A little Sanity expounding on Prager through Gahdad Bob: Just how important is liberty?

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1. Phoenician in a time of Romans | May 29, 2009 at 11:40 am

   Once you understand this, then much about the left begins to make sense. In Europe, we can see how the welfare state puts in place a system of incentives that creates a new kind of enfeebled man, but that’s not exactly correct. In reality, it simply reveals man for what he is — a lazy, frightened, selfish, superstitious, instinct-loving and lowdown rascal. Leftism aims low and always reaches its target.

   Uh-huh.

   Die-hard liberals and conservatives aren’t made, they’re born. It’s literally in their DNA.

   That’s the implication of a study by a group of researchers who wanted to see if there was a biological basis for people’s political attitudes.

   They found to their surprise that opinions on such contentious issues as gun control, pacifism and capital punishment are strongly associated with physiological traits that in all likelihood are present at birth.

   The key is the differing levels of fear that people naturally feel.

   [...]

   Compared with staunch liberals, people with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful after factoring out the effects of gender, age, income and education, which can all affect political attitudes.

   But, you know, feel free to continue bravely wetting your panties over terrorists, immigrants, hispanic judges…

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2. pg - your humble messenger | May 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm

   Little Phooey trots out his pony once again.

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3. DFV the Scribe | May 29, 2009 at 11:57 pm

   Interesting links, PG. I have never read Gagdad Bob before, and admit a bit of difficulty in deciphering his larger views. His take on a broad view of history vs. a temporal one — and how the latter contributes to leftist economic thought — is well on point.

   Phoenician’s cited study is silly. It’s too bad, too, because I agree with the study’s assertion that there is a genetic component to political philosophy. But the study in question asks questions on a tiny number of issues, as if those can adequately ascertain one’s world view. Phoenician giddily seizes upon the findings to suggest that conservatives are more fearful than liberals. In fact, had they asked questions pertaining to a respondent’s view of economic freedom, government regulation of the economy, the need for government monopolies in education, medicine, and etc., the results would have been approximately opposite of the study cited: to wit, the “liberal” respondents would have been the more fearful ones, and the “conservative” ones would have been the braver.

   But don’t trust me. The article itself says as much:

   But Jon A. Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University, said it was impossible to draw any conclusions from a study with so few people all drawn from a small Midwestern town. What’s more, it’s just too squishy interpreting people’s reactions.

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4. DFV the Scribe | May 30, 2009 at 12:31 am

   However, I have a couple quibbles with Gagdad Bob elsewhere. He misstates, in my opinion, the central argument to David Gress’s book. Gagdad Bob says:

   Gress believes that such critical developments as liberty, democracy, and the free market weren’t so much “ideas” as behaviors that people lived out and only later reflected upon, in the manner, say, of Adam Smith, or America’s founders. In other words, no one invented capitalism, or liberty or democracy, and that’s the point.

   I don’t think this is Gress’s point at all, and I think Gagdad Bob’s explication of the book undercuts Gress’s thesis and conservative thought besides. Gress merely argues that modern Western thought is not directly attributable to the Greeks, but owes more to 20th century Germans and other thinkers. Fair enough, although I think Gress overstates his case and gives short shrift to the Greek and Roman contributions. But he in no way suggests that ideas were unimportant, as Bob suggests. In fact, a central thesis of Western intellectual philosophy (and a major focus of Gress’s book!) is that modern Western political traditions were indeed conceived first as thoughts, but Gress argues that the main thinkers weren’t necessarily among the ancients.

   A central tenant to the book and conservative philosophy is that if not for the ideas conceived by men, capitalism, democracy, etc. might well have never emerged.

   Secondly, Bob seems to suggest that right-wing economic thought is more consistent with Christianity. (Correct me if I’m wrong on this). He begins his post telling us that he has been asked his views “on ostensibly religious left-wingers” and “how they come by their horizontality?” He then discusses a culturally conservative viewpoint, which gives way to an economically conservative viewpoint, then conflating all that with a religiously conservative viewpoint.

   I would argue that the New Testament is much more consistent with collectivist economics than it is with modern capitalism. It is also more favorable toward a pacific foreign policy than a militaristic one. While I believe this is obvious as an intellectual matter, most modern American conservatives must invest a great deal of energy in arguing that the New Testament is really an affirmation of contemporary US Republican policies.

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