Thread: Argumentation Is Pointless

I think a liberal is more likely to think like a conservative when they feel their ideas are being senselessly attacked by someone approaching the situation from a gut-reaction rather than a position of reason. The reaction is that it's worth it to defend an idea when the criticism is invalid.

It also seems to be like particles and waves, liberals understand the spectrum while conservatives think in categories. It's not that only particles exist, or only waves exist, it just depends what you're testing for. And in some cases, looking at things categorically is effective. In other cases, understanding the large spectrum is most effective.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

...it's worth it to defend an idea when the criticism is invalid.

I agree with this, but wouldn't there be similar truth in saying that an idea is especially worth defending when criticism is valid?

If the criticism is valid and the idea is valid (and both positions realize they are uncertain which one is true), there's no point in taking a conservative approach. The idea will essentially defend itself and your only job is to present the evidence it needs to defend itself.

Other points that caught my attention that I want to look into further -

Liberals tend to be introverts and to be tender-minded and will suffer primarily from anxiety disorders, while conservatives tend to be extroverts, tough-minded, and more apt to suffer from hysteria disorders.

Of course this is all only laid out as a model, an aaid to observation to help understand human behavior, which is compicated by so many other variables that most individuals will never fit neatly into the slots. There are tough-minded introverts, and anxiety-ridden conservatives...

I was just looking at a discussion of some of these traits on a philosophy board with some very good thoughts (as well as some enlightening misunderstandings and arguments): ILovePhilosophy.com • Introverts, Extroverts, & Political Positions

Just provided for anyone interested in the subject.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Liberals tend to be introverts and to be tender-minded and will suffer primarily from anxiety disorders, while conservatives tend to be extroverts, tough-minded, and more apt to suffer from hysteria disorders. .

Dude, I swim in liberals. As you said yourself, there's a whole spectrum. Where's the stats in that thread? I found this site full of conservative/liberal tendencies, but nothing on introversion/extroversion explicitly. This is the closest it comes.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Other points that caught my attention that I want to look into further -

Liberals tend to be introverts and to be tender-minded and will suffer primarily from anxiety disorders, while conservatives tend to be extroverts, tough-minded, and more apt to suffer from hysteria disorders.

Of course this is all only laid out as a model, an aaid to observation to help understand human behavior, which is compicated by so many other variables that most individuals will never fit neatly into the slots. There are tough-minded introverts, and anxiety-ridden conservatives...

I was just looking at a discussion of some of these traits on a philosophy board with some very good thoughts (as well as some enlightening misunderstandings and arguments): ILovePhilosophy.com • Introverts, Extroverts, & Political Positions

Just provided for anyone interested in the subject.

Nice find, I'll check them out.

Edit: They have very good introductions on that site.

Originally Posted by Abra

Dude, I swim in liberals. As you said yourself, there's a whole spectrum. Where's the stats in that thread? I found this site full of conservative/liberal tendencies, but nothing on introversion/extroversion explicitly. This is the closest it comes.

You - swim in liberals! Really... well there's an interesting image!!

Yeah, no stats or links on that thread - it's just discussion. However the book The Republican Mind, which covers the same info, is loaded profusely with footnotes listing links and publications including plenty of scientific papers. And it also goes into the introvert/extrovert stuff - in fact when I found that I was mostly looking for something on that subject to link to here because I can't link to the book.

To me thinking in terms of these generalities is useful in the same way as talking about tendencies in dogs and cats for purposes of simplicity and categorization. You know - dogs are loyal and friendly (except for the mean viscsious ones) - and cats are aloof and independent. Does that make dogs conservs and cats libs? Hmm... But it's a useful device because you can say things like "my cat thinks he's a dog." - a very quick and effective way to express an otherwise difficult contradiction. By starting from generalizations we can then work toward specifics.

For some reason, I tend to find myself swimming in conservatives a lot - not sure why that is (though I'm not entirely or strongly liberal). But at least it's easy to keep my head above water - it's usually pretty shallow!

I'm very much like the OP of the thread I linked to (I _think_ he was the op).. I've always been an introvert who pays little attention to the outside world (especially politics) and concentrated instead on art. Then just a few years ago I started to take an interest in certain things - especially those that help me to understand the behavior and decisions of people I know (including myself). This whole liberal/conservative tendencies thing is one of the most helpful ones.

So basically you're saying conservatives are stupid

Dude relax - it was a joke!!

But they are stupid

Did the punctuation keys fall off your keyboard?

That's what your mom told me last night while I was having sex with her after we ate at Chile's

Nuh-uh!!!

