"Why are liberals so condescending?"
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So, why ARE conservatives so condescending?
Because they can say they've read Plato?
(ps - anybody can read a book... that doesn't make them gifted enough to write the book, no matter how much they might wish and suppose otherwise....).
So, why ARE conservatives so condescending?
Some people too readily (and habitually) take offense, but that does not, necessarily, make those with whom they argue condescending. It simply does not.
To the man who is easily offended, everything looks like an insult. That's his problem, and not that of anyone else.
The suggestion to read or re-read The Republic is a good one, for those who are interested in (and continuously interject themselves into) not just rhetorical debates, but debates on rhetorical debate, for what are - or will soon prove to be - obvious reasons.
Hand. Read it. Taught/teach it.
I think I'm getting it now. Liberals are condescending just because they are, and conservatives aren't condescending when they talk down to liberals. They're just smarter, and they're right.
I think you're missing something (is that condesending?) Liberals naturally buck at the status quo, thinking they have a way to make things better and sometimes have an arrogance that they are on the "cutting edge" while others are behind or dumber than they are. On the other hand, conservatives tend to like things the way they are and have little use for upstarts who want to change things....
Getting it or not, you are providing a wonderfully illustrative example, which is quite sporting of you and very much in the Socratic spirit - you actually become the argument others are making. It really is a beautiful thing when it works - although you can see why his fellow citizens hated Socrates, and considered him such a threat to their (sense of) well being and intellectual conceit.
I'll happily play my part to help you show how ridiculous the premise of this thread is, frank.
As for conservatives being happy with the status quo, now THAT'S funny. The status quo? Of what date and time? Would you be happy to leave everything as it is at this very moment?
WC, are you of the mind that only liberals cry in front of a crowd? I only ask because there is this show that some guy named Glen Beck has, and he is a pretty emotional guy who CONSTANTLY makes fun of liberals. But, now that I think about it, he is pretty condescending.... Probably a closet liberal... heheheheh...
I don't think Beck makes Fun of progressives but he does show how dangerous both parties have become to the citizens and the Constitution. Any particular mistake in Beck's facts you dispute Domino? Or are you a condescending liberal who absent of facts attacks the messenger?
Didn't Pelosi have some fake tears as well, hers were about feelings. Beck's tears seem to be more along the lines of watching this country be destroyed from within.
Glen is an entertainer... I an not saying that he is AGAINST the country, because later, I want to be able to be quoted as sounding like I was KIND OF on the fence.. But the rest of my rant will be demonizing him. I do want to be able to say later that I DID say "I am not saying that he is AGAINST the country..." I am just saying, that isn't it INTERESTING how he has read oh so many books and that OBVIOUSLY makes EVERYTHING he says correct... OH, I don't know... Glen is CONSTANTLY talking in a patronizingly superior manner, whether or not he is "right" he is still condescending. And.. sniffle... it just makes me weep for my country that people think that only liberals suffer from this affliction.... Sniffle...
From his heart and from Vicks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj4I2f0ZO6g
Glen is an entertainer. BUY GOLD!
In the cited essay that began this thread, Gerard Alexander writes that -
Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots.
Fair enough. That takes care of blowhard conservative entertainers and, I suppose, neostalinist vandals. Alexander then proceeds to observe that, as a rule, conservatives aren't found "portraying liberals as systematically mistaken in their worldview."
Presumably that would be wrong. Conservatives, as a rule, don't do that. Alexander's problem is that liberal condescension arises from a belief that conservatives are systematically mistaken. That's the wrong part.
This raises an interesting question. Is it possible to hold a mistaken worldview? For example, can ideology distort one's worldview? Is it wrong a priori to regard any worldview as mistaken?
If the worldviews of liberals and conservatives differ in some way - Alexander doesn't specify - why are we to conclude that it's wrong to regard either of these worldviews as systematically mistaken? Can this question be discussed intelligently and without condescension?
Nice try Domino, we are still waiting for the facts Glen has wrong and I imagine we will be waiting a long time. I used to laugh at him too until I realized he was making sense and when the MSM started to tear the man down instead of the message. But he is no less entertaining than any of the MSM people such as Couric, Williams, Matthews etc. There are not to many news people reporting the news these days. In the meantime I will wait for the rebuttals to the facts Glen produces.
It makes sense to me now.
Anyone who pounds through Plato ipso facto passes the Tom Tancredo Literacy Test which would of course preclude voting Democratic.
Can this question be discussed intelligently and without condescension?
Of course it can, and has been for quite some time (see: Plato). But not for those who take only offense from an argument - too often its is a clash of ego or personality rather than an argument of merits. In fact, I might even argue that that is predominant mode of argumentation here on AMG, and certainly amongst the entertainment blowhards and some agenda-driven pundits.
