> Evidence and logic were valued; appeals to traditional sources of authority were not.
I'm not a member of either major party, but I'm tired of people labeling the left as the party of 'logic and reason' and the right as the party of stubborn, mindless tradition. Both party platforms are bent to suit political whims, so ultimately, both parties are laughably contradictory in their values.
There's plenty of rational reason on the right. If you don't agree, read Thomas Sowell and I bet you'll be forced to reconsider.
As a side note, why the hell can't I copy text from the article? Very annoying. Had to search for text in the developer console just to copy the quote above.
> I'm not a member of either major party, but I'm tired of people labeling the left as the party of 'logic and reason' and the right as the party of stubborn, mindless tradition.
Left and right aren't parties, and since left and right (also true of liberal and conservative; different names from different places for similar things) were first applied to political movements, the left has been the faction favoring science and reason as ideals and the right has been the faction favoring protection of pre-existing elites backed by appeals to tradition. That's fundamentally what the left/right distinction is, and always has been.
To the extent that's not applicable to some subsets of the groups currently popularly labelled left and right, it's because those subsets are mislabeled.
And there lies part of the problem if you truly believe that everyone on the right is for "protection of pre-existing elites backed by appeals to tradition" ... I'm pretty much a pragmatic libertarian. So I tend to share some conservative and some political views, and lean towards less interference and more freedom.
There are plenty of logical reasons why transparency (especially for non-living entities like corporations, and the government), less government interference (including subsidies, excessive IP and rider spending) and free markets can work better than the level of subsidies, insane tax codes and excessive spending all around that we have today.
I'm not such a hard liner as to say we don't need some spending... I fervently believe it's a critical role of the federal government to provide for a common defense and essential infrastructure. What is essential infrastructure and a common defense are debatable.
This is mainly because as far as our societal norms and economics in general, we can't afford to pay for everything for everyone via the government. If I had my way, I'd severely limit medical patents (compulsory licensing schedule), extension patents and copyright to sane levels. I'd implement dual-sourcing policy for all federally funded payments for prescriptions. I feel that copyright and patents are probably necessary, but not to the extent we have today.
I'd revise grant classifications, and probably remove some... also requiring results of more grant work be open. I'd also suggest funding for more open courseware selection for schools to the teacher level. I'd also push towards reducing DoE funding in favor of more localized funding.
In general I want to see solutions that reduce costs, abuse and government oversight, while having a chance of succeeding and leaning towards more freedom and NAP. This also means far more freedom to upstart businesses, and reducing the influence of businesses (non-living entities) on political elections.
The above are far from libertarian ideals, but the goal is to move in a sane direction. Not every right-leaning idea is absent of science and facts. And not every left-leaning idea (GMO foods are bad for you, vaccine injections cause autism, etc) are based in science and facts.
> the left has been the faction favoring science and reason as ideals and the right has been the faction favoring protection of pre-existing elites backed by appeals to tradition.
I think that would be news to every adherent to Austrian economics.
To explain people in another way, the conservatives tend to be religious and liberals tend to be atheists/secular. This argument of liberals being 'logical and rational' vs conservatives being 'anti-intellectual and anti-science' is the same thing if conservatives said that they are the party of 'God and morality', whereas liberals are the supporters of 'Satan and immorality'.
This is what we get when one side gets to frame the debate. The whole debate on science and reason is framed by the liberals, so they get to decides the rules here. According to these rules, you need to look at 'scientific evidence' of things in order to form your opinions.
My claim has been that people form their opinion first, and then they look at the scientific evidence. Jonathan Haidt has done some work on this in his book righteous mind[1]. In addition to it, the concept of 'Mental Models' is another reason why either side accept 'proofs' or evidence for their opinion.
A simple example is the resurgent 'Flat Earth Theories'. Most of the people would reject any attempts to prove that the Earth is flat. Only a small minority of people who believe that earth is round, spend their time debunking and debating that Earth isn't flat.
To the rest of us, we don't even go around and say "There is some debate whether Earth is round" even though a group of individuals is very heavily advocating for it and writing pages and pages worth of material on it. Would a rational and scientific minded person just reject 'evidence' on it's face value? Apparently we do because that 'evidence' isn't really proper evidence. Saying that there is a conspiracy among the world authorities to claim that Earth is round isn't a proper hypothesis, not because it requires it doesn't sound feasible.
