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In reply to the discussion: Why are right wingers so often intellectually dishonest? [View all]DirkGently
(12,151 posts)A person I otherwise know to be rational, caring, and non-violent opined to me recently, without pretext or provocation, that the killing of an Israeli child by (presumably) Palestinians justified the mass execution of Palestinian citizens. The killing of a Palestinian child by Israelis a short time later did not, of course, justify mass execution of Israelis. She identified with one group, and feared the other.
It's tribal thinking, fear-driven and straight from the amygdala (which interestingly is overdeveloped in conservatives). You see it on the playground as a child. Any rationalization is okay, as long as arrives at destroying the out group. Any attempt to introduce even-handedness or empathy is met with a full intellectual vapor-lock, followed by rage.
Conservatives in America are fond of saying liberal thinking is too emotional, but just the opposite is true. Every tent peg in American conservative thought is based on instinctual fear and an unreasoning drive to destroy perceived threats to the (perceived) group.
Conservatives are the club-wielding unga-bungas standing at the gates. They will defend "the tribe" at any cost, but they spend no time thinking about who actually is in the tribe, or what defending it actually means. They collectively stand on chairs and scream that there are bugs everywhere, and won't someone please stomp on them.