Are Conservatives Getting Stupider?

[babylonsister]

http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/

Are Conservatives Getting Stupider?
Filed under: Art/Culture, General — Mark @ 11:32 pm

“I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States.”

Those are the words of Judge Richard Posner, a Reagan appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Posner is also one of the founders of the Chicago school of law and economics, a cornerstone of modern conservatism.

I’m not sure that I agree that there was ever a vital conservative movement, but Posner’s essay this past weekend offers an interesting inside perspective of the decline of conservative intellectualism. You know that there are troublesome tempests taking shape when an icon of Posner’s stature says this:

“…it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising <...> By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.”

Since the fall of 2008, things have only gotten worse. The Palin/Plumber contingent has grown to include Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Loon), Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Miss California. Whatever pretense held by a previous generation of conservative thought leaders (i.e. William F. Buckley) has been abandoned by the contemporary crop of conservatives who prefer style over substance. Their superficial aspirations are exposed by an agenda that values public relations over policy.

Recently Mike Pence, the chair of the House Republican Conference, advised his party peers to cut their legislative staff to make room for communications aides. And bigshots like Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Eric Cantor launched an effort to re-brand the Republican Party, as if branding were their problem and not their paucity of ideas. In this environment, how do Republicans recruit a new generation of policymakers capable of contributions more profound than abstinence-only family planning?

Posner’s focus on this issue is not the first light out of the right-wing wind tunnel. Conservative stalwarts like Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Buckley, Colin Powell, and Arlen Specter have articulated similar laments as regards the right’s brain drain. I, myself, have long been frustrated by the apparent drift in American culture toward an exaltation of averagism as a superior alternative to reason and intellect. It is this trend that allowed an inarticulate, persistently mediocre, dynastic runt to pass himself off as a brush-clearing cowboy and assume the presidency. It is a mindset that defines anyone subjected to higher learning as elitist and out of touch and, therefore, unfit for public service. During last year’s campaign, I wrote a handbook for electoral success in this new era of self-imposed idiocy. It’s a concise guide for how to appeal to an electorate that has been deliberately stupefied by a congregation of conservative anti-intellectuals, and a compliant press corps.

It’s nice to see that there are still conservative thinkers like Posner with the courage to tell the truth about their colleagues, the honesty to face their movement’s shortcomings, and the insight to understand the consequences. It’s nice to see that there are still conservative thinkers who actually think. Unfortunately, what thinking conservative thinkers think is that today’s conservatives don’t think.

[47of74]

1. In a word, yes.

[izquierdista]

3. In a word, no

They have always been stupid:
* I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
o Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington by John Stuart Mill (March 1866)

[bemildred]

2. It's more like the relatively intelligent ones have died or been weeded out.

There has always been a rich supply of whack jobs on the right.

[tj2001]

4. Dick Cheney said you're not a conservative if you don't listen to Rush Limbaugh

"Conservatives who think"? I am not sure they exist anymore.

[Turbineguy]

5. As a group, yes.

But progressively less intelligent people are leaving the conservative fold which would mean a dumbing down of progressives as well.

Stupidity conforms to the laws of physics. The principle is called "The conservation of stupidity". It holds that stupidity can neither be created or destroyed. It can only be moved.

At first, only smart people were leaving conservatism, resulting in a rise of overall intelligence of the progressives. This made the progressive group small, but smart. As more people leave conservatism, the progressive group becomes less smart, but larger. In the end, there will be a small conservative group left over but they will be dumb as rocks.

I hope that clears things up.

[glitch]

18. Lol, very true.

So now we are reorganizing into two groups: each dumber than before.

UNLESS we do a lot of educating the new recruits. Compromise won't get us out of the new dumb.

[tularetom]

6. It's just more of this goddamn insane labeling

For every issue there has to be a "liberal" or "conservative" viewpoint. It makes it so much easier to categorize everybody.

It's just the lazy, worthless news media's inability to deal with the complexity of pubic policy debate in the 21st century. More convenient to place every viewpoint in a box and give it a name. And often, the label is not based on the viewpoint itself but on the public figure voicing the viewpoint.

I resent anyone attempting to define my views with a single word. I think to be "liberal" is a wonderful thing to aspire to. It isn't so terrible to be "conservative" either.

