No, Obama, Conservatives Are NOT Just Liberals With A Different Set Of Ideas

[Joanne98]

I don't know when I first thought it, but as soon as I did, it became deeply etched in mind: "Obama thinks that conservatives are just liberals with a different set of ideas." For me, this captured one of his fundamental misapprehensions-though one that is surely broadly shared among establishment liberals, neo-liberals and the like. This is such a typically narrowminded thing for a liberal to think-all the while thinking he's being broadminded--quite unlike the DFHs such as you and me.
But as a whole liberals and conservatives don't just differ in their ideas-as Obama himself well knows in a different compartment of his brain. They differ in attitudes, in sensibilities, in ways of thinking about ideas, as well as in larger life purposes. The origins of modern conservatism lie in the European landed aristocracy, descended from a predatory warrior class. Although tens of millions of self-identified conservatives today are culturally, historically, and/or genetically far removed from those origins, there is nonetheless a continuity in the kinds of life activities that such a culture breeds.

Similarly, the origins of modern liberalism lie in the European urban middle class-the burghers, or bourgeoisie, who inhabited a very different life-world, with some very different kinds of activity, much of which centers around the finding of facts, and all manner of intellectual pursuits that flow from or depend on factual knowledge. This includes all manner of occupations dating back centuries, even millennia-from artisans to shopkeepers, traders, lawyers, bankers, doctors and teachers-as well as occupations that scarcely existed as such more than two to five generations ago, such as scientists, technicians, engineers, etc.

From the conservative aristocracy's point of view, all such occupations are inherently servile: the aristocracy rules, it exists to rule, and all the factually-oriented occupations exist solely to serve the ruling aristocracy.

continued>>>
http://www.openleft.com/diary/13141/no-obama-conservatives-are-not-just-liberals-with-a-different-set-of-ideas

[BlooInBloo]

1. Quote where Obama says that conservatives are just liberals with a different set of ideas?

Thanks!

[Doctor_J]

2. First, it was the author of the original piece, not Joanne, that made this claim

Second, the author says in the first sentence that (s)he just thought it up.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Yes, I'm aware of both of those facts.

[stray cat]

3. Many conservatives are working class Americans and many are my co-workers

and some of them are the best people I know.

[Doctor_J]

5. Maybe, but if they think Sarah Palin would be a good president,

they're either extremely ignorant or suffer from some sort of mental illness.

[alarimer]

6. No, it's a whole different mindset.

Much more authoritarian.

And you cannot reason with them, like normal people. Obama needs to learn this and maybe he has. Compromise with these people is like compromising with snakes.

[griloco]

7. how can one argue

with someone who knows what Obama thinks?