I started to write about creativity tonight, one of my favorite subjects. I changed my mind, however, because of a lingering ‘conversation’ going on in my mind. On Thursday, I had a fine exchange in the comment threads of my last diary about what I think of as one of conservatism’s greatest weaknesses, certainly, to my mind, one of its greatest hypocrisies. VClib challenged me on generalizations I made about Republican ‘attitudes’ about voters who vote AGAINST their own self-interest. It has been my experience on a number of occasions that conservative contempt for those voting against their self-interest extends even to voters who vote for Republicans!
More below the squiggle.
I really enjoyed and appreciated the comment thread (begun, here, by cohenzee), as it involved the kind of exchange of ideas I most cherish in this blog.
To go into it a bit further, the idea began for me in some things George Lakoff said about differences between Republicans and Democrats (or conservatives and progressives). I have it in books of his in my library, but that would involve transposing his ideas, where they can be found, easily copyable, online. I found these at the Coach’s Corner blog. The descriptions of Lakoff’s views are paraphrased, but they seem to me to be fairly accurate representations of what Lakoff has said.
George Lakoff contrasts the mental models of the conservative and progressive mindsets. ... The former, he denominates the “strict father.” This worldview is premised on the presumption that the world is a dangerous place. There always has been and forever will be evil in the world. This is a world in which there are winners and losers. There is absolute right and absolute wrong. Children are born to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore they have to be made “good.” This is the world in which a strict father protects and supports the family, while teaching his children right from wrong. Children must be obedient to the moral authority of the father. Punishment sometimes is necessary to secure such obedience. Punishment teaches internal discipline. Moreover, it is what is necessary for survival and success in a difficult, competitive world. Lakoff ‘s strict father model links morality with prosperity. The same discipline that makes you moral, allows you to prosper. Self interest is a moral quality. As each pursues his/her individual self-interest, the interest of all is maximized. To be a “good person,” you have to be obedient, to learn what is right, do what is right and pursue your self interest, prosper and become self-reliant.
Some, however, do not pursue this path. These are the “do-gooders.” A do-gooder tries to help someone else rather than him/herself and impedes those who are pursuing their own self interests. According to Lakoff, in the Strict Father model, “Do-gooders screw up the system.”
Why is this significant? It is significant because an inordinately high number of ‘Republican’ voters vote dramatically against their own self-interest in supporting Republicans. In the black and white world of conservatives (and, not so coincidentally, in the BS world of Ayn Rand!), voting (or doing other things) against your self-interest is a crystal clear no-no, indicative of very weak character and questionable morals. Conservatives believe very deeply in that characterization, and they can't quite manage to 'unbelieve' it if those being weak happen to vote for them.
Obviously, Republicans are well aware that their only natural constituency (relatively young, wealthy, sexist white males) is not a large enough voting block to insure national electoral success. No campaign designed to appeal clearly and consistently to that block can win, even if the goals of that block are those most highly prioritized in the conservative world. To win they have to cultivate in-group constituencies which believe their interests are served by conservative power brokers. This is why we have a political world dominated by exceptionally well-funded campaigns which focus on gay marriage, abortion and entitlements, which cultivate fears, competitive jealousies and an endless lust for Schadenfreude results relative to carefully analyzed and defined ‘out-groups.’ None of the things they use for voter motivation and manipulation are worthy societal initiatives, but they work exceedingly well to make those ‘subject’ to their manipulation believe that their interests are best served by Republicans.
I am employed by our local municipality. Our compensation and benefits are completely managed by public entities. Our benefits and retirement are, in this disgustingly red state, under nearly constant attack by Republicans who administer our state government. They wish to use funds allocated to our retirement and benefits to artificially hold taxes low, even if it means NOTHING will be there for us when we retire. (This, even though they happily change rules to make them more favorable for their own retirements, even before they retire!)
Even so, I know a number of fellow employees (whose retirement funding is under attack by Republicans) who are STAUNCH Republican voters. They cannot afford private schools, but the public schools their children attend are weaker every year because of funding cuts and Republican financing of private education. The time will come, if this trend is not dramatically interrupted, when their kids will not be able to be competitive on a national (forGET international!) basis, because their public educations cannot measure up. They have health care now, under the state, but their kids won't, as things are going, once they are old enough to move out, if Republicans have their way.
Of COURSE the Republican politicians understand the issues. Of course they understand that many of their voters belong to the 47% so cavalierly dismissed by Romney in his unguarded video. You could see the contempt Republicans hold for people who vote against their self-interest in that video, in fact. But if asked about it in a public forum they will lie, and say they cherish their voters and supporters, and that they will work tirelessly to make their lives better, even though their actions say the exact opposite.
And incompetents (like SC Jr. Senator, Jim DeMint or governor, Nikki Haley), and liars and individuals utterly without principle (like Romney and Ryan) happily bank those votes and undermine our entire country with their uncaring, intensely self-serving governance. They perpetually talk down government and what it can achieve, then spend all their energy making sure it doesn’t even meet the low expectations they set.
And in private, they do indeed laugh at the fools who vote for them against their self-interest, and call them ‘suckers.’ They just lack the guts (and the integrity) to do it to their faces. (Yes, a generalization, but I've seen it many times, and anyone can, if they turn the subject to Democrats voting against their self-interest. Voting against self-interest is a sin, for them.)
