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I don't think this is true. Significant numbers of liberals tend to be just as anti-science when it serves their agenda. Some examples: "Monsanto is evil", "GMO

by lend000 10y ago

I don't think this is true. Significant numbers of liberals tend to be just as anti-science when it serves their agenda. Some examples: "Monsanto is evil", "GMO's are destroying our planet", GreenPeace (just in general), "geo-engineering is horrible", "nuclear is too dangerous", etc. If you count economics as a science, liberals tend to discount/avoid even the basic principles of that as well. Liberals just tend to have a few more prominent things on their agenda (primarily climate science related) than conservatives so it makes one side look less-uninformed than the other, when in reality they are both willfully ignorant.

eropple 10y ago
Ehhhh. The difference, to me, is that the conservative moment defines rigidly what is Acceptable Thought in a way that I really do not think is true on the other side of the fence. I don't have to agree that nuclear power is dangerous (it's not!) to be a "liberal in good standing". I don't have to agree that GMOs are dangerous (they're not!). I don't have to think positively of GreenPeace (and boy, do I not!). We are able to have a dialogue about these things internal to our own camp and even disagree with each other with at least some assumption of good faith. And that's really super-duper important. On the other hand, a Republican Congressman in Ohio who went on record as acknowledging that climate change is real and is happening would be primaried by his own party. There are things about which a Democrat would be primaried by his or her own party...but I think they'd be more like "attending a Klan rally" than "accepts that scientific consensus means things," and so we're talking differences in kind here, not merely degree.
- sien 10y ago
  Here is James Hansen being called a 'Denier' by Naomi Oreskes in Gurandiad. That's good faith? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-fo... Nuclear Power advocates on the left are frequently attacked by Greenpeace and many others. As far as Acceptable Thought goes the practice of 'no platforming' and restricting free speech at Universities is not something that the Right originated. Again, that isn't debating with any assumption of good faith. That's just trying to block out views that the Left doesn't like.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Greenpeace is not a mainstream leftist organization. A Congressman in favor of nuclear power, or openly critical of Greenpeace as a thing, is going to get, at most, an emoji shrug by anyone in that mainstream. What Greenpeace Thinks is almost wholly irrelevant to the discourse of the left. The Family Research Council is a mainstream right-wing organization. A Republican who runs afoul of the FRC in a solidly Republican state is in danger of being challenged internal to the party. What The FRC Thinks matters a great deal to the discourse of the right. Hell, I'll go one further: that I can criticize the insularity of parts of the left to hearing things they don't like is something that I could not do when I was of the right because then I was a RINO or a "bad Republican". I'm not a "bad liberal" because I make that criticism. I'm pretty normal. So there's a difference, and it's a difference of kind, and the conflation you're attempting to pawn off strikes me as mendacious.
- lend000 10y ago
  It's easy to paint conservatism as reactionary -- in particular, a reaction to the progressive movement which drives most new policy changes (both good and bad), with conservatives resisting and slowly giving in over time. So that's one theory, but it's difficult to really know because I (and probably most of the readers here) live in a blue city in a blue state, not a major city in the south where conservative ideas would be more likely to be intellectually fostered and furthered. Their strongest ideas tend to be related to economics and individual liberty, but they tend to just copy those ideas from libertarians and morph them in with other things that are not intellectually consistent (like being against regulation of non-localized forms of pollution). In general, both sides appear pretty consistently stubborn to accept anything that originated from the other side. Not HN intellectuals, but the layman (which makes up 95+% of both the Democrats' and the Republicans' voter base).
  - eropple 10y ago
    We aren't talking about a movement with room for intellectual development, though. I took the classes of one of the harder-core Straussian political philosophers currently operating while I was in school. I'm comfortable in my understanding of intellectual conservatism as the people who actually "further and foster" those ideas understand it, but I also realize that those people are without a shred of respect in the American conservative political movement.
    - lend000 10y ago
      Depends on who you pick to represent the side, sure. If you throw on Fox News, or ask the average Trump voter, your initial point would very much be verified. But the same is true about denying or not knowing basic economic principles (again, counting economics as a science), if I threw on MSNBC or interviewed participants at a Bernie Sanders rally (or Bernie himself. Or Clinton for that matter.) And some of the other points would stick as well, like the anti-GMO junk science. Be careful not to confuse your circle of relatively well-educated, reasonable people for the politicians/political movement you feel you best align with.

