Wildly Generalised:
Right:
Values conformity. Unified by virtue of not allowing individual opinion, free thinking etc. Made up of people who believe that they are right but comply with the party line because they must. Lacks creativity. Represents stability. Maintains status quo. Is irritatingly hubristic but dull.
Left:
Values difference. Accepts that people will have different ideas, is divided at times on some issues. Made up of people who believe that they are right, and want to constructively examine points of difference. Is creative. Represents hope of better things. Changes things. Scares the horses.
Values conformity. Unified by virtue of not allowing individual opinion, free thinking etc. Made up of people who believe that they are right but comply with the party line because they must. Lacks creativity. Represents stability. Maintains status quo. Is irritatingly hubristic but dull.
Left:
Values difference. Accepts that people will have different ideas, is divided at times on some issues. Made up of people who believe that they are right, and want to constructively examine points of difference. Is creative. Represents hope of better things. Changes things. Scares the horses.
posted by Jac | 10:08 am
4 Comments:
Wildly generalised and subject to many many counter examples. If anything 'groupthink' (a kind of conformity) is much more common on the left than the right. To the extent that those on the right will conform to one another, it is the result much more of convenience and pragmatics rather than from any sense that they have to think the same things. That is much more a problem with the left.
I've been reflecting on why it is I'm not entirely sure I agree with that.
Both the left and the right have 'groupthink'. It's how they define and recognise 'wrong' concepts.
The left seem to me to have a mindset that permits harmless wrongness - accommodating conflicting beliefs, allowing people to believe whatever they will, as long as they do no harm.
The Left 'groupthink', I suspect, includes an agreement that people are free to believe whatever harmless wrongness they like, as long as (ironically) what the individual believes includes the belief that people are free to think what they like. I get dizzy thinking about that one.
The Right does not believe wrongness, as defined by their 'groupthink', *can* be harmless.
The kind of open-mindedness you describe is more a characteristic of the centre whether it be centre-left or centre-right. Once you get a way form the centre however you have some very skewed thinking.
One persistent problem with much of the left is the notion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" such that they will see fundamentalist Islam opposing the US regime and suppose then that they have some touchy-feely common ground with a movement that they forget is a bunch of sex-and-sexuality hating religious fanatics.
They will go to surprising mental efforts to re-imagine the world in such a way that suddenly forcing women to be submissive (for instance) is some kind of progressive act of respect for women. I have been to a rag-tag conference of assorted unionists and environmentists in which the crowd applauded someone for arguing that kind of thing.
I've been fumbling with the problem of identifying the centre, actually. Some days, everyone I talk to seems to think they are it.
"(the idea that) forcing women to be submissive..is some kind of progressive act of respect for women"
Oh my. There's someone who I hope will promptly find out which gender has more sensitive and vulnerable organs located on their exterior. (I'm a pacifist, but I can barrack, can't I?)
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