Conservatives are afraid - Liberals are not

[Pat McCotter]

How much did this cost and who paid for it?

Political views 'all in the mind'
By Matt McGrath
Science reporter, BBC World Service

Scientists studying voters in the US say our political views may be an integral part of our physical makeup.

Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.

Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies.

The authors believe their findings may help to explain why voters' minds are so hard to change.

In the study, conducted in Nebraska, 46 volunteers were first asked about their political views on issues ranging from foreign aid and the Iraq war to capital punishment and patriotism.

Those with strong opinions were invited to take part in the second part of the experiment, which involved recording their physiological responses to a series of images and sounds.

The images included pictures of a frightened man with a large spider on his face and an open wound with maggots in it. The subjects were also startled with loud noises on occasion.

Conducting experiments

By measuring the electrical conductance of the volunteers' skin and their blink responses, the scientists were able to work out the degree of fear they were experiencing - how sensitive they were to the images and sounds.
   Instead of political opponents thinking the opposite party are being wilfully bull-headed, you can say 'well ok, they see the world differently than I do'
John Hibbing

They found that subjects who were more easily startled tended to have political views that would be classified as more right wing, being more in favour of capital punishment and higher defence spending, but opposed to abortion rights.

The scientists explained that these political positions were protective of the volunteers' social groups.

"We focussed primarily on things that we call 'protecting the social unit'," said John Hibbing from the University of Nebraska.

"So the idea is we have this unit - maybe it's the US - and we want to protect this from outsiders; so we might be opposed to immigration, we might advocate patriotism, and we like leaders who are strong and clear who are able to protect us from those outsiders.

"We might even be opposed to pornography or any kind of corrosive element that we see threatening the social unit.

"On the other hand, you have people who are more supportive of pacifism and who advocate gun control - and there are lots of areas where people who are less sensitive to threat would project those kinds of feelings into the political arena."

Different strokes

The researchers say there is no political relevance to their research - but Dr Hibbing feels it may help explain why it is so hard to change someone's mind in a political debate.

Different people, he said, started from a different psychological point.

"You have people who are experiencing the world, who are experiencing threat, differently.

"It's just that we have these very different physiological orientations. We're not sure where they came from, they may be genetic, they may be something from childhood; we do know, though, that they run deep because it's a reflex, it's not something you can change tomorrow, the depth of that may be something of an asset in figuring out why people are so stubborn in their political beliefs," he said.

"I even have the hope that this might facilitate understanding a little bit. Instead of political opponents thinking the opposite party are being wilfully bull-headed, you can say 'well ok, they see the world differently than I do'.

"People haven't just thought about things differently, they feel things differently."

[J’raxis 270145]

Seems rather obvious to me, considering that most mainstream conservative issues (e.g., the war on terror, "illegal" immigration, &c.) are just blatant fearmongering.

[margomaps]

Seems rather obvious to me, considering that most mainstream conservative issues (e.g., the war on terror, "illegal" immigration, &c.) are just blatant fearmongering.

It doesn't seem quite so obvious to me, though I agree that there is "right wing" fearmongering going on in the areas you listed.

Consider "liberal" issues that are driven primarily by fear mongering:

- gun control (this is even mentioned in the article, though in a back-asswards way)
- climate change, protection of endangered species, etc.
- social security, medicare,..., all manner of government-spending designed to prevent needy people from experiencing the horrors of life

If anything, I believe the fear-mongering surrounding climate change is the most blatant and least grounded in reality, even when compared to the terrorism bugaboo.  "Liberals" and "conservatives" just prefer to engage in fearmongering over different sets of issues, that's all.

[J’raxis 270145]

Seems rather obvious to me, considering that most mainstream conservative issues (e.g., the war on terror, "illegal" immigration, &c.) are just blatant fearmongering.

It doesn't seem quite so obvious to me, though I agree that there is "right wing" fearmongering going on in the areas you listed.

Consider "liberal" issues that are driven primarily by fear mongering:

- gun control (this is even mentioned in the article, though in a back-asswards way)
- climate change, protection of endangered species, etc.
- social security, medicare,..., all manner of government-spending designed to prevent needy people from experiencing the horrors of life

If anything, I believe the fear-mongering surrounding climate change is the most blatant and least grounded in reality, even when compared to the terrorism bugaboo.  "Liberals" and "conservatives" just prefer to engage in fearmongering over different sets of issues, that's all.