The same thing goes with why the right rejects what left deems as 'scientific evidence and reason'.
> There's plenty of rational reason on the right. If you don't agree, read Thomas Sowell and I bet you'll be forced to reconsider.
In principle I agree with you; there -are- plenty of rational, well educated conservatives. They may have great and rational reasons for being conservative (both on social and economic issues, among others). That's all well and good. I may or may not agree with their views, but I applaud their methods and thoughts at arriving to them.
Unfortunately - at least in the United States - these kinds of conservatives seem to be in the quiet minority within the modern conservative Republican party. If they were at the forefront, we wouldn't be seeing what we are experiencing today.
At least - I hope not.
Today's conservative movement looks nothing like what we usually think of conservative ideals from the past - in either thoughts, actions, or rhetoric. There are echoes, of course, but most of what we see today is that of partisan nationalistic authortarianism, with the conservatism you're describing being drowned out by the shouting of bigots, liars, and thieves.
The frightening part is that a large portion of our population seem to want this form of "government". They either don't see the danger, or ignorantly think it won't turn around and bite them in the end. There isn't any room for discourse or discussion on the pros and cons of any of the rhetoric or legislation. It's instead "my way or gtfo" governance.
> Today's conservative movement looks nothing like what we usually think of conservative ideals from the past
It looks a lot like classical conservatism. It doesn't look a lot like the Republican Party during the early part of the late-20th Century political realignment where it was starting to become a conservative party but had to be careful with it's rhetoric to maintain unity because it still had a lot of Northeastern and West Coast moderates and even liberals, and is extreme compared even to the Republican Party's extreme during the late part of that realignment (e.g., under Reagan.)
But that's just because the realignment (which continued past Reagan, and was largely complete by the turn of the millennium) is now not only complete but also the party establishment has largely adapted to it being complete.
George Lakoff did an excellent linguistic analysis of conservative vs. liberal political speech, metaphors and framing in his lecture Moral Politics. I found it extremely valuable in understanding the driving and defining forces behind the two movements.
To be honest, I'd never heard of Thomas Sowell. So I looked him up. One of the first things I find is this interview: https://youtu.be/rweblFwt-BM?t=50s
I'm sure he has some very compelling writings. But do you find his take on climate to be logical and reasonable? I do not.
That video you sent is funny because it shows Sowell contradicting himself.
He says public intellectuals create demand for their own work by exploiting their authority in one field to claim authority in others. Example he gives: Noam Chomsky. Genius in linguistics who exploited that fame to become a political commentator.
Does Chomsky's background in linguistics really give him any standing to be a political commentator? No.
Sowell is an academic economist. His specialty is social trends concerning topics like race, minimum wage, affirmative action, welfare, etc.
Should he really be commenting on global warming? No!
Check out Sowell's work on social issues and I think you'll find it more attractive (at least intellectually attractive, because you might disagree with it, which is totally okay).
If you are comparing Sowell and Chomsky then Sowell will come up noticeably short. First, Chomsky is a towering figure in linguistics. He's emeritus at MIT, taught at IAS. Really.
Genius in linguistics who exploited that fame Wow. Name another famous linguistics academic who's exploited the fame we bestow upon linguistics academics.
Sowell has a sinecure at Hoover. He's a towering figure at ... ?
You may wish to carefully re-read your own writing. You'll find that when you ask the same rhetorical question about two subjects in parallel that most people are gonna say that you've implicitly compared them.
...and the people with those views tend to not win Republican primaries nowadays, and their views do not have much influence over Republican leaders in Congress.
We have in effect a two party system. Suppose on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is most left wing and 10 is most right wing, the average Republican is 7 and the average Democrat a 3. It used to be the the 6, 7, and 8s made up the overwhelming majority of Republicans, and the 2, 3, and 4s made up the overwhelming majority of the Democrats. The 5s would go R or D depending on the candidate and the particular issues of the day.
What about the 0, 1, 9, and 10s? These were the people that were considered too far to the left (0, 1) or right (9, 10) by the Ds and Rs, respectively. Nevertheless, because we are in effect a two party system they would often join the Ds or Rs, recognizing that joining a third party is largely equivalent to not participating.
