Pseudoscience and Politics
Seems the Intelligent Design crowd has some competition in the "pseudoscience for the cause" department. First, witness this stunning piece of pseudoscience from the moonbats at the People's Republic of Berkeleystan, then enjoy my paraphrase below. The names have been changed to protect - well, me. Enjoy!
NASHVILLE – Politically liberal agendas may range from opposing the Iraq War to upending traditional moral and religious values to universalizing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of liberalism report that at the core of political liberalism is narcissism and a fear of responsibility, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political liberalism include:
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of liberal ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Liberalism as Experiential Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychobabble Association's Psychobabble Bulletin.
Assistant Professor Jack Daniels of the University of Tennessee and Visiting Professor Julio Gallo of the University of California joined lead author, Associate Professor Jim Beam of the University of Kentucky, and Professor Arie Dareyett of the School of Hardnox, to analyze the literature on liberalism.
The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.
Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Daniels said.
The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of liberal thought - the resistance to differing points of view that results when their basic narcissistic view of the world is challenged, they said.
The terror identification feature of liberalism can be seen in post-Sept. 11 America, where many liberals openly offer ideological or material support to America’s enemies in an attempt to deflect hostility and potential violence away from themselves, they wrote. This behavior is also widely known as the “Stockholm” or “Patty Hurst” effect in which the victim identifies with their tormentor(s).
Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of liberalism - an endorsement of absolute equality and mediocrity, a view reflected in Marxist-Leninist ideology, Chinese agrarian reforms and the liberal, failure-coddling politics of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
Disparate liberals share a certain narcissism and fear of responsibility, the authors said. Mao, Castro, and former President Bill Clinton were individuals, but all were left-wing liberals because they preached or demonstrated an opposition to standards of ethical conduct and personal responsibility, and condemned individual merit in some form. Movie-maker Michael Moore can be described the same way, the authors commented in a published reply to the article.
This research marks the first critical synthesis of a vast amount of information about liberalism, and the result is an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political liberalism under the rubric of experiential social cognition, said Gallo. That entails the tendency of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained by individual traits based on personality, interests and life experience.
The researchers' analytical methods allowed them to determine the effects for each class of factors and revealed "more pluralistic and nuanced understanding of the source of liberalism," Gallo said.
While most people resist change, but eventually adapt to their social environment, liberals (as narcissists) are more likely to attempt to force others to adapt to them or adopt their views, than conservatives are.
As for liberals' penchant for enforcing mediocrity, he said, one contemporary example is liberals' general endorsement of relaxing standards and eliminating any measures of individual merit in education, and the push to reinforce existing social divisions by extending special “compensatory” rights and privileges to minority groups whom liberals have traditionally defined as “disadvantaged victims,” despite the basic fairness of civil rights laws already on the books.
The researchers said that liberal ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that "does not mean (Mr. Savage) that liberalism is pathological or that liberal beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."
They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental.
"In many cases, including mass politics, 'conservative' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote.
This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic clichés and stereotypes, the researchers advised.
The latest debate about liberals’ accusation that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the liberal fear of responsibility (blame assignment) and/or need for closure, said Daniels.
"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, left-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than reasoned debate, probity, and intellectual rigor, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.
Daniels acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political liberalism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about liberalism, but very little that is seriously critical or skeptical; probably a function of the high incidence or liberal academicians (those who can’t or won’t do, teach).
The researchers also highlighted cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.
They noted that some researchers might consider these figures politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. For example, some researchers might claim that Stalin was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system; however, Stalin was actually a megalomaniac bent on preserving his personal power as a means to compensate for his deeply buried feelings of inadequacy and self loathing that resulted from abuse at the hands of his father.
Although they concluded that liberals often pride themselves on being more "integratively complex" than others are, Daniels said, "it doesn't actually bear out in reality."
Liberals don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make truly rigorous minds squirm, and then operating on the assumption that everyone naturally agrees with them," Daniels said.
He pointed as an example to congressional hearings in 1999, when then-President Bill Clinton was asked to explain himself. The Democratic president told assembled legislators and the media, "I did not have sex with that woman." And a few months later, Clinton told the American people, "I lied."