by lend000 10y ago

eropple 10y ago

Ehhhh. The difference, to me, is that the conservative moment defines rigidly what is Acceptable Thought in a way that I really do not think is true on the other side of the fence. I don't have to agree that nuclear power is dangerous (it's not!) to be a "liberal in good standing". I don't have to agree that GMOs are dangerous (they're not!). I don't have to think positively of GreenPeace (and boy, do I not!). We are able to have a dialogue about these things internal to our own camp and even disagree with each other with at least some assumption of good faith. And that's really super-duper important. On the other hand, a Republican Congressman in Ohio who went on record as acknowledging that climate change is real and is happening would be primaried by his own party. There are things about which a Democrat would be primaried by his or her own party...but I think they'd be more like "attending a Klan rally" than "accepts that scientific consensus means things," and so we're talking differences in kind here, not merely degree.

sien 10y ago
Here is James Hansen being called a 'Denier' by Naomi Oreskes in Gurandiad. That's good faith? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-fo... Nuclear Power advocates on the left are frequently attacked by Greenpeace and many others. As far as Acceptable Thought goes the practice of 'no platforming' and restricting free speech at Universities is not something that the Right originated. Again, that isn't debating with any assumption of good faith. That's just trying to block out views that the Left doesn't like.
- eropple 10y ago
  Greenpeace is not a mainstream leftist organization. A Congressman in favor of nuclear power, or openly critical of Greenpeace as a thing, is going to get, at most, an emoji shrug by anyone in that mainstream. What Greenpeace Thinks is almost wholly irrelevant to the discourse of the left. The Family Research Council is a mainstream right-wing organization. A Republican who runs afoul of the FRC in a solidly Republican state is in danger of being challenged internal to the party. What The FRC Thinks matters a great deal to the discourse of the right. Hell, I'll go one further: that I can criticize the insularity of parts of the left to hearing things they don't like is something that I could not do when I was of the right because then I was a RINO or a "bad Republican". I'm not a "bad liberal" because I make that criticism. I'm pretty normal. So there's a difference, and it's a difference of kind, and the conflation you're attempting to pawn off strikes me as mendacious.
lend000 10y ago
It's easy to paint conservatism as reactionary -- in particular, a reaction to the progressive movement which drives most new policy changes (both good and bad), with conservatives resisting and slowly giving in over time. So that's one theory, but it's difficult to really know because I (and probably most of the readers here) live in a blue city in a blue state, not a major city in the south where conservative ideas would be more likely to be intellectually fostered and furthered. Their strongest ideas tend to be related to economics and individual liberty, but they tend to just copy those ideas from libertarians and morph them in with other things that are not intellectually consistent (like being against regulation of non-localized forms of pollution). In general, both sides appear pretty consistently stubborn to accept anything that originated from the other side. Not HN intellectuals, but the layman (which makes up 95+% of both the Democrats' and the Republicans' voter base).
- eropple 10y ago
  We aren't talking about a movement with room for intellectual development, though. I took the classes of one of the harder-core Straussian political philosophers currently operating while I was in school. I'm comfortable in my understanding of intellectual conservatism as the people who actually "further and foster" those ideas understand it, but I also realize that those people are without a shred of respect in the American conservative political movement.
  - lend000 10y ago
    Depends on who you pick to represent the side, sure. If you throw on Fox News, or ask the average Trump voter, your initial point would very much be verified. But the same is true about denying or not knowing basic economic principles (again, counting economics as a science), if I threw on MSNBC or interviewed participants at a Bernie Sanders rally (or Bernie himself. Or Clinton for that matter.) And some of the other points would stick as well, like the anti-GMO junk science. Be careful not to confuse your circle of relatively well-educated, reasonable people for the politicians/political movement you feel you best align with.