Statements about liberals vs. conservatives: agree or disagree?

[BurtWorm]

* Liberals are messier than conservatives. Their rooms have more clutter, more color. Conservatives' rooms are better organized, more brightly lit, and more conventional. Liberals have more books and their books are on a greater variety of topics.

* Compared to liberals, conservatives are less tolerant of ambiguity, a trait researchers say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, "Look, my job isn't to try to nuance. My job is to tell people what I think," and "I'm the decider."

* Conservatives have a greater fear of death.

* Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.

* Conservatives are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, rule-following, duty, and orderliness.

* Conservatives have a greater need to reach a decision quickly and stick to it.

* When people are prompted to think about death--a state of mind psychologists call mortality salience--they actually become more conservative.

* Studies show that when people are prompted to think about 9/11, their support for President Bush goes up.

* Conservatives are more likely to have been insecure as kids, whereas liberals are more likely to have been confident as kids.

Source: Psychology Today via Pharyngula.org

[Lautremont]

1. These all seem reasonable statements.

But you know the old saying: "Diapus... in corn!"

[BoneDaddy]

2. I agree with some and not others as

stereotypes have some truth to them. I think if we looked at each one we could find reasons to agree and disagree.

Without going into all of them, the first one makes some sense to me as I think it has less to do with mess and more to do with control. Although there certainly are a bunch of controlling liberals, as an attitude or style, I think conservatives tend to be way more controlling in their behavior, liberals more flexible.

[NewJeffCT]

3. I think some of that is true in general

But, I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions both ways.

[BurtWorm]

4. * Conservatives have a greater fear of death.

This has long been my suspicion. I recall arguing with conservatives after 9/11 about the pointlessness of going to war with Iraq and being told by several of them, "We have to get them before they come back and get us." And this struck me as a patently cowardly point of view. Over and over again, as they have excused Bushist excesses, conservatives display this very cowardice. Padilla's denention without due process or habeas corpus? Perfectly fine with them as long as one potential terrorist was unable to get to a bomb. Indiscriminate and unwarranted NSA wiretapping? No problem, as long as it held out the possibility of netting even just one terrorist getting a go order through. Nine-Eleven turned the right into a mass of chickens.

[OregonBlue]

5. Don't agree entirely. I know lots of liberals who are actually very tidy,

organized, etc. But, generally I think it's pretty accurate.

[Bronyraurus]

6. This is idiotic

I don't buy any one of these things. In my experience, politics has almost no determinative effect on peoples' lifestyles or personalities.

[I_Will]

7. ...consistent with my (cynical) maxim:

Conservatives (Rs) only take care of themselves; liberals (Ds) take care of everybody else.

I think that's pretty predictive of the behaviors mentioned above.

[rudy23]

11. That's why the right plays the card that Liberals are sloppy, unshaven, therefore bad people

Republicans' ability to take care of themselves is their biggest fallacious selling point.

Like "Who are you going to believe, this clean shaven guy in a nice suit, or people like Michael Moore who don't shave or comb their hair in the morning?"

Yeah, it's really easy to take care of yourself when you remove the "burden" of thinking about how your actions are going to affect those around you.

[rock]

8. Pap

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Well said and accurate.

[rudy23]

9. To oversimplify--I think it's left brain vs right brain, or superego vs ego

I definitely think Republicans favor their left brains, which think in absolutes, logic and rationality--which doesn't make it correct logic--in fact most Repubs' logic is very flawed, and they can rationalize anything.

Intuition is more reliable for big picture thinking, which has to take everything into account.
Right brainers are better at "getting it". They have less of a need for organization, and rigid classification. They're much more comfortable with ambiguity.

Left brainers are very good at details, or with dealing with physical entities. Right brainers are better at holistic, big picture thinking, which involves ideas, concepts, constructs, complex interrelations.

Left brainers try to turn real life situations into algebra, and endow their variables with only one quality at a time, then solve for x. (Iraqis are oppressed. We will remove their oppressors. Therefore, Iraqi's will see us as liberators because we removed their oppressors) Right brainers take a snapshot of *everything*, and make a decision from there.

To oversimplify some more, the reason liberals and conservatives have a hard time communicating, is that their beliefs are so different at the core.

The left brain, is the dominant side. People who are left brained want to control the earth, and remove every threat to the self. They want to make the world in their own image so they can feel as if it's under control. Their main M.O. is to dominate.

Right brainers M.O. is to tolerate, and cooperate. We see our role as earthlings as more of a moral role (be kind to the planet, to animals, and to those who are different from us.)

That's why conservatives have had so much success in pulling the national political climate to the right. Liberals are more likely to compromise, and cooperate with someone who is working the refs, where conservatives will put their foot down, even when someone is attacking someone who clearly deserves it (Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, etc.)

Left brainers value quantity (how much money, how many sex partners, GDP), while right brainers value quality (good books, good music, healthiness, quality of life, quality of environment)

Another way of looking at it is Ego vs. Superego. In short, the Ego represents the self, and the Superego represents the conscience, or "inner critic".

Who's better at critical thinking and issues of real morality (not sexual paranoia)? Who is more likely to believe that "selfishness is a virtue"? Who sees criticism as being against someone?

[cynatnite]

10. Don't know about a few of those...

I don't think conservatives have a greater fear of death than anyone else. I don't know about the tidiness thing. Many of the liberals I know are what I call neat freaks. I'm pretty organized...well, except for my desk. Books, papers, disks and other stuff clutter it up.

Most of those, I do agree with.

[The2ndWheel]

12. "Conservatives have a greater fear of death"

That's very funny. Look at what we do just to extend life for another year or two. Greater fear of death my sweet Aunt Clarabelle. We all fear it. We hate it. We wish we could cure it.

Plus just having such a categorized list as this would throw many of the statements into question.

[BuyingThyme]

14. Looks like random thoughts of a person facing deadline.

[seabeyond]

15. gosh you know.... seeing a higher in both and i squarely into the liberal box

per you post.... i gotta say, a lot of those descriptions are accurate. knowing me vs all the repugs in my life. lol lol. really i value both groups for balance. i just like being the mess personally. wouldnt want it any other way

[rudy23]

16. I think partisan politics is derived from this difference in people, not the other way around

That's why I don't think it's bogus to categorize people this way.

Sure, there are many left brained Democrats, tidy Democrats, Dems that are good at fixing cars, and balancing the checkbook.

It's not a hard and fast thing, but I think we're depriving ourselves if we don't explore why there's this fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives.

I really think they're just catering to people with two different kinds of mentalities that have a hard time communicating with each other.