It’s time for the suckers to wake up. There is never a moment of time in my dealings with my fellow South Carolinians that I don’t work to shine a light on those practices and the hypocrisy of conservatives. Some of that work won’t bear fruit in 2012, some, perhaps not in 2016, even. But the fight goes on.
Here’s a toast to the broadest, most sweeping success we can possibly achieve in 2012, however! And to Obama’s second term with a far more responsive (and responsible!) Congress!
On to tonight’s comments!
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything
without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do
not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From cohenzee:
BeninSC responds in thread started by Chrislove's hilarious story about a LGBT pin with this brilliant bit of comedy.
From highacidity:
Good and true comment by dfe. You just have to include this comment, and the title is just the beginning!
From tonight's host:
Meteor Blades made a matching donation offer for Elizabeth Warren's campaign in Joan McCarter's fine fund-raising diary. But the comment I most wanted to highlight is from JWC, who is facing a terribly difficult situation, with her husband's impending death. But she still took the time and committed the resources to take advantage of MB's gracious offer. It is this kind of spirit which makes us all winners!
I don't think I have ever recommended a generic tip jar, before, but ... it's jotter. And I'm just appreciating what all he does, tonight, thought others might like to, too.
Top Mojo is still broken. See
here for details and updates. Thanks
mik for keeping us updated!
Top Pictures for yesterday, October 19th. Click any image to be taken to the full comment. Thank you
jotter for the image magic!
UPDATE:
There was a problem attempting to publish the Top Comments diary last night. The diary could not be updated, it could not be edited, it disappeared totally out of the Top Comments queue, AFTER being scheduled for a 10 pm publication. It did not publish at 10. I was afraid it was totally gone, in the ethers. But in my personal queue, there it remained!
I consulted with brillig about what to do. She counseled copying the diary into a new diary form, and then publishing that, deleting the first, malfunctioning diary. In the frenetic to and fro trying to get TC up, I failed to delete the first diary, thinking there was no rush in doing that. Finally, TC published! Only, what I did not know was, the FIRST diary published, also!
There were a series of problems with the publication. Not only could I not edit it (to add a couple of comments I wished to add), I could not save it, I could not abandon it. I restarted my computer, I restarted the browser, nothing helped. I am not going to paste in the entire error message I received. Suffice it to say that it indicated there was a problem with the ‘image checker.’ Which it repeated nearly 100 times. The only images were in the intro graphics about TC. I deleted those out of the second diary when I got the same error message trying to save it for the FIRST time. Then it would queue and publish.
After I saw that the diary ‘published,’ I went into the diary to ‘host’ it. It got next to zero recs, and 20 minutes in only about four comments I did not make. The comments were quite topical, which I always appreciate enormously! I refreshed the diary page several times, to see if comments were posting which my browser was not yet displaying, but no ... no new comments. What was strange, though, on my profile page, the diary showed over 20 comments! Where even after the refreshes I was only seeing 7. So ... on my profile page, I clicked the 20+ comment version of the diary, and low and behold, that is where everyone was! And that is what told me the diary published twice.
Then there were two basically duplicate diaries up, each with very worthwhile comments in them. I did not want to delete those, and, over the course of the evening, in my indecision, I never did delete (OR unpublish) one of the diaries. This am, JanF gave me good advice about the diaries, but ... in any case, both are well off the Recent Diaries list, and not taking up space there, so unless an admin advises me to delete one of them, I am just leaving both of them up, so the comments in both are preserved.
In any case, that is how there happen to be TWO essentially identical TC diaries from me up from last night. If you care to continue to participate in the comment threads, please do it in the most commented diary (which is THIS one!). And let me know (either in the comment threads or in a kosmail) if there are further questions about this! Thank you for your forbearance.
Update 2.
On the confusion I introduced (I introduced it! By not explaining my thoughts clearly enough, well enough, it is no one else’s fault but mine) about my diary’s primary thesis, clarified thanks to comment challenges ... My ‘rant’ is not directed against voters who vote against their self-interest. As my quoted authority, George Lakoff, notes, voters don’t vote their interests, they vote their IDENTITY. So, Republican voting voters who vote against their self-interest may be consistent in that they are voting their identity. But, it is a conservative principle that voters should always behave consistently with their self-interest, and that there are huge moral ‘flaws’ in individuals who do not, people they call do-gooders, people, frankly, they regard as fools. My thesis is that their attitude about people voting contrary to their self-interest are considered fools by Republican power-brokers, even if those votes are cast FOR Republicans. They’ll happily bank those votes, then, privately, make fun of the ‘suckers’ they have duped into voting against their self-interest. My feeling is, many of those voters would ... rethink their votes if they realized the degree to which they are considered fools and suckers by those they vote for. I think this is why Romney backpedaled so furiously after the 47% video, because it made possible clear insights into their more private thoughts about ‘fools’ in America, and it isn’t a position they care to ‘own,’ be accountable for, or even reveal in public.
I think there is great potential advantage in making the argument that Republicans laugh at and totally disrespect the suckers who vote for them. Puddytat (in a comment you may see again tonight as a Top Comment) described it like this:
I told one senior citizen Romney supporter that voting for the GOP was like going out and buying the bullets for your own execution after trying to have a discussion with her for a half hour without a dent in her bubble.
Isn’t that great? Isn’t that TRUE?!
My thesis is that Republicans also LAUGH AT voters like that, for voting against their self-interest, and that voters might not look so kindly upon those who laugh at them for choices they make which benefit the laughers and the deceivers.
Again, thanks for visiting my diary, and thanks for considering my argument.