Decline and Fall

Ross Douthat argues that the recent study showing that liberals and conservatives process information differently shouldn't be much of a surprise, but his analysis falls short:

How could it be any other way? It isn't just that the left, far more than the right, tends to tell brainiacs what they want to hear - that they were born to rule, that the world is just waiting to be reshaped for the better by their combination of smarts and expertise. (Though of course right-wingers sometimes give in to this temptation as well.) It's that we live in a society that makes an aggressive attempt to select for intelligence in the formation of its elite, and then educates that elite in a university system that is liberal to the core - not left-wing, necessarily, or not anymore, but certainly not conservative either.... Small wonder, then, that if you're brainy in America, you probably call yourself a liberal - you were raised that way, after all.

I am willing to grant that our higher education system more often pushes students in a liberal direction than a conservative one, but this isn't because of the vast left-wing conspiracy to turn America into a socialist state. (Which is, to be fair, not what Ross is arguing here.) To the extent that there is a value placed on open inquiry in our society, this is the result of the liberal arts tradition in Western Civilization, the very thing many "conservatives" claim to be so eager to conserve. The liberal mindset is simply more Socratic than the conservative mindset.

This isn't always a good thing (toleration for ambiguity can go too far), and it certainly doesn't hold for all right-wingers and left-wingers (lefties can be as stubborn in their thinking as anyone), but it certainly shouldn't come as any surprise that conservatives are less open than liberals to new ideas. I suspect this study tracks peoples' position along the libertarian-authoritarian axis far more closely than the left-right axis.

In an apparent attempt to verify the results of the study, Jonah Goldberg posted a reader's letter at The Corner:

Hi Jonah,

God bless Bart Simpson for that brilliant turn of phrase (well, the first time *I* ever heard "craptacular" was on the Simpsons).

Anyway, a few years back I decided to go see a psychiatrist. This was after 9/11, though my depression was more about finding work during the deflation of the technology boom. I'd just had two startups die under me, and was having a lot of self-doubt.

I showed up to see the doctor, and the first thing he did was ask after my political views. Deciding I was conservative, he gave me a long talk about how he was going to free my mind from the shackles of the conservative mindset. According to him I'd be better able to see the possibilities and happiness of life when I acquired a more liberal mindset.

I paid my fee and never returned. For me, that one interview really holed psychiatry below the plimsoll line. "Craptacular nonsense" sums it up perfectly.

Oh, and a couple of years later I'm back at a technology startup, where it looks like we'll do well.

I wouldn't want to see a shrink whose main goal was to change my voting patterns either, but considering the fact that the psychology experiment he's referencing specifically found that "conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments," isn't it just a teensy bit ironic that the reader is proud of himself for going down the same road that has already failed him twice?

Labels: conservatism