Of course a person believes his own argument to be sound, and his beliefs to be superior - that is why he holds them. Opinion, uninformed opinion, carries very little weight in argumentation, as well it should. I will venture to say that those who are inclined to take offense, who regard themselves as their own source of wisdom and authority, are ego-driven and rely far too heavily on their own opinion. Eventually, they can react in only the most superficial and reactionary manner - regardless of worldview. They've taken all of the tools out of their toolbox. They don't think they need them.
Is there any among us who believes his or her worldview to be the correct one? To be at once perfected, eternal and static? He, then, is the ideologue who has long since abandoned the practice of critical thought, who is no longer open to the possibility that he may be wrong.
ETA: To Kinley, re: those who think they can determine party affiliation or voting record by the books people have read: it is interesting to think of a proclaimed party affiliation as social signaling, that is, as a means of conveying something about ourselves instead of as a reflection of strongly held convictions and ideas. That's an interesting angle, albeit a depressing one.
..it is interesting to think of a proclaimed party affiliation as social signaling, that is, as a means of conveying something about ourselves instead of as a reflection of strongly held convictions and ideas....
Depressing? I suspect that social signaling is far more prevalent than affiliation based on conviction and ideas.
Hands up, all those who think Socrates would have opposed a Dunkin' Donuts in his neighborhood!
Of course, to be historically authentic, it might have been a Dunkin' Pita in his day, with a hemlock chaser, but hey - that's the fun of history!!!
As I suggested above, I believe that Gerard Alexander's essay misses the mark.
He assumes that one's belief that another's worldview is "systematically mistaken" necessarily involves condescension. It doesn't.
There's nothing at all reprehensible about regarding another's worldview as "systematically mistaken."
What is reprehensible is the conceit that one's worldview is self-evidently correct. That's condescension - projecting an inability or unwillingness to confront one's own biases as another's deficiency.
Islander, google glenn beck and wrong sometime. Unless all of those sites are wrong, and Beck's words are second only to the Bible (google Bible and contradiction sometime too....) in being correct... It is funny that people forget that he is an entertainer, and not ALWAYS accurate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AUHG9tEfRQ
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-5-2009/the-11-3-project
Sorry, I think the two other entertainers are funnier. :D
That's condescension - projecting an inability or unwillingness to confront one's own biases as another's deficiency.
A case in point. The ever mild-mannered Arnold Kling surveys liberal opinion and writes that progressives should stop shouting.
My point is that the ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China's autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so.
the conceit that one's worldview is self-evidently correct. That's condescension - projecting an inability or unwillingness to confront one's own biases as another's deficiency.
I was just thinking about what an unrecognizable place AMG would be if its participants hedged every post with a pre-emptive admission of doubt about his own worldview.
I was just thinking about what an unrecognizable place AMG would be if its participants hedged every post with a pre-emptive admission of doubt about his own worldview.
But isn't that the assumption - ok, the a priori assumption - that one makes when engaging in debate on a discussion board?
Huffington Post, Think Progress and Dickpedia? Now there is entertainment. Nice attempt though.
...isn't that the assumption - ok, the a priori assumption - that one makes when engaging in debate on a discussion board?
One would hope so.
I suppose the best measure of that interest is how frequently one feels compelled to check back on a post to see if anyone has specifically countered. I bet most here do that more frequently than they'd like to admit.
Go ahead, disabuse me.
Well, that might just be a function of boredom. But, working out the manners in an online environment is tricky, no doubt.
If you go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR201002... you will find a Washington Post article about this very subject and a survey that show better than 60% of those taking it think that it is a liberal thing.
Elitism is not just the province of liberal thinkers - certainly conservative and extreme right-wing thinkers are guilty of it as well. If liberal thinkers are guilty of elitism, it is in how they address the thinkers on the other side. For the most part they are happy to leave "the average person to be able to make their own life decisions," as Mr. Claude Berube put it.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine how many of you will read this excellent essay by Thomas Frank about conservative elitists, Lie Down for America. It is a bit dated now, having first appeared in April 2004. But the main tenents remained unchanged.
Some people are too elitist to check out sites that are beneath them. :D
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Frrom the Abbott thread, credit to Thrasybulus:
Smart people will go and ask the candidate, the dumb people will do what they always do: vote for the safest looking, most plausible candidate. That is almost always a Dem in Maine, because they LIE.
No condescension here
So true Kinley...Elitist in both parties have a problem with it..The"I'm the smartist person in the room syndrome" knows no party lines...LOL...Some of the threads recently look more like who can use the biggest word contests...LOL...