Politics in general seems to be mainly about preying upon the fears of the populace, but right-wing politics is all about preying upon a very basic, almost instinctual fear that human beings suffer from: fear of the Other—the "us vs. them" mentality. Terrorism, illegal immigration, patriotism—it's all predicated upon this idea that we are in danger from them, and we need to do something about it.

Left-wing politics, where it does so, seems to employ fear in a lot more subtle, nuanced way. Very rarely do you see the "us vs. them" manipulations. Climate change is certainly based a lot on fear, but a lot of it's based on guilt too. It's about making people feel terrible for all the harm they're doing to the planet, and then convincing them there are these foolish little rituals they can engage in in order to fix everything—it's like a secular form of Catholic guilt.

As for gun politics, sometimes people can be right, but go about it the wrong way. Among the mainstream right, take a look at how much pro-gun rhetoric is about defending oneself from the rapists and muggers that are lurking just around the corner waiting to strike. (Next time you're up at Riley's, check out how many of the posters around his shop play on this theme.) This may be a legitimate concern, and a good reason to own firearms, but presenting it in such a way is, again, preying upon people's primal fears.

[margomaps]

J'raxis, I don't disagree with what you said, but I still feel as though you're perhaps underestimating the extent to which left-leaning folk cloak their issues in fear.  Climate change is certainly a left-political issue, and though there is certainly a hefty measure of guilt mixed in, I think it's basically about fear.  Fear that baby polar bears might drown, or that birds will lose their habitats when shorelines are washed away due to rising sea levels, or that there might be an extra hurricane or two each season.

Honestly the fears that drive the left-leaning psyche make a lot less sense to me than those that drive the right-leaning psyche (please forgive the simplistic generalizations here).  We all know that terrorism is a real thing, that it sometimes happens, and when it does it usually involves pain and suffering and blood and guts and carnage.  Perhaps not so different from a bad car accident, but different enough to make people fear terrorism, but not fear driving to and fro every day even if driving is far more likely to kill them.

Generally speaking, people are bad at estimating risk.  As you mentioned, politicians are adept at exploiting this.  I just happen to think this difference in "left vs right" when it comes to risk is rubbish. 

You're right about the gun control thing though -- that certainly works both ways.  However, once again I find that the "right" fear is a little more rational than the "left" fear on this matter.  The "right" is concerned about the risk from criminals with guns.  The "left" is concerned with the risk of guns themselves.  The former is an overblown risk, and the latter just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

We'll probably just end up agreeing to disagree on this a little bit.  And my guess is that it's probably because I came to libertarian thinking from the right, and you came to it from the left.  Just a guess though.   

[doobie]

Conservatives believe in providing for themselves.  They must be afraid of what they will be able to provide themselves.

Liberals believe everything will be provided for them.  They have too much faith for what will be provided.

[J’raxis 270145]

Honestly the fears that drive the left-leaning psyche make a lot less sense to me than those that drive the right-leaning psyche (please forgive the simplistic generalizations here).  We all know that terrorism is a real thing, that it sometimes happens, and when it does it usually involves pain and suffering and blood and guts and carnage.  Perhaps not so different from a bad car accident, but different enough to make people fear terrorism, but not fear driving to and fro every day even if driving is far more likely to kill them.

If anything, this just goes to what I'm saying: Conservative fearmongering "makes more sense" because it's so blatant. The lefties obfuscate and intellectualize their fearmongering much more.

[Sam A. Robrin]

I think conservatives genuinely believe the fear they mong (or whatever the verb is . . .), while liberals (quite subconsciously) go about concocting what they hope the public can be convinced of, and then manage to talk themselves into accepting it.  Most blatant example of that (outside of global warming) had nothing to do with fear: When Kerry was nominated, his war record was clearly seen as an issue designed to pull a few swing votes; by the time the election rolled around, his supporters had obviously bought into their own propaganda to the extent that they honestly believed that they believed his military service particularly qualified him for the presidency.

[J’raxis 270145]

monger seems to be the verb form.

[Pat McCotter]

monger seems to be the verb form.

To sell or peddle.

Hmm... they are profitting from fear!