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Are people born conservatives?

S

StrikeNinja24

Banned
Considering it seems like any topic is open, let's look at a study back from 2011 that I found particularly interesting.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...1104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds

According to this, the amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the human brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. The bigger it is, the more paranoid and frantic a person gets in times of stress and fear. Meanwhile, Liberals tend to have a larger region to handle complexity. It's got me thinking, the entire Republican base is based off of fear. And the conversations tend to go nowhere between any of the parties or independents in general. Is this because they aren't being met on the same wavelength as where these platforms come from?

Guns and the Military? Fear of outside threats that could cause harm to oneself

Religion? Fear of Death and the unknown. It's more comforting to know than to not know.

Desires for Laws? Fear of lack of structure and lawlessness, even when it doesn't apply. Hell, the whole voter ID horseshit was over an almost nonexistent issue because of something that could theoretically could happen to upset the current structure.

Recently, Donald Trump? Fear of Deep State and being neglected by the government, which, let's be honest, a lot of the Republican voters depend on for multiple things.

So, are Republicans ran off of fears and insecurities? Are they born with these insecurities that get reinforced by their surroundings growing up? And how's the best way to handle these scenarios by an outsider?

I'd like to see where the Newgaf takes a conversation like this.
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
By the way you're viewing immense numbers of people, I wouldn't be so sure of how well you handle complexity.
 
Tumle

Tumle

Member
I don’t know I seem to see fear from both sides.. fear of a small minority of nazis, fear of a government gone haywire..

I think the media is mostly to blame, from the fear it creates.. but apparently it’s the only way they can stay relevant now a days, by praying on people’s fears..

Like a great philosopher once said:
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side”
;)
 
Bolivar687

Bolivar687

Banned
I would be hesitant to partition broader concepts like religion and law or even particular issues like guns and military according to the ideological manifestations of different brain configurations. Those things are expressed in different ways along the left-right continuum, both today and throughout history.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
Tumle said:
I don’t know I seem to see fear from both sides.. fear of a small minority of nazis, fear of a government gone haywire..

I think the media is mostly to blame, from the fear it creates.. but apparently it’s the only way they can stay relevant now a days, by praying on people’s fears..

Like a great philosopher once said:
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side”
;)
Click to expand...

The MSM survives now on being too small to actually cover things in a proportionate way.

We hear the most sensational stories in the news, but they effect tiny proportions of the population. Most national news would be better off being strictly local; it carries the sense of scale better. In a country of 330,000,000 people, there will always be something bad happening to someone. It's unavoidable by the law of large numbers.
 
S

StrikeNinja24

Banned
Bolivar687 said:
I would be hesitant to partition broader concepts like religion and law or even particular issues like guns and military according to the ideological manifestations of different brain configurations. Those things are expressed in different ways along the left-right continuum, both today and throughout history.
Click to expand...

Why not? Most things can be broken down to the simplest levels of basic wants and needs. Especially when it comes to your brain and the decisions that are made.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
To the broader topic, I view human development (nature and nurture) as a crystallization process.

Imagine a string saturated with your brine of your choice (let's say NaCl). You suspend the string into a supersaturated solution of NaCl, and you get NaCl crystals growing. That analogous to the starting point which we all have, although we all have slightly different starting conditions. This is nature, the base.

Now start adding in more NaCl, but occasionally mix in some other ions to disrupt the growing matrix. The shape may change a little or a lot or not at all, depending on what exactly you add, but nonetheless what you add is incorporated into the matrix to some extent. This is nurture, the environment, what we actually see.

At some basic level, people will be what they started out as, even if what you see now is different.
 
dropkick!

dropkick!

Member
StrikeNinja24 said:
How so? Honestly every post you make reeks of cowardice.
Click to expand...

I will say, the more accurate quote is Conservatives are just Liberals who got mugged...

In its core, U.S. conservatives are constitutionalist, and it is largely what would people call classical liberals. Government cant restrict your speech, invade your privacy, all that jazz. But since they know how any government might someday try to say screw you (like the UK did before revolution), they put on failsafes (like weapon ownership, small government that would be almost powerless to do such things etc).

Most of the issues that conservatives believe are founded on liberal values where you should be able to do what you decide to do without government interference or rule of majority ruling over you. But they also expect that some people will try to rule over you anyway. That little tidbit makes them love things like free market, small government, weapon ownership etc.
 
D

David___

Banned
The Republican platform is based of instilling fear into people. The fact that they need a constant boogieman in their news cycle for their base shows this. See: Obama, Hillary, or this "Deep State" they currently latched onto.

