegal aliens are taking jobs from “real” Americans. Gays are destroying family values.
If you ever wondered why universities are bastions of liberal thought — or so the tired accusation goes — this is why. Universities encourage students to expand their minds, to approach problems from new directions and to interact with cultures far different from their own. The more educated you are, the less conservative thought makes sense. Tired conservative dogma can’t stand up to focused logical analysis; it relies upon distraction, bigoted stereotypes and misinformation to survive.
It’s the same reason the media is painted as liberal. Real journalists hunt down all the information, presenting the pros and cons while analyzing the entire situation. Conservatives prefer that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh tell them what they already know. They crave affirmation, not analysis.
Conservative principles separate every issue from the rest, turn it into a black-and-white debate and tell you which side is right and which is wrong. There can be no compromise, because compromise suggests the possibility of debate — at least, real debate, not the one-sided shouting matches of the modern media.
Liberals understand that nothing is so simple. Every problem in this world is connected to others in a tapestry of influence and control. Problems are systemic; the system itself must be changed in order to affect progress.
This isn’t to say that all conservative principles are bad — of course cutting government waste is a good idea, for example. It simply means that the answer is never so simple.
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