NASHVILLE – Politically liberal agendas may range from opposing the Iraq War to upending traditional moral and religious values to universalizing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of liberalism report that at the core of political liberalism is narcissism and a fear of responsibility, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political liberalism include:
- Negativism/fear and psychological immaturity
- Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
- Uncertainty avoidance/advancement of mediocrity
- Need for cognitive closure
- Terror identification/Appeasement
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of liberal ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Liberalism as Experiential Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychobabble Association's Psychobabble Bulletin.
Assistant Professor Jack Daniels of the University of Tennessee and Visiting Professor Julio Gallo of the University of California joined lead author, Associate Professor Jim Beam of the University of Kentucky, and Professor Arie Dareyett of the School of Hardnox, to analyze the literature on liberalism.
The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.
Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Daniels said.
The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of liberal thought - the resistance to differing points of view that results when their basic narcissistic view of the world is challenged, they said.
The terror identification feature of liberalism can be seen in post-Sept. 11 America, where many liberals openly offer ideological or material support to America’s enemies in an attempt to deflect hostility and potential violence away from themselves, they wrote. This behavior is also widely known as the “Stockholm” or “Patty Hurst” effect in which the victim identifies with their tormentor(s).
Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of liberalism - an endorsement of absolute equality and mediocrity, a view reflected in Marxist-Leninist ideology, Chinese agrarian reforms and the liberal, failure-coddling politics of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
Disparate liberals share a certain narcissism and fear of responsibility, the authors said. Mao, Castro, and former President Bill Clinton were individuals, but all were left-wing liberals because they preached or demonstrated an opposition to standards of ethical conduct and personal responsibility, and condemned individual merit in some form. Movie-maker Michael Moore can be described the same way, the authors commented in a published reply to the article.
This research marks the first critical synthesis of a vast amount of information about liberalism, and the result is an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political liberalism under the rubric of experiential social cognition, said Gallo. That entails the tendency of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained by individual traits based on personality, interests and life experience.
The researchers' analytical methods allowed them to determine the effects for each class of factors and revealed "more pluralistic and nuanced understanding of the source of liberalism," Gallo said.
While most people resist change, but eventually adapt to their social environment, liberals (as narcissists) are more likely to attempt to force others to adapt to them or adopt their views, than conservatives are.
As for liberals' penchant for enforcing mediocrity, he said, one contemporary example is liberals' general endorsement of relaxing standards and eliminating any measures of individual merit in education, and the push to reinforce existing social divisions by extending special “compensatory” rights and privileges to minority groups whom liberals have traditionally defined as “disadvantaged victims,” despite the basic fairness of civil rights laws already on the books.
The researchers said that liberal ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that "does not mean (Mr. Savage) that liberalism is pathological or that liberal beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."
They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental.
"In many cases, including mass politics, 'conservative' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote.
This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic clichés and stereotypes, the researchers advised.
The latest debate about liberals’ accusation that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the liberal fear of responsibility (blame assignment) and/or need for closure, said Daniels.
"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, left-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than reasoned debate, probity, and intellectual rigor, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.
Daniels acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political liberalism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about liberalism, but very little that is seriously critical or skeptical; probably a function of the high incidence or liberal academicians (those who can’t or won’t do, teach).
The researchers also highlighted cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.
They noted that some researchers might consider these figures politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. For example, some researchers might claim that Stalin was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system; however, Stalin was actually a megalomaniac bent on preserving his personal power as a means to compensate for his deeply buried feelings of inadequacy and self loathing that resulted from abuse at the hands of his father.
Although they concluded that liberals often pride themselves on being more "integratively complex" than others are, Daniels said, "it doesn't actually bear out in reality."
Liberals don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make truly rigorous minds squirm, and then operating on the assumption that everyone naturally agrees with them," Daniels said.
He pointed as an example to congressional hearings in 1999, when then-President Bill Clinton was asked to explain himself. The Democratic president told assembled legislators and the media, "I did not have sex with that woman." And a few months later, Clinton told the American people, "I lied."
posted by WickedWolf at 6:49 PM
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