But stupid people love labels. And the dumbed down media are only to happy to give them some.

[Hawaii Hiker]

7. Yes - And they also keep moving further & further to the right

Republicans/conservatives are lucky the world isn't flat, cuz many of them would have fallen off as they've moved so damn far right...

The GOP senate has 2 moderates (Collins, Snowe), practically everyone else is an idealogue...

In the House, they have crackpots like Bachmann, King (from Iowa), etc..

And I'd bet whatever candiate they muster up for 2012 will be far right...I'm hoping for a Palin/Miss California ticket for them, LOL!!

[C_U_L8R]

8. Yes. simple physics

Being conservative makes less and less... especially smarts : - )))

[Demeter]

9. It's Mental Illness and Desperation--a Lethal Combination

And social Darwinism is sorting out anyone above the average, so the average keeps dropping....

[Faygo Kid]

10. Two words: Rush Limbaugh. An uneducated ignoramus.

And their God, Lord and Master, all rolled into one.

He had what - three weeks of college?

[MasonJar]

11. The last sentence is a masterpiece of wordsmanship and a knife to

the gut of today's Conservatives.

[Harry Monroe]

12. Does the Pope shit in the woods?

Is a bear Catholic? Or something like that, I'm not on my second cup of coffee yet. The answer to the question the title posits is obvious, no?

[Doctor_J]

13. Just more ignorant

Hate radio and Cable "news" put forth more and more preposterous lies, but their devotees continue to believe it.

[Hepburn]

14. Not possible....

...is it? For them to get stupider?

Well, maybe...! :hi:

[Bjorn Against]

15. I don't know about conservatives, but the fascists are sure getting dumber

The Republicans have moved so far to the right that there are very few conservatives left in their party anymore. There are some people on the right side of the Democratic Party that I think would qualify as conservatives, and while I think they are wrong I don't know that I would use the word stupid to describe them. The fascists that make up the base of the Republican Party however, yeah they tend to be extremely stupid.

[donco]

16. My thoughts lean towards the old saying

“what come first the chicken or the egg”. In other words does stupid attract conservatism, or does conservatism attract stupid? Seems that the results are the same

[Juche]

17. Conservatives can be very bright actually

Dick Cheney is supposedly fluent in tons of subjects, that is what I picked up from reading parts of Angler. Same goes for Rove. And disagree with him or not, the neocons pulled the wool over the eyes of the whole nation long enough to get their goals accomplished. The rich are richer and we are stuck in Iraq. Michael Savage has a PhD from Berkeley, one of the world's top universities. O'Reilly has a graduate degree from Harvard. Alan Keyes and Bill Kristol met at Harvard. Newt Gingrich was a college professor.

However, I think the reasons conservatives are so stupid is because their fear response is over activated, not because of a lack of cognitive capacities. They are basically just chimps who sense a threat and who shut down their world view into an us/them, black/white dichotomy. Imagine them as people always on the verge of a panic attack, then expect them to make insightful, intelligent statements. So on one hand you have guys like O'Reilly or Savage who earned graduate degrees from the world's top universities turn around and say things so mind bendingly stupid that you cannot help but watch in stunned silence because not even 8 years olds say some of that shit. Keep in mind the fear response evolved long before our higher cognitive capabilities did. So you are talking about someone who shifts from being a bright human to a terrified reptile and back again.

However Palin and Joe the Plumber really are dumbasses.

[unblock]

20. the ones in power aren't the true believers, they're the manipulators

with the likely exception of shurb himself, most of the real people in power on the right know full well that the intellectual underpinnings of conservativism are merely something they can use as a tool to amass, preserve, and extend their power, which they use to enrich themselves.

their real personal philosophy is not at all conservativism, it's me-first-ism,-me-last-ism,-and-screw-anyone-else-ism. deficits don't matter for exactly the years when shrub is in power, and suddenly they matter when obama is in power? gimme a break. these guys are amoral sociopaths in reality. they just talk the conservative line, at least when it suits them, because it helps convince the masses and it gives the left a false target -- we waste time "arguing" their "intellectual" points instead of fighting their power plays.