I know cuz my mom never had sex!!

But thanks for showing her the best time she's had since I scattered her ashes last year, you dirtly little necrophiliac you!

Here is an interesting article on it.

How facts backfire - The Boston Globe

Excellent!! Thanks for bringing this back on track!!

Yes, in fact motivated reasoning and misinformation are the main points of The Republican Brain. That article draws from the same pool of information (though obviously doesn't go nearly as deep, being only 4 pages long).

Motivated reasoning and misinformation are much more prevalent on the right - fuelled by the rationalizations and untruths put out by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and so many other republican 'news' sources.

However, at the extreme end, liberals are as dogmatic and unthinking as conservatives. You've got the Tea Party at one end, and New Agers and politically correct, ivory tower, out-of-touch university proffessors at the other.

And one very interesting point - engaging ina particular behavior creates and strengthens neural pathways in the brain, so it literally becomes ingrained and changes the brain itself.

Now - all this said, I'm supposed to be striving to overcome the false dichotomy of liberal/conservative...

That sounds to me, based on the way you've argued the differences so far, like you're looking at the world as particles and waves, and you're trying to remove the dichotomy of particles/waves. Sometimes it's beneficial to see things black and white, and sometimes its beneficial to consider the spectrum. I personally try to see things as a spectrum as much as possible because I feel like people have gotten addicted to their left brain's conceptualization of reality and we need a little more balance.

Mmmmmmnnnn - SORT of. More like, I only recently came to visualise it as particles/waves, and I'm trying to hold onto and fully accept that view inorder to find common ground with the conservatives I know, so I can stop thinking of them as THEM and realize we're all US. So, seeing it as particles and waves IS to overcome the false dichotomy. It's only seen as a dichotomy if you think in terms of "why are those damn conservatives so stoopit?".

And I'm the type of person that responds to knowledge - when I began to learn about the differences, and that people honestly can't help the way they think, and that conservatism serves a valuable purpose and that in fact most liberals could do with in certain ways cultivating certain aspects of (mild) conservatism in themselves - then I began to realize that we're all in this together and that it's pointless to hold a person's neural structure against them and blame them for the way they naturally think - instead we should strive to realize that 'our' way and 'their' way are just two sides of the human coin, both necessary and counterbalancing like Yin and Yang, providing a dynamic balance.

Unfortunately liberals are a lot more likely to come to this understanding, and that's part of what we have to understand and accept. We're made to be considerate and accepting - that's our strength. The strength of conservatives is to take immediate action to always protect themselves against what they percieve as outside threats. We can't change that about them, we'll never get them to see the importance of the global village...

Knowing this helps me to be more understanding of my more conservative friends. And that's something I needed, because I was pushing them away to the point of destroying old friendships over polarizing viewpoints.

**edit**

I'm not sure waves and particles is really a great metaphor. It implies that anyone can switch freely between the two as the need arises. I know liberals can understand conservative thinking, and in stressful times will become conservative temporarily, but can the same be said for conservatives? Do you really think a conservative is capable and/or willing to become liberal when it serves them well? I hope someone can convince me it's possible.

You have a point, and in fact you've led me in so many different directions right now I don't know how to respond, after all this dichotomy can also be related to academia in the field of specialization and generality, or to evolution regarding preservation and mutation. I think I'll stick with that way of looking at things despite the fact that I've argued this several times before.

I made this chart a while back and showcased it a bit

THis sort of comes from a discussion I had with someone who argued Republicans have a really strong base and a core set of values, and the Democrats are everyone else. I realized that's true, not necessarily conservative and liberal but the republican/democrat dichotomy is split between those really entranced in the core American value system and those more open to other value systems. For instance a muslim might be very conservative in mind but because they're at odds with the mainstream american value system, they're still more likely to vote democrat.

You could also replace conservative values with mainstream genetic make-up if you were talking about evolution. The mainstream genetic method represents a core in the species which some individuals orbit very closely to while others begin to drift and diversify in all directions. SOme of these mutations they drift to will prove superior and become the new core of the species. That's why liberals are so important, you need that exploration in order to continue evolving into something superior than before. However, some mutations will prove disastrous and may even be very advantageous in the short term before their disastrous consequences are realized. This is why a more slowly changing conservative core is required, to preserve the basic integrity of the system/method.

