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what is the psychology of conservatives and liberals?

Thalassa

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Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
To prevent social problems such as crime and rebellion. If society is unstable, it might not be willing or able to defend itself from invaders.


That is promising something that might never materialize in several lifetimes. Has there been any historic examples of this taking place? I think it takes a great amount of faith to be willing to wait generations for the trickle down effect.

I agree there is very little evidence that liberty without social responsibility ever ends well. I mean look at the Wild West, with clusters of towns that had shoot outs and renegade sheriffs, et al. Or what about inner city gangs in impoverished urban neighborhoods, those are small communities that live fairly lawlessly, are those great? Or what about the fact that when the American Constitution was written, people had a sense of community by default, and it was often based in religion. Without that sense of community that was matter-of-fact 200 years ago, libertarianism will be a complete sham, you cannot base a culture on selfishness and expect it to thrive, unless you are a very fanciful individual who somehow imagines you'll be part of the aristocracy at the top.

In fact I tend to suggest to extreme anarcho-capitalists that we already had libertarianism, a long time ago, and it resulted in some madmen taking absolute power and most people living as peasants. This is what they want? Really?

It's existed before, it was just called something different.

Social responsibility without liberty is wrong, but so is liberty without social responsibility.

However, it is human nature to want to protect one's own tribe, and not everyone, and people will express this in varying ways. Some will divide by race, others by nation, others by religion, still others by a supposedly tolerant political ideology that is actually extremely strict and rigid in its world view, and may wipe out the beautiful variety of human cultures.

This is one of the best arguments I've ever read written by a conservative, on the short-sightedness of extreme fiscal conservatism (and trust me when I say that I think extreme liberalism, in the form of global one-world order is also short-sighted).

Marxism of the Right
 

Seymour

Vaguely Precise
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Sep 22, 2009
Messages
1,579
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INFP
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5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
As I've posted on another thread, conservatism is correlated with low Openness and high Conscientiousness in Big 5 terms (roughly SJ). Authoritarians also tend to be conservative, although not all conservatives are authoritarian, of course.

MBTI studies have found a similar pattern, with NPs tending to be more liberal, and SJs more conservative, although does seem that NTPs tend to break more toward independent and libertarian than other groups. Overall, though, the N/S correlation is stronger than the J/P correlation.
 

nharkey

New member
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
26
MBTI Type
INTJ
I don't think there's a link between aspergers or empathy to being a conservative or a liberal. In fact the meaning of those two words differ the world over, in some cultures being liberal is a very conservative in its own way.

In European cultures, a person can be very highly educated, intelligent, and fiscally liberal, and still be socially conservative on race or nationalist issues.

This combo is less likely in the U.S. where you are more likely to have fiscally conservative and socially liberal (libertarians) and then people at the two extremes (fiscally conservative/socially conservtive vs. fiscally liberal/socially liberal).

In fact, being socially liberal may not necessarily have to do with empathy, especially when cultures are erased or downplayed in the home country in the name of being egalitarian. Is it really empathetic to not allow children to celebrate birthdays at school, or not allow Christmas pageants, just so no one is offended? Is that really empathy? Or is it some weird, mutated form of fascism that insists on sameness...while the sameness is not racial, it is government enforced all the same.

In fact countries which are more ethnically and/or religiously homogenous (which would be considered conservative in the U.S.) tend to have more "empathetic" social programs and safety nets (liberal).

Is there a correlation between between being a KKK member or a Randian Objectivist and having a low empathy quotient? Probably. However, that is not the sum total of being conservative.

I didn't mean to imply that there was any clear relationship--only that it looked that way in the small sample I quoted and might be interesting to follow up on. In my NT world more information is almost always a good thing.
 
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