[NYMAG] How Social Science Might Be Misunderstanding Conservatives

Sounds reasonable.

Well, I don’t agree with that conclusion. How is “A group which tolerates too much difference of opinion among its own members cannot exist for long” biased?

 

How self-victimizing snow flakes might be masquerading as Conservatives !​

 

Hahaha. Right?

But seriously: the social sciences, in-my-not-humble-enough-opinion, are all fairly dismal, full of irreproducible "data" that informs iron-clad opinions about how people think and operate. In the university setting, I think the social sciences may have done as much harm as good so far and they definitely seem to push different peoples further apart rather than bringing them together in thoughtful discussion.

There is a real hubris in any discipline that pretends to really understand how other people think, if you ask me.

 

Social science is probably biased against conservatives as most of the people who are social scientists are probably liberals. So yeah

That doesn't mean there isn't a real tendency for conservatives to be authoritarian though, just that the research if flawed

 

Intolerance of intolerance is intolerant. Doh.

 

While there is some truth to this, I have met very many smart social scientists who don't fit that description at all. Data is supposed to be reproducible, opinions aren't iron clad, and everything is questioned. I don't see the pushing apart argument either since the nerds in social science have absolutely zero impact and influence on the general population and really just talk among themselves. Well, occasionally there is some policy influence. Any social science you see on tv really isn't what's going on. Go attend a social science conference for free (since payment is not enforced), and sit through the hours of hair-pulling eye straining nerdery and I hope you'll come to realize the know-it-alls are there, but exist within the similar levels as any other profession. I've been to a handful of conferences in various fields (medical, real estate, insurance, tech, social science).

 

I agree with a lot of what you've said, and of course I work with a ton of social scientists and am friendly with them.

That said: some of it is being weaponized and it is (perhaps slowly) making its way into the larger dialogue. What really worries me is the brand that places one vector of study (e.g. identity) as the supreme factor over all others (e.g. socioeconomics). I talk with people on the daily who are completely convinced that, e.g., "everything boils down to race." Ph.D. nerdy people, well educated, but it's really hard to talk to them about politics, all because of all these books they cite as if they are gospel. Maybe I'm in an outlier position in an outlier city. I hope that's the case.

 

I’m curious what you mean by that. Like they truly feel there is a racial component? Do they have a very poor understanding of race and genetic background and the massive effect of environment? Do they just live in their own bubble with the numbers?

 

I'm no expert, but the debate is hardly settled. Social scientists are incorporating psychology (big five personality traits), neuroscience (which parts of your brain fire when presented with different pictures/stories), and many other factors into what determines political decisions. If it's all about race, then that's news to me and I'll keep my eyes open for that in the next conference I attend.

 

"Racial construct" more than anything biological, which they readily admit doesn't really exist. Again, maybe it is just my university's unique bubble. That I'm even slightly afraid to post these thoughts should tell you something about the health of my institution though.

 

Okay, I'm getting the rundown from some more knowledgeable friends. Supposedly, there is a movement in the literature that says after studying like 80 years of survey data, attitudes/factors related to race (exposure to different races, comfort level, other things) seems to be a better predictor of how someone votes moreso than other variables that were considered the most important (Socio Economic Factors, Party Identification, other personal traits). I don't think it's settled discussion, but supposedly there's evidence supporting that theory. It's just a theory and how good of a predictor it is, I don't know, but I'll look into it. Is this what you've heard lately?

 

@Os Trigonum

 

A white leftist hates and shames themselves for things they never did everyday so don't expect much thoughtfulness from those folks.

 

Interesting read...I hate starting threads and this seemed like the best thread for the topic. It's a long twitter thread so I'm just going to copy and paste what she says in it instead of posting every twitter post as it would take up a lot of space. Disclosure: I have not read the book, but I may after reading this.



This book is for anyone who says, "OMG what's happening right now in the US is completely new and never happened before!"

"History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes" (attributed to Mark Twain).

What's happening now differs in particulars, but it's the same story.