So for instance we think of the bible belt as our conservative core in the US but for humanity our conservative core is the Leaver peoples, the 10,000 peoples that did not transform into a totalitarian agriculture lifestyle and still live their lives in closer accordance to the natural way of their environment. This core has grown to be seen as separate by the new conservative core, the totalitarian agriculture side, so that if you used my chart as a reference it wouldn't even be in the exact center. But my chart takes personal POV into account. And if our method of living proved unsustainable, it would be removed and the old core method of living would remain.

That diagram really illiustrates well something I've been thinking/wondering about recently in relation to this - especially if you would draw two arrows, one pointing outward and one inward. Because that's how I'm currently envisioning it - liberalism being an outward expansive embrace of all cultures, all races religions sexualities etc, and conservatism an inward withdrawal or closing-off, excluding anything that isn't "of me and mine". One of the core concepts of conservatism seems to be patriotism and pride - Mine is the best country. Within the country, mine is the best city... the best race, religion, family... does it end in narcissistic solipsism? Probably only in the most extreme cases. Narcissism to me seems like a condition that either results from or causes extreme conservatism (all this thinking results because my lifelong friend is an extreme conservative and narcissist - I can't help but think they're related). Of course, I'm not suggesting that most conservatives fit this extreme profile at all - what I'm exploring now is a rare case and a very individual one, complicated by psychological issues (namely narcissistic personality disorder). But sometimes looking at an extreme version of something gives you insight into the nature of the overall thing itself.

So, how possible is it for open-minded, all-accepting (or trying to be) liberals to accept views that are essentially antithetical, that consist of a closing-off and shutting-down? This last question is meant in general, not just in the case of me and my friend. I mean, is it the right thing for liberals to try to find it in their hearts to forgive and understand racist and xenophobic behavior just because "they can't help it"? My question basically is this... IS the dichotomy really false? Is it just a matter of shifting perception and trying to be understanding? Or are the aims of liberals and conservatives completely antithetical?

I suppose in the political arena there can be no forgive and forget - liberals have to fight to protect the rights of the underprivileged and the environment. But as friends, as people, as long as there's no political debate going on, I guess I can just chuckle when he spews hateful venom against all and sundry that are different from him and accept that he can't help it. But it sucks to know I have to be ridiculously open and accepting to one who's exactly the opposite.

To me it's telling that the way in which many people take sides on an issue is a result of something as arbitrary as a personality trait.

I'm not sure exactly what that means. I'm sure that narcissism makes people conservative - it would be hard to imagine a narcissist who believes in equality for everyone.

But saying all narcissists are conservative is not to say that all conservatives are narcissistic. It's just one of the factors that shuts down calm rational consideration required for subtle nuanced liberal thinking.

I'm not entirely convinced that the dichotomy isn't a very pervasive illusion that only exists because it's been greatly exasperated by the media. But once it's true in enough people's minds, it's true enough, I suppose.

It sounds like you're in the same boat I'm in, or the one I've spent lots of time in, at least. You really start to think about these differences (owing more to the fact that these are the majority of the people in your environment and family than to the liberal tendency of wanting to be open-minded), and it's like... yeah this is fine but I don't think a conservative ever gives the time of day to understand a liberal, geez.

Sorry I really feel like I should have tons to say on this by now, but I can't quite think of how to put it, lol.

Ok, thanks for elaborating.

It's tough because we're dealing with a lot of generalities and most people dont fit neatly into either category, but I do believe there are 2 essentially opposed tendencies, one of acceptance for outsiders' beliefs and customs, and one of protection against outsiders. Call it the global village versus tribalism.

And I do realize that racism etc exists mainly at the extreme end of conservatism - I can get along fine with most moderately conservative people I know (until certain hotbutton topics come up).

It may be that I'm mixing up the macro-and micro-cosms because I'm looking at large social/psychological conditions through the prism of my personal friendship (with someone who is admittedly not typical of a conservative, or of ANYTHING for that matter!!)

I probably should try to keep the personal observations separate from the larger issues.

lol Sorry, I seem to have completely derailed this thread!

I see the purpose conservatism holds in society, but I don't accept the way of thinking most conservatives have. I think it's time their line of thinking evolved on most issues. So I like conservatism, I don't like the US's current paradigm of conservatives. However being conservative also means one preserve their culture better than a liberal, and I think that's a good thing. If no one preserved their culture, they would become vulnerable to the infection of unsustainable mutation. However, if no one was willing to evolve their culture, they would become vulnerable to their competitors which are willing to evolve. And I think the US conservatives have gotten twisted into a false sense of American Culture which is making us more vulnerable to exploitation.

In otherwords I don't even think they're really conservative, they're neocons which is something else entirely.