[Juche]

29. I agree totally

Cheney and Rove are atheists, but they pulled the strings of the religious right with abandon.

Totally agree. The contemporary GOP is run by sociopaths and manipulators who prey on the dogmatic authoritarians who make up the grassroots of the GOP.

[Juche]

30. Look up the online book 'the authoritarians' by Bob Altemeyer

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Altemeyer says 2 personalities are big in conservatism; authoritarians and social dominators. The Authoritarians are submissive, uncritical, aggressive towards change or deviants and fear driven while the social dominators are cynical, manipulative, self absorbed and greedy. Basically the social dominators take over and manipulate the authoritarians.

As an example, Limbaugh is probably a social dominator while Beck is an authoritarian. Limbaugh is a manipulative cynic who is out for himself and his greed while Beck is a submissive, uncritical, fear driven person. Imagine a nation of Becks being driven by a handful of Limbaughs and you get the contemporary conservative movement.

[TankLV]

19. No.

I don't think that's possible, considering that they are as stupid as anyone can be...they're already at rock bottom now...!!!

[tomreedtoon]

21. Yes, and in stupidity is power.

Adolph Hitler said, "A people of scholars, if they are physically degenerate, weak-willed and cowardly pacifists, will not storm the heavens, indeed, they will not be able to safeguard their existence on this earth." (Mein Kampf)

Everyone here on DU believe their intellectual attitudes, their careful use of language and their metal ability will mean they will always win over the cavemen. The cavemen of the GOP know different. Isn't it apparent that Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and the other Bushies are planning a comeback, waiting for Obama to fail, and claiming they have a better, more secure, more militant way to bring back America?

Stupidity is not weakness. Intelligence is not strength. Please don't make that mistake again, as you have so many times in the past, folks.

[starroute]

22. This is tied in with questions of elitism vs. populism

When there were still smart conservatives, like William Buckley, they were basically elitists. They looked around themselves c. 1950 and perceived a world in which classic literature, theater, art, and music were being squeezed out by a wave of largely tacky pop culture. They also had a perception that liberalism in its pursuit of equality was creating a climate of general mediocrity and toleration of inadequacy -- for example, this was in the days when teachers were being told to promote students to the next grade willy-nilly in order not to damage their self-esteem.

So they had at least half an argument in agitating for the return of values and standards and the cultivation of individual superiority -- even though from the start their position was fatally undermined by being tied to the imperatives of business interests, the CIA, and McCarthyism.

But somehow along the way that all got inverted -- maybe it was when the corporations decided that their interests lay in dumbing down the educational system in order to produce compliant drones. Or maybe it was when the GOP went for the Southern Strategy and started wooing the Wallacites and other low-information voters. Or when they began slapping the "elitist" label on liberals as a way of demonizing them with what was now the GOP base.

Beyond that, the last of the old-style Wasp elitists like Buckley are dying out. I don't know of any of that strain who were born after the late 1920's. I think you had to have reached adulthood pre-television to even be able to think in those old-line elite culture terms.

The closest thing you have today to the old-style conservative intellectuals is some of the conservative Catholics -- the Federalist Society types -- who are smart and well-educated but all seem to have a hankering for the Middle Ages and the reestablishment of serfdom. And precisely because their form of intellectuality is religiously based, it doesn't leave a lot of room for debate and inner vitality.

[The Hope Mobile]

23. Is that possible?

I guess anything's possible. Maybe its just MORE denial not less intellect.

[slay]

24. I'm glad it was worded "stupider"

cause to have done otherwise would have implied they weren't stupid to begin with.. :rofl:

[TheWraith]

25. Both yes and no, I think.

The people who are conservatives or former conservatives aren't getting stupider, but the people within the party who had even a few IQ points are increasingly fleeing the tent, or hiding out, which makes the group look stupider as a whole.

[burning rain]

26. Only if it's possible to have a negative IQ.

^

[surrealAmerican]

27. Yes, and he has his old buddy, Reagan to blame for it.

[Faygo Kid]

28. Yes, they live in an echo chamber dominated by Rush et al.

They no longer need listen to any opposing or thoughtful viewpoints.

They have Faux News and Rush to do their thinking for them, and they tolerate no dissent.