That’s not to minimize this moment. We’re at a crisis point, tipping toward oligarchy (a hierarchy with a few people at the top controlling all the nation’s wealth.) But this isn’t the first time we’ve been here, which means we have a blueprint for getting out.

We start with a question: How could Jefferson, a slaveowner, write the words: "All men are created equal”? This is what Richardson calls the central paradox of our nation: Slaveholders created a “democracy" while justifying slavery. The paradox has plagued us ever since.

Jefferson and others believed that some people (women, Blacks, etc.) weren’t capable of responsible self-determination. Removing them from the body politic meant everyone else could be equal. If you let them vote, they’ll vote to dominate and take from those who are capable.



Thus allowing them to participate in politics would lead to chaos, anarchy, and a breakdown of self-governance.

The Plantation System was built on the idea that capable men enslaved (or exerted control over) those who were incapable of responsible self-governance.

Here’s the problem: When you create a hierarchy (some people higher than others) those at the very top consolidate their power and become oligarchs. Thus a democracy built on a hierarchy is always in danger of tipping into oligarchy. Oligarchy harms all but a few at the top.

Before the Civil War, a few plantation owners consolidated power until they controlled all three branches of the federal government. These plantation oligarchs kept poor whites in line by advancing the following myth: America was built by the yeoman, a self-reliant farmer.



Allowing for universal equality—allowing those supposedly incapable of self-governance to vote—would reduce self-reliant white farmers to subservience because, if given power, the incapable would pass laws allowing them to seize the property of those who can produce.



Slaveowners thus argued that any attack on slavery was an attack on liberty and democracy. Lincoln put forward another view of democracy: All men were created equal mean ALL men, and the function of government is to create equal opportunity for all people.

For a few years after the Civil War it appeared Lincoln’s view would prevail—but the former Confederates fought back hard. They lost the war but didn’t give up the fight. They argued that a government creating opportunity for Blacks really just meant giving handouts.

And handouts required robbing the “capable” of their property and giving it to those incapable. The former Confederates, by means of domestic terrorism (KKK) rolled back the Civil War advances until they had re-established Jim Crow and a hierarchy.

After the Civil War, the Confederate ideology found a new foothold on the frontier. The frontier was based on the cowboy myth: A [white] man worked hard, was self-reliant, “tamed” the “savage” land, and didn’t need government help.



This was as untrue as the yeoman myth. In fact, “taming” meant plundering, killing, and enslaving. Moreover, federal regulations made westward expansion possible. The frontier—like the Old South—was based on a hierarchical ordering of people. See this sampling of laws:



The industry of the west was labor intensive. Chinese immigrants worked on the railroads, then were denied equal rights. The Mexicans who were originally on the land did the picking. White men dominated them. Thus a new hierarchy / oligarchy was created in the west.

(Richardson touches more on the oligarchy of business tycoons in her last book.) The New Deal wiped out the existing oligarchies and created a middle class. However, Blacks and minority communities were excluded. This started to change in the 1950s and 1960.

The pushback started right away. What Richardson calls the Movement Conservatives took root in the 1950s, and took over the Republican Party by the 1980s. Her insight is that Goldwater and Reagan used the same arguments as the plantation owners and western oligarchs.

The argument: There are makers and takers. Takers just want handouts. Giving handouts means taking from those who are self-reliant, thus taking their liberty and destroying democracy. The result of empowering the takers would be chaos and anarchy.



This what Trump means when he calls BLM protesters dangerous enemies of America. By 2015, the United States was tipping dangerously back toward oligarchy, with wealth and power once more becoming dangerously concentrated in the hands of relatively few people.



The thing to remember is this: The New Deal got us out of oligarchy and moved us toward a fairness government. What allowed the New Deal was that FDR had a majority of voters behind him. And back then, voter suppression wasn't just rampant. It was legal. So we can do it.

Great insight and I'm sure @HC_Richardson would agree: Myth and what she calls "narrative" is more powerful than guns. That's why the South won: They were outgunned, but their narrative triumphed. (I took a screenshot to include both @standorn tweets)