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| Why WonÂ’t Liberals Listen to Reason? |
| 2011-10-07 |
| The left believes that a clever elite can fix all the world’s problems; conservatives accept that human error can lead to disastrous outcomes. Liberals fancy themselves rational in contrast to conservatives’ dour acknowledgment of tradition and tragedy. Why, then, is the left so impossibly, stubbornly, counter-factually dense when it comes to the state of Israel (among other matters)? Liberal rationality is a pose. Knowledge is existential — that is, we tend to ignore facts that apply to a world in which we will not exist at all. I saw that before the 2008 banking crash, when I tried to warn the industry that a crash was inevitable. Most of them said, in effect, “If what you’re saying is true, then I shouldn’t have a job, so I won’t think about it.” Not long afterwards, most of them didn’t. The left (and the European left in particular) doesn’t like certain facts because they are dying — literally. The triumph of the secular welfare state in Europe is associated with a catastrophic population decline. Three-fifths of southern Europeans will be elderly pensioners by mid-century. Of course, they’re going to go bankrupt. And Muslim society is fragile, and much of the Muslim world has entered a tailspin from which it won’t recover. The left clings to the magical idea that if only Israel would roll over and die, and validate the illusions of the Muslims, that somehow this horrific future might be avoided. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #16 Maybe for the same reason that the House is trying to pass that idiotic drug bill referenced below. |
| Posted by: Perfesser 2011-10-07 21:41 |
| #15 "What does Truth/Logic have to do wid Politics", as a saying goes, ergo its corollary "What does Reason have to do wid Power". AND "Leftism/Alternatism is about Power, pure + simple" - correct??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-10-07 20:26 |
| #14 M. Murcek yes, in the old days. Now in South Africa everything is protected. I understand when you go on Safari you will have no weapons. You sleep at night with only a four foot barrier between you and a pride of lions. It may help to sip Pinotage. Well, at least you have marinated yourself. |
| Posted by: Dale 2011-10-07 19:42 |
| #13 So true, BP. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2011-10-07 18:54 |
| #12 Credentialled. You leave education to stop being taught and start learning. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-10-07 15:59 |
| #11 There is something wrong with their thinking. What is it? The short answer: free thinking is not for everybody---damned hard, as a matter of fact. Most people are not happy unless they receive Rules to live by from a higher authority. For the "educated", this authority are their teachers in academia. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-10-07 15:25 |
| #10 FTA: We are so bombarded with insanity by the mainstream media that we need to go over the facts of the case, painstakingly and at length. Apply that statement to the current world economic disaster. I've been going over the facts since 2007 & have a learned a bit, first that it's not a liberal/conservative thingy. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-07 13:03 |
| #9 Marxism? The philosophy of those too dumb to master antisemitism. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-10-07 12:36 |
| #8 I think Marxism is attractive to people with Narcissism and a trace of Dunning Kruger. People who cannot see that a market organised with sound money is a distributed intelligence infinitely wiser than one ruling philosopher king. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-10-07 12:29 |
| #7 The weak prey on the weaker. The top of the food chain eats when it wants and sleeps in the shade most of the day. Unless a big game hunter comes along... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2011-10-07 12:16 |
| #6 Grom: I would think the snake oil salesmen are not ideological. They sell what will sell to anyone who will buy. Opportunists. But who are they selling to, and why are those people buying? There is something wrong with their thinking. What is it? |
| Posted by: Iblis 2011-10-07 11:57 |
| #5 No, some guy wearing a haltar and stilts blowing a whistle and throwing his shit at your car makes an impression. The true believers are fools and gamblers, the others are in sales. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-10-07 11:37 |
| #4 Bat pukey iblis. These people are snake oil, pie in the sky, salesman, like we always had. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-10-07 11:08 |
| #3 Steven den Beste had the best explanation I've ever read. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2011-10-07 11:03 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: gorb 2011-10-07 09:20 |
| #1 The left is emotionally based, the right is logically based. All the logic in the world won't convince someone who feels something is right or wrong. All the emotionally please in the world won't convince someone who knows something is illogical. The only real solution is to get more and more of the undecided folks in the middle to see the arguments and positions for what they are. The left has been better at that because emotionally based tales are easier to remember. Most conservative arguments could be made in a more emotional way, and they'd carry better (Reagan did it naturally) but conservatives loathe this tactic generally because it feels unnatural so the best we get is someone in the audience used as a prop to explain something that just comes across as pathetic. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2011-10-07 08:50 |