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| Fifth Column | ||
| Berkeley study links Reagan, Hitler | ||
| 2003-07-24 | ||
| Get ready people, this is even going to infuriate Liberalhawk. Edited for length but read the whole thing. In a study that ponders the similarities between former President Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Rush Limbaugh, four American university researchers say they now have a better understanding of what makes political conservatives tick. Huh? Wasn’t Hitler a National Socialist? Underlying psychological motivations that mark conservatives are "fear and aggression, dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; uncertainty avoidance; need for cognitive closure; and terror management," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin. Cool! Does this mean that we’ll all eventually be able to get free "From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," they wrote, according to a press release issued by the University of California at Berkeley. The researchers also contend left-wing ideologues such as Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro "might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended." But, since their The study was conducted by Associate Wow! Thanks guys! I feel better already! Conservatives don’t feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said, according to the Berkeley news release. Yeah, it’s called common sense. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser explained. Couldn’t have phrased it better mysel.... hey, maybe there’s something to this study afterall! The assistant professor of public policy said President George W. Bush’s comments during a 2001 trip to Italy provide an example. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe, and I believe what I believe is right." Glaser also noted Bush told a British reporter last year, "Look, my job isn’t to nuance." I’m not even sure what that last statement meant, but I probably agree with it. The Berkeley news release said the psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books, conference papers, speeches, interviews, judicial opinions and survey studies. Consistent, common threads were found in 10 "meta-analytic calculations" performed on the material, Glaser said. Meta-what? Oh, you mean that you made it up! Berkeley’s Sulloway said the research is the first of its kind, synthesizing vast amounts of information to produce an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political conservatism under the rubric of "motivated social cognition."
Judgemental? Noooo. Not politically motivated either. "In many cases, including mass politics, ’liberal’ 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. Characteristics nobody in Berkeley actually has. Trust me on this one. However, the study showed, according to Glaser, liberals appear to have a higher tolerance for change than conservatives. And he needed a dozen years of college to come up with that? FOLLOWUP: Jonah Golberg in NRO... This is just an excerpt. Don't drink anything while you're reading the whole thing... But first, what is it about this that makes me think of bovine flatulence? Well, everything. Scientists spend millions of taxpayer dollars studying the methane which comes out of the academic end of heifers, reportedly because such gaseous discharge contributes to global warming. Whatever their reasons, they think it's important work. They either don't mind that their research stinks — literally — or they think all of their efforts are worth the money poured into them. And while words like gassy, insubstantial, and malodorous certainly apply to the Berkeley study, there are two chief differences between the study of cow flatulence and this study of conservative psychology. First, the cow-scientists can claim that there's a legitimate purpose to their pursuits. Overblown or not, global warming is something scientists should study. Secondly, while the earth-sciences folks are primarily concerned with what rises up and away from the back end of a bull, these bozos at Berkeley are 100 percent committed to studying and disseminating what plunks to the ground when it leaves the same anatomical disembarkation area. | ||
| Posted by:Secret Master |
| #13 Matt: ROTFLMGMO! |
| Posted by: Korora 2003-7-24 7:18:50 PM |
| #12 So conservatives like certainty and liberals like nuance? Then I guess we have to rewrite a famous liberal's most famous speech: "December 7 is a day that might, or might not, live in infamy. We simply don't have the historical perspective to judge the event at this point in time. We need to examine the root causes of what appears at first to be an act of aggressive violence, and I'm confident that those men trapped in the Oklahoma would want us to do so." |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-7-24 7:11:48 PM |
| #11 Lucky: You mean elegantly mental, right? These beauzeaux must have fried their brains on all sorts of funny chemicals. |
| Posted by: Ri'Neref 2003-7-24 6:14:54 PM |
| #10 "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser explained. (I like it when they squrim,feels great) Wrong,stupid! Had a similar discussion with a vegitarian, pacifist lady friend awhile back. All the"Bovine Scatology"in this article is just that"Bovine Scatology"(Gen.Swarzcoff) It has nothing to due with black,white,gray or any other color. It is a matter of right and wrong. What a bunch of dumb-asses! |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-7-24 6:10:56 PM |
| #9 It's a psychological condition? Like an illness? Cool. I do believe I'm going to call in conservative tomorrow morning. And the ADA will apply. Gosh darn it, I'm in a protected class now!!! |
| Posted by: BJD (The Dignified Rant) 2003-7-24 5:20:07 PM |
| #8 I can't wait for the liberal version. Expect comparisons with Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and my ass. |
| Posted by: Paul 2003-7-24 4:59:41 PM |
| #7 So so happy that someone has done a study on this! Why they did it, I have no idea. I remember a line in Blazing Saddles "For crissakes, we've GOT to protect our phoney baloney jobs!" Why don't they do a study on Useless Academic Studies and Their Costs to the Taxpayer? That I'd be interested in. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-7-24 3:51:24 PM |
| #6 Add. To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke:By Liberals I don't mean open-minded,permissive people or even big-government Democrats.I mean people who think Ben&Jerry giving 1% of their profits to world peace is absolutely fabulous. |
| Posted by: El Id 2003-7-24 2:55:24 PM |
| #5 Why is Bush,then,an agent of change in Iraq while the Liberals wanted to keep Saddam in power? |
| Posted by: El Id 2003-7-24 2:49:29 PM |
| #4 Lucky: I picked up on that "meta" reference, too. Translated, the tortuous sentence which precedes it means: "We didn't do a lick of original research. We read a bunch of other studies and used them to support our hypothesis." So tell me, how do you calculate a confidence interval for "meta-analysis?" Variance? Minimum sample size? How do you determine if your axes are independent? This is junk science at its absolute worst. Classical civilization became lost when it wandered into the wasteland of neo-Platonism. Instead of metaphysics we have meta-analysis. This just makes me ill. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-7-24 1:21:41 PM |
| #3 Leftist thinking: Qusay and Uday were victims of their father. They were brought up to be sadists and had no choice. They were victims of their father just as much as the people they tortured and killed themselves. We have their blood on our hands and that makes us just as bestial as them. We should dwell on this for days and feel terribly guilty. I think I'll cry now. Conservative thinking: They're animals and they're dead. The world is a better place. Let's get the power going, the government in place, clean out the rest of the cockroaches and move on. We'll contemplate our navels later. Put me in that latter group! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-7-24 12:41:42 PM |
| #2 Wow! Those are some really big words! They fit right in with my current study, "Why People Understood Ronald Reagan But Don't Have a Clue About Berkeley Perfessers." |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-7-24 12:32:51 PM |
| #1 Elegantly meta! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-7-24 12:26:47 PM |