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Jul. 23rd, 2014 04:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariA few days ago there was an article passing around the internets about a medical study on conservatives. A lot of it was being passed around with comments like "Oh, THIS is what's wrong with them!" I took something a bit more away from it.
While I didn't take the actual article, or the comments, too too seriously, it did make me wonder - why are my conservative friends...well...conservative. No insult intended, but it's an alien thought process for me, and some of the stands taken just seem utterly bizarre sometimes. I'm sure, though, on the other side of the coin, stances liberals take are just as bizarre/alien to them.
But...something in the article made me think. At the risk of starting a firestorm, if you boil things way down, almost to a stereotype-like core, that when you look at change as a threat to be conquered, suddenly, a lot of conservative think makes sense (not in an "I agree with it" way but a "now I see why you do it" way). Kids coming across the border suddenly become an invasion. Making a stand and staying with it despite new evidence suddenly becomes "staying the course." Change becomes something to, at worse, fear and at best, shy away from because what you have is working for you. If taken to an extreme, you get paranoia - which is what most people see on the fringes of the right wing.
I'm sure the flip side of that is that, to conservatives, liberals look like they're embracing chaos. And on our extremes you get anarchy.
Not that I'm advocating one side over another. I'm just tyring to understand the thought process behind the politics...without actually getting into the politics.
While I didn't take the actual article, or the comments, too too seriously, it did make me wonder - why are my conservative friends...well...conservative. No insult intended, but it's an alien thought process for me, and some of the stands taken just seem utterly bizarre sometimes. I'm sure, though, on the other side of the coin, stances liberals take are just as bizarre/alien to them.
But...something in the article made me think. At the risk of starting a firestorm, if you boil things way down, almost to a stereotype-like core, that when you look at change as a threat to be conquered, suddenly, a lot of conservative think makes sense (not in an "I agree with it" way but a "now I see why you do it" way). Kids coming across the border suddenly become an invasion. Making a stand and staying with it despite new evidence suddenly becomes "staying the course." Change becomes something to, at worse, fear and at best, shy away from because what you have is working for you. If taken to an extreme, you get paranoia - which is what most people see on the fringes of the right wing.
I'm sure the flip side of that is that, to conservatives, liberals look like they're embracing chaos. And on our extremes you get anarchy.
Not that I'm advocating one side over another. I'm just tyring to understand the thought process behind the politics...without actually getting into the politics.
