Sunday, September 14, 2008

Anthropological study of conservatives

I won't comment on this blog post by Judith Warner...yet! I read it yesterday, and have thought about it at length, so I do have some comments. But, I would like to have all of my three or four readers comment on it before I weigh in.

Please, if you visit here, read the item and express an opinion.

ADDED: Since only one of my massive reading audience chose to comment (thank you Miss Brazil) I will go ahead and give my opinion of this piece.

Ms. Warner brought a massive load of condescension to her post. She went forth to laugh and make fun of those conservative women who might think Gov. Palin is something other than evil in a lovely dress. She found, to her horror, that these women were actually nice to her. She has no context for understanding that people with political views other than her own might be rational, thinking human beings. It was embarrassing to read how flummoxed she was to find that these were not people out for her blood.

Her final bit about research showing that conservatives can empathize with liberals, but not vice versa was totally borne out by the commenters. The viciousness and hatred expressed by these people was more eye opening even than her own post.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

After many years of observation on my part comes the realization that some conservatives have mastered the old Blue Eyes are Inferior to Brown Eyes Experiment.
Fabled to have occurred after MLK assassination, a Jane Elliot who was a teacher conducted this experiment in her classroom where she informed the Blue Eyed children they were inferior. For one day they had to wear crepe paper arm bands and were subjected to all sorts of prejudice. The next day, she corrected this information and the Brown Eyed children were the despised group with no privileges. It was a demonstration in Prejudice.
Some of today’s conservatives who belong to the Republican Party call one group Liberals. Being liberal in the olden days meant caring for others and taking care of people less fortunate. When I was young a Liberal was broad minded and saw other’s point of view. Today, some conservatives use the word as an expletive assuming every Democrat to be Liberal…as in having abortions, using drugs and stealing from others and generally having no morals. They have done a good job of this experiment here in Texas. People I know who are on every program designed for the poor are staunch Republicans today. They wouldn’t like to be branded a Liberal Democrat. The lower taxes don’t affect them, but the being looked down upon does.
Are there any true conservatives today? And in the end, don’t they all drink from the same bottle? It is only us they have divided.

Cousin Mark said...

I didn't think the Judith Warner column was very interesting. Maureen Dowd was much more interesting this morning in her column. That was an excellent skewering of the Alaskan Annie Oakley.

Cousin Mark has electrical power, cable, and internet. I feel very guilty so we are hosting some of our power-less friends. I'm trying to do a lot work from home because our office still is not open.