So both Ds and Rs end up with a small extreme wing.
In addition to being effectively a two party system, we also have a fairly apathetic electorate. Few people make an effort to actually be well informed. Make a proposal that seems great in sound bites, and a lot of people will believe it is great, even if it does not stand up to serious analysis...because they don't pay attention to places that publish serious analysis.
The Rs managed to effectively lose control of their party to the 9 and 10s. They came along at the right time (when there were serious economic problems that had people very worried) for that apathetic electorate to be particularly receptive to bold messages, and quite uninterested in hearing any real analysis that might show that there was nothing behind the message.
Perhaps the left has no innate sense of reason. That seems logical.
What I fail to understand is how so many republicans deny logic. It seems not that the left is the side of logic but that the right is on the side of illogic. They deny much of our understanding of evolution, climate science, criminology, sociology, and even economics.
I perceive this to be because of unfair characterizations by opposing media.
Example: do all conservatives think climate change is a hoax? Maybe some uncritical, uneducated ones do believe this based on hearsay and because it's 'fashionable' in their social groups. But more informed conservatives, from what I've seen, don't reject the science entirely. They question specific numbers and trends that make the case for climate change weaker than the liberal one.
So to clarify: conservatives are skeptical of specifics, while liberals accuse them of wholesale rejection.
What do you see on The Daily Show? The latter.
Example from the other side: are all liberals socialists? Maybe some uncritical, uneducated ones want outright socialism based on hearsay and because it's 'fashionable' in their social groups. But more informed liberals, from what I've seen, don't want socialism. They have more nuanced views on social programs that, when better understood, are really just public welfare programs to promote equality of opportunity in a society with lots of excess capital.
So to clarify: liberals want reasonable social benefits, while conservatives accuse them of being radical socialists.
What do you see on Breitbart? The latter.
Neither side is innocent. But liberals have claimed a monopoly on the terms 'logic' and 'progressive' as well as virtually all of academia and mainstream media...so it's hard to fight back. Which is yet another reason Trump's win was so incredible & unexpected.
Please realize this is based on no hard evidence, just personal observation.
Interesting. I have the opposite experience. /r/the_donald, which I believe was a significant factor in Trump's victory, and which is still a hotbed of activity for Trump supporters, is overtly pro-gay and pro-marijuana.
In the real world, there was a nearly sold-out inaugural ball in a DC suburb for gay Trump supporters. Support from communities the media like to say is nonexistent exists (although to what specific degree, I'm not sure).
I hear people "from both sides" clamoring for more logic. For example:
* Logical social conservatives (early childhood education plus libertarianism?)
* Pragmatic environmentalists (renewable power + GMOs to reduce pesticide use)
In short, people who like to think, even if they're on opposite "sides". Tony Blair predicts a vast political realignment of reason vs. populism.
Personally, I think we'll (eventually) see a consensus emerge around evidence-based governance, along with a post-scarcity attitude, but that's probably a century or two off.
Sure but restricting ourselves to just Republicans and Democrats (aka not Libertarians) don't you think one of these has a more truth based platform than the other? It isn't like Donald Trump is out there quoting Sowell.
On the same note, not everything Donald Trump supports is death incarnate, or hilter-like. He's been outspoken pro-gay and in favor of plenty of other things that don't meet the hardline pov. I think he's probably not as well spoken as many who have reached his status. I think he's a bit of a sexist bully, though plenty of Presidents with a (D) next to their name have been similarly so (El BJ, etc).
And I've seen plenty of non-sensical crap come from both sides... anti-gmo and anti-vaxxers for starters, not based in science and reason at all.
I'm not a member of either major party, but I'm tired of people labeling the left as the party of 'logic and reason' and the right as the party of stubborn, mindless tradition. Both party platforms are bent to suit political whims, so ultimately, both parties are laughably contradictory in their values.
There's plenty of rational reason on the right. If you don't agree, read Thomas Sowell and I bet you'll be forced to reconsider.
As a side note, why the hell can't I copy text from the article? Very annoying. Had to search for text in the developer console just to copy the quote above.