Also see what kind of reactions you get when bringing up gun reform where people jump straight onto the paranoia train that the government is going to instantly go full on authoritarian as soon as they ban assault weapons. Kinda ironic how that works considering the point on military you brought up as well.
 
Spheyr

Spheyr

Banned
David___ said:
The Republican platform is based of instilling fear into people. The fact that they need a constant boogieman in their news cycle for their base shows this. See: Obama, Hillary, or this "Deep State" they currently latched onto.

Also see what kind of reactions you get when bringing up gun reform where people jump straight onto the paranoia train that the government is going to instantly go full on authoritarian as soon as they ban assault weapons. Kinda ironic how that works considering the point on military you brought up as well.
Click to expand...
It's funny that you call the Republican platform "based on instilling fear into people" and then bring up the #1 topic Democrats use to instill fear in people. The Gun Boogieman. "If we don't take their guns they'll kill us all!"
 
D

David___

Banned
AranS said:
It's funny that you call the Republican platform "based on instilling fear into people" and then bring up the #1 topic Democrats use to instill fear in people. The Gun Boogieman. "If we don't take their guns they'll kill us all!"
Click to expand...
Is it really a boogieman when we have a mass shooting almost weekly while other countries rarely, if ever have one? Its almost like guns are meant to kill, or something
 
Spheyr

Spheyr

Banned
David___ said:
Is it really a boogieman when we have a mass shooting almost weekly while other countries rarely, if ever have one? Its almost like guns are meant to kill, or something
Click to expand...
Guns aren't the problem. People are. Remove the five worst (and not coincidentally Democrat controlled with high amounts of 'gun control" laws) cities from our crime statistics and we drop to below 180 out of 193 countries in firearms crime.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
David___ said:
Is it really a boogieman when we have a mass shooting almost weekly while other countries rarely, if ever have one? Its almost like guns are meant to kill, or something
Click to expand...

Mass shootings are generally concentrated in cities. The recent school shooter trend is aberrant, and still small relative to US population size versus similar acts in Europe (truck attacks, Brevik's attack).

I think there is a larger correlation between gun violence and the idiotic drug war than guns themselves. Unlike with Prohibition and the mafia, we have decades of established violent groups which exist because of the drug war. A lot of violence, especially urban violence, would vanish over time if the drug war was ended. More would disappear if we did something about the cartels in Mexico.
 
S

StrikeNinja24

Banned
infinitys_7th said:
Mass shootings are generally concentrated in cities. The recent school shooter trend is aberrant, and still small relative to US population size versus similar acts in Europe (truck attacks, Brevik's attack).

I think there is a larger correlation between gun violence and the idiotic drug war than guns themselves. Unlike with Prohibition and the mafia, we have decades of established violent groups which exist because of the drug war. A lot of violence, especially urban violence, would vanish over time if the drug war was ended. More would disappear if we did something about the cartels in Mexico.
Click to expand...

Or I can make it easier: More people are in cities and there's more money involved in cities. Therefore more instances where these scenarios happen.

Now, let's go by state and by population: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...nce-see-where-your-state-stacks-up/359395002/

Though I have to say, what you said does fit into the mantra of fear of outside forces. Blaming an central area that's most likely away from where you live, then blame an easy target in another country.
 
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Malakhov

Malakhov

Banned
I used to be very leftwing when I was in my 20s. I have turned into a conservative in my low 30s.

Theres a famous saying here, if you arent a liberal in your 20s you have no heart and if youre not a conservative as you grow up you dont have a head on your shoulders.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
StrikeNinja24 said:
Or I can make it easier: More people are in cities and there's more money involved in cities. Therefore more instances where these scenarios happen.

Now, let's go by state and by population: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...nce-see-where-your-state-stacks-up/359395002/
Click to expand...

First off, I reject the combining of "suicide by gun" with "homicide by gun". I oppose the government implementing mass restrictive policy to prevent suicides. That smacks too much of the government treating people like property.

Second, I look at this as a signal and response situation.

I see two potential signals for gun violence - the drug war, and the presence of guns. The drug war is the easier signal to adjust, and the less coercive on the population. Not to mention much the easier to implement, by virtue of doing nothing being easier than doing something. The US has a crime problem anyway relative to most countries - most of Europe does not have a narcostate to the South, which by itself contributes to violence in the Southwestern US. Always do the option which requires the least effort for the most gain. We would save a lot of lives just by ending the war on drugs and crippling the cartels (beyond the economic benefits of a functioning Mexico and a legal drug market). We can look at guns after that.

Also with regards to signal and response, the recent waves of school shootings (or incidents like Mandalay Bay) do not correspond to a change in "guns" in the US. Such incidents were seen much more sporadically before. I believe the uptick is due to media attention.
 
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LegendOfKage

LegendOfKage

Member
StrikeNinja24 said:
So, are Republicans ran off of fears and insecurities?
Click to expand...

Do democrats run off of hubris and over-confidence? That would explain the last election.

To be serious though and actually engage with an interesting question, I think you can make the argument that any ideology "fears" opposing thought and fears more of the world gravitating away from their worldview.

What happens on college campuses to shutdown conservatives seems pretty fearful to me. People being attacked for holding up a "black fathers matter" sign seems pretty fearful to me. Although it's extremely important to realize those are individual incidences, and should absolutely not be held up as an example of "what liberals are really like" or whatever. Conflation isn't a sound argument. But there's definitely a lot of fear from the left right now, especially after Trump became president. Think of when he became president, and the general reactions of liberals. Talk about fear. Full disclosure, I'm not a Trump supporter.

Also, if you look at the ratio of liberals to conservatives in psychology today vs 30 years ago, that might be another indication how this conclusion was reached. I'm sure there would be lots of interesting character aspects to examine as they relate to personality traits and political identity, but "fear" is a pretty negative character trait to have, so let's focus entirely on that one for some reason.

I don't agree with everything this guy says either, but here are some other character traits associated with liberals and conservatives, and the rather important, respectful, and humble realization that people with opposing ideologies need each other. I'd like to see more liberals and conservatives come to a realization that having good people of both ideologies makes the world a better place. I believe it does. I have people in my life that don't share my political beliefs at all, but they're good people. Everyone should be able to say that, and it's a shame more people don't feel that way these days.



Also, if what Peterson says here is true, I have to wonder if there's a correlation between conscientiousness and fear. Maybe careful people fear mistakes, and more carefree people do not, so they have less fear in general. Conservatives do often fear change, and change can feel like a form of disorder, so that could be a contributing factor as well.

One last thought, though. If people are born conservatives, then they can't help that. So what's the difference between discriminating against someone poorly because of their race, their gender, or their political identity? Should both liberals and conservatives become a protected class?
 
pramod

pramod

Banned
Malakhov said:
I used to be very leftwing when I was in my 20s. I have turned into a conservative in my low 30s.

Theres a famous saying here, if you arent a liberal in your 20s you have no heart and if youre not a conservative as you grow up you dont have a head on your shoulders.
Click to expand...

Same with me. I've gotten more "conservative" recently but I don't think it's because I got "smarter" as I got older, it's more of the fact that the Democrat party has totally gone off the rails. My political stances and philosophies have barely changed in the last 2 decades...if anything, I've become more liberal, but in today's political climate my views are considered "extreme right wing". I was a fan of Bill Clinton, if someone like him ran again I would vote for him in a heartbeat...but someone like Bill Clinton these days would be considered a white supremacist Republican or even a Nazi. That's how far left the Democrats have swung.
 
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M

mid83

Member
Come on, let’s be honest here. the Democrats have been running on outrageous fear since Trump won.

Yes, Trump is an asshat, but since he won, many on the left have been acting as if we are one executive order away from LGBT, minorities, and women being thrown in camps. There is fear that Putin is literally running our government despite no evidence, other than an unverified dossier, of the fact. There is fear of some wide spread neo-Nazi alt-right movement, despite the fact that both movements are a small but vocal groups of pieces of human garbage, and most people on both sides of the isle despise them. The madness on college campuses that any opinion that doesn’t fit liberal ideology must be shut down.

So please, let’s not act like conservatives are running on fear while liberals have been reacting calmly to events since November 2016.
 
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It's Jeff

It's Jeff

Banned
I can buy a biological factor, I mean, it does make evolutionary sense that reactive fear could be what helped our ancestors survive. But on party lines? So fear of immigrants, you're conservative. Fear of the ice caps melting? Liberal. I'm afraid of heights and bees and people touching my eyes but neither of those previously listed. Third party?
 
F

Frozen Bagel

Neo Member
The better question is: what the hell does conservatism even mean anymore in this country? And why wave it around like a brand name while rooting for it like a sports team in a football stadium? “Oh, you’re conservative/liberal? GOOD FOR YOU!”

Now kindly bug off, some of us has to sweep the massive political mess left on the main foyer
 
finowns

finowns

Member
You should check out Jonathan Haidts, The Righteous Mind. It talks about this and tribalism; really good perspective on conservativism and liberalism. Why the ideologues think of each other in stereotypes e.g lazy welfare recipients / greedy racists.
 
V

Vicetrailia

Member
“Human beings everywhere, male and female, not only differ from one another but continually differentiate themselves during their lifetimes,” Timothy Ingