Leaving aside the controversial aspects, this seems quite interesting to me, particularly if you take my comments at http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/OnFascism into account. Also note the reference to dogmatism.
A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.
All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".
Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.
"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.
One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".
Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."
But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses."
Researchers help define what makes a political conservative
By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 22 July 2003 (revised 7/25/03)
BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:
Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management "From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.
Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism.
The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.
Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser said.
The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they said.
The terror management feature of conservatism can be seen in post-Sept. 11 America, where many people appear to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of cherished world views, they wrote.
Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of conservatism - an endorsement of inequality, a view reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South S.C.).
Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way, the authors commented in a published reply to the article.
This research marks the first synthesis of a vast amount of information about conservatism, and the result is an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political conservatism under the rubric of motivated social cognition, said Sulloway. That entails the tendency of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained by individual needs based on personality, social interests or existential needs.
The researchers' analytical methods allowed them to determine the effects for each class of factors and revealed "more pluralistic and nuanced understanding of the source of conservatism," Sulloway said.
While most people resist change, Glaser said, liberals appear to have a higher tolerance for change than conservatives do.
As for conservatives' penchant for accepting inequality, he said, one contemporary example is liberals' general endorsement of extending rights and liberties to disadvantaged minorities such as gays and lesbians, compared to conservatives' opposing position.
The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."
They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental.
"In many cases, including mass politics, 'liberal' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote.
This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes, the researchers advised.
The latest debate about the possibility that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the conservative intolerance for ambiguity and or need for closure, said Glaser.
"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.
Glaser acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about conservatism, but not about liberalism.
The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.
Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. The researchers noted that Stalin, for example, was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system.
Although they concluded that conservatives are less "integratively complex" than others are, Glaser said, "it doesn't mean that they're simple-minded."
Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser said.
He pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter, "Look, my job isn't to nuance."
The Lemon had this comment to make on the authors of the study:
Study Reveals Berkeley Researchers are Prejudiced Jackasses
Following a study released by researchers at UC Berkeley that examined The Makeup of a Political Conservative, researchers from the Institute for the Study of Total Wankers released a study that revealed that the Berkeley Researchers are "A bunch of prejudiced jackasses".
Said lead researcher Dr. Leon Wiseacre, "[Our Team] performed a fair, unbiased look at the pseudo-scientific hacks at Berkeley, which was completely unaffected by own own political views or personal opinions. We studied their views and some of our braver members actually tried to make some sense out of the drivel they've written over the years. We fed this data into our supercomputer and it used the information to build a profile of how a UC Berkeley researcher behaves. You see, our study - just like the Berkeley study - is the result of painstaking research and not just a bunch of opinions we threw together with some jargon and a nice cover page."
The research team discovered the following about the Berkeley team:
Uncomfortable with absolute truths, and unable or unwilling to learn anything from history. Live in a world where they are never accidentally exposed to conservative or mainstream thought Unaware of their own ignorance, arrogance, and irrelevance. Hate America. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Auaaaagh! Are prejudiced against people that do not think the way they do. Are gigantic jackasses. Are willing to study any damn thing they can get a grant for. Dr. Wiseacre stands by his findings, saying, "Our study was every bit as fair and scientific as the Berkeley study. Plus, ours was way cheaper."
Meanwhile, Ibn Warraq applies Umberto Eco's points (to which Kharin referred) to Islamofascism at:
Re:On Fascism
« Reply #2 on: 2003-08-14 06:36:59 »
The trouble with this response to "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition by John T. Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Frank J. Sulloway, published in the respected, peer reviewed journal produced by the APA, Psychological Bulletin, May 2003, Volume 129, Number 3, and available at http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/Jost/_private/Political_Conservatism_as_Motivated_Social_Cognition.pdf is that it attempts to use vicious "humor" to reject and deflect the conclusions of a 31 page meta-study (with 6 pages of references), covering a period of some 50 years and 31 countries because the group being studied finds the conclusions unpalatable.
While shooting the messenger has a long history, it remains invalid.
When the results of such a rigourous cross analysis triggers massive cognitive dissonance and revulsion in the subject body, perhaps it is a "clue" that if the subjects don't appreciate the conclusions that they would be better employed finding a new set of motivations. Unfortunately, in this instance, the documented subject motivations of "fear and aggression", "dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity", "uncertainty avoidance", "need for cognitive closure", "personal need for structure", "terror management", "group based dominance", and "system justification" documented in the study as the primary motivations underlying the ideological belief system of conservatives appears to preclude constructive reaction on the parts of those infected by this pernicious memeplex.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
The document appears to be politically motivated; that is, motivated by the self-serving politics of its authors. It attempts to pseudovalidate the crudest slanders with which each political wing routinely smears the other. It reminds me of Sokal's spoof of the credulous entitled TRANSGRESSING THE BOUNDARIES: A HERMENEUTICS OF QUANTUM GRAVITY with the difference that the authors of the document of which we speak seem to be serious rather than tongue-in-cheek. The complex and informed thinkers on both the left and right have a name for simpletons of all political stripes: Idiotarians. The doublespeak and contradictory rhetorical knots in which these dogmatic, unsophisticated and nuance-challenged extremes (both left-liberal and paleoconservative) routinely tie themselves is demonstrated by the following definition:
For the unfamiliar, idiotarians are folks who believe that September 11 was the United States' fault, that Israel is always wrong, and that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are nice guys who are just misunderstood. Like any illness, Idiotarianitis can be acute, serious or mild, but in all cases the symptoms include a decrease in mental ability, a tendancy towards appeasement, and the use of a strange vocabulary, similar to English but different, as outlined below.....
Activist: Someone who has a strong belief about the current situation, and who works with others to advance his or her viewpoint, and who expresses his or her feelings about current events, as long as those feelings are against the US, Israel, or the war.
Warmonger: Someone who has a strong belief about the current situation, and who works with others to advance his or her viewpoint, and who expresses his or her feelings about current events, as long as those feelings are in favor the US, Israel, or the war.
Militant: A misunderstood and sensitive Palestinian person who only wants peace for his people, and who works for peace by killing as many Israelis as he can.
Terrorist: Ariel Sharon, or George W. Bush
War criminal: See terrorist. Please note that war criminals and terrorists can only be American or Israeli.
Sovereignty: Good if we are talking about Iraq's, bad if we are talking about America's.
Improved Security: Strip-searching a 90-year-old grandma at the airport or banning plastic knives.
Profiling: Taking any conscious action based on the fact that all 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were young Arab men.
Racism: See profiling.
Palestinian Nationalism: A good thing, since those people deserve a homeland.
Zionism: A bad thing, since those people do not deserve a homeland.
Legitimate resistance to Occupation: Blowing up teenagers at a disco, or bombing a pizza parlor filled with families.
Afghanistan: A country in Asia that the United States deliberately went into and dropped daisy cutters on all the population centers intentionally killing over 580 million starving children and widows.
Human Rights Violation: Taking enemy combatants and providing them with three full meals a day, shelter, the ability to worship freely, and proper sanitation.
Yassir Arafat: The freely elected and legitimate President of the Palestinian people
Saddam Hussein: The freely elected and legitimate President of the Iraqi people
Oil: A substance which explains all US interaction with the Middle East, except for Israel, which is explained by the fact that Jews secretly control the US government, media, and hollywood.
Idiotarianism involves a worldview that causes idiotarians to oppose the actions of good governments that interfere with bad governments. This is not because idiotarianis have a desire for torture and murder to continue, or for justice and freedom to be destroyed. They don't.
Taking the wrong position in every specific conflict is a side effect of an approach to world politics that says that there is no larger threat to goodness than the US government, and that the dangerous US government must be prevented from ruining anything further than it already has.
Further, they refuse to think about criticisms of this approach, because to them it seems like you can either stand for the US government or for goodness, and to doubt that the US government is evil is to doubt that it's important to oppose evil.
Idiotarians value justice and freedom and peace, and advocate policies that allow all of those things to be destroyed rather than face the truth about the world. Evil people don't value any of those things, and they advocate and enforce policies that actively destroy peace, justice, and freedom.
The difference between evil and idiotarianism is the difference between refusing to see the consequences of the policies one advocates and actually wanting the things to happen.
Idiotarian noun. A term of abuse for an advocate of what are deemed to be irrationalist and subjectivist values that have very little reference to the workings of the real world. Idiotarians are often socialist (quintessentially Noam Chomsky), but can also be paleo-libertarian or paleo-conservative. The defining phrase of idiotarianism is "it is all the fault of the United States": this is usually applied to geopolitics but is sometimes encountered with regard to cultural issues, economic issues, environmental issues, the weather, socks lost in the laundry etc.
The term is obviously highly partisan but is in quite widespread use by many blogs. However it is not a term used exclusively by the neo-conservative 'right wing' and many well left of centre or libertarian blogs have used it describe the more surrealist wings of their particular branch of political thought.
I consider Ibn Warraq's piece to be a critique of Islamofascist idiotarians.
Re:On Fascism
« Reply #4 on: 2003-08-15 04:16:55 »
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with meta studies? A meta study takes all of the accessible material which has been published on a subject and procedes to perform both vertical and transversal regression analysis of the results establishing correlations, goodness of asserted fitness over larger populations and establishing a priority tree to determine significant factors and false correlations which may not have been exposed in more specific studies. Where a good transversal fit is established, as seemed to be the case in this instance, the meta-report provides additional support to the components over which it is applied. The full report of this research is available to you at the previously cited URL http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/Jost/_private/Political_Conservatism_as_Motivated_Social_Cognition.pdf.
Having seen the extreme lengths that you were prepared to go to establish the meaning of your assertion that the authors of the above report were "Idiotarians" I'm sure that you won't mind taking the time to explain how you reached the conclusion that this epithet was appropriate. You would need to substantiate your assertions by showing where in the report "It attempts to pseudovalidate the crudest slanders with which each political wing routinely smears the other." and also expand on exactly where in the regression analysis "the self-serving politics of its authors" allegedly modified the mathematical results from which the conclusions were derived.
As an example of how such a study is normally performed, you might examine an investigation into the machinations of the Bush administration at Investigating the Bush Administration's Promotion of Ideology over Science by the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee. Hopefully, this will show you how such criticism is properly performed:
First identify what was said and done, and by whom, providing appropriate references.
Then show what is correct, and how what was said or done was incorrect, again providing appropriate examples, citations and references.
Then draw a conclusion without engaging in epithet.
According to the National Institutes of Health, research on human embryonic stem cells offers great promise for those suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, heart disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, spinal cord injury, and diabetes.[1] Many social conservatives, however, see stem cell research as related to abortion.[2] In August 2001, President Bush banned federal funding for research on new stem cell lines. In pursuing this policy, the President provided misleading information to the public.
In a nationwide address on August 9, 2001, President Bush argued that his decision to ban research on new stem cell lines would not adversely affect patients. He claimed that “more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines” already existed and that research on these lines “could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures.”[3]
After the President’s announcement, stem cell researchers immediately expressed skepticism about the number and quality of available cell lines.[4] Soon thereafter, in a September 5, 2001, appearance before a Senate panel, HHS Secretary Thompson acknowledged that only about 24 to 25 cell lines actually had reached the state of maturity required for most research.[5] Some of the institutions that had stem cell lines did not have the resources to ship them safely to other labs; others had not developed the lines to the stage necessary for research.[6] Still other lines may have genetic problems.[7] The President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine noted, “The president seems to have information far different from that of the bulk of the medical community.”[8]
In May 2003, NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni told Congress that only 11 stem cell lines are widely available to researchers.[9] All of these lines are potentially contaminated by viruses as a result of being developed with mouse feeder cells. Therefore, they may not be appropriate for human use because of the potential for infection.[10] Addressing this problem, scientists at Johns Hopkins recently announced the discovery of a method for developing uninfected stem cell lines on feeder cells from adult humans.[11] Scientists cannot work with new cell lines developed with this method, however, because President Bush’s policy prohibits the use of lines developed after April 2001.[1] NIH, Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Research Directions (June 2001).
[4] Cell Lines Are Listed; Not All Can Be Used, Boston Globe (Aug. 28, 2001).
[5] Stem Cell Distribution Deal Told Science: The Federal Plan Would Speed Valued Tissue to Researchers, but Critics Cite a Ban on Their Use to Treat Patients, Los Angeles Times (Sept. 6, 2001).
[6] Stem Cell Research Runs into Roadblocks, Boston Globe (May 12, 2002).
[7] Scientists Worry How Policy Affects Them, San Francisco Chronicle (Aug. 10, 2001).
[8] Id.
[9] Elias Zerhouni, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research, 108th Cong. (May 22, 2003).
[11] Human Adult Marrow Cells Support Prolonged Expansion of Human Embryonic Stem Cells in Culture, Stem Cells, 21 (Oct. 4, 2003).Once you have done with the above, and seeing that you appear to be offended by people whom you allege are promoting ideology over science, you might like to condemn the Bush administration in terms as scathing as those you previously dredged up for the highly respected, peer reviewed journal, submitting authors and review scientists you chose to fulminate against (without providing grounds for your criticism). It is perhaps worth noting that the symptoms described in the report which began this thread appear to me to be more than adequately supported by the completely independent research, Investigating the Bush Administration's Promotion of Ideology over Science, and that the administration repeatedly appears to be motivated by the factors suggested in "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" (e.g. at Substance Abuse supra). If you feel that this is an invalid request, the onus is, I think, on you to motivate why you believe that the "Ideology over Science" report should not be seen as supporting the conclusions of the "Political Motivations" report, given that the former appears to show exactly the behaviors and motivations predicted by the latter.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
The appeal to authority fallacy is hereby noted and rejected. As I stated before, peer-reviewed journals are not above being influenced by the politics of those peers, as in the Sokal case, and articles published in them are based upon evidence which has been selected for inclusion and exclusion by their authors, a process that is necessarily subjective and open to bias, unconscious or otherwise. I submit that all sides in this , both the Bush administration and their critics, have tended to favor ideology over its alternatives. I further submit that there is no link between the Bush foreign policy vis-a-vis the war on terror and conservatism per se, as there are many paleoconservatives who oppose it (Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Charley Reese, etc. ), and many social liberals who support it (Charles Krauthammer, Christopher Hitchens, Michael J. Totten, etc.). If there is any validity to the study whatsoever, I submit that its characterizations would most likely apply to social conservatives, of which Christian fundamentalists and Wahhabist Muslims are both prime examples. Anyone who believes that all conservatives are simpleminded has not only obviously not read people such as Edmund Burke, Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan, David Frum, Donald Kagan, Andrew Sullivan, and many more, but is in fact engaging in the same black-and-white absolutism which they claim distinguishes their targets.
Re:On Fascism
« Reply #6 on: 2003-08-17 07:10:00 »
[Hermit] I notice that your reply was not responsive. A number of challenges and requests for clarification and support were ignored, rendering further discussion uneccessary. Despite that, the sheer number of errors in Dees' reply invites identification of the weaknesses inherent in adopting a Deesian argumentive style.
[Joe Dees] The appeal to authority fallacy is hereby noted and rejected.
[Hermit] Dees asserts the presence of a fallacy, but as usual utterly fails to identify or substantiate his assertions.
[Joe Dees] As I stated before, peer-reviewed journals are not above being influenced by the politics of those peers, as in the Sokal case, and articles published in them are based upon evidence which has been selected for inclusion and exclusion by their authors, a process that is necessarily subjective and open to bias, unconscious or otherwise.
[Hermit] The fact that "peer-reviewed journals are not above being influenced by the politics of those peers" does not prove that this is the case in this instance, but rather a smear tactic, insinuating what Dees cannot prove. Dees failed to support his already challenged assertions on these issues, thus his claims and innuendo must be rejected. His repetition of previous assertions is hardly persuasive.
[Joe Dees] I submit that all sides in this , both the Bush administration and their critics, have tended to favor ideology over its alternatives. I further submit that there is no link between the Bush foreign policy vis-a-vis the war on terror and conservatism per se, as there are many paleoconservatives who oppose it (Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Charley Reese, etc. ), and many social liberals who support it (Charles Krauthammer, Christopher Hitchens, Michael J. Totten, etc.).
[Hermit] While suggesting an even handed position (unsupported by available evidence), Dees misses the point that this entire paragraph is entirely irrelevent, as the article was about "conservatives", not about the Bush Administration, the NeoCons or their delusional supporters, despite all three groups, as shown in the referenced material reflected above, demonstrating many of the symptoms identified in the study.
[Joe Dees] If there is any validity to the study whatsoever, I submit that its characterizations would most likely apply to social conservatives, of which Christian fundamentalists and Wahhabist Muslims are both prime examples.
[Hermit] Yet that was not the stated target of the study, and therefore, while this assertion may apply to conservative religious groups, the onus would be on Dees to prove, for any particular group, that the group displays these characteristics. In the case of the Republican administration, their own assertions of being a "conservative" group, and their external actions, e.g. abuse of the process of science and of scientific evidence, as previously examined, supports the applicability of the study to their behaviors.
[Joe Dees] Anyone who believes that all conservatives are simpleminded has not only obviously not read people such as Edmund Burke, Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan, David Frum, Donald Kagan, Andrew Sullivan, and many more, but is in fact engaging in the same black-and-white absolutism which they claim distinguishes their targets.
[Hermit] While it may be true that, "all conservatives are simpleminded", and Dees' list of conservatives may substantiate this claim, I don't intend to argue the point as it was not my claim or, as I understood it, a claim by the study under discussion. Certainly, I don't recall seeing this assertion anywhere in the study in question. Kindly provide a reference in support of your assertion that the study claims that "all conservatives are simpleminded". Or is it merely another strawman to be discarded as unprovable as soon as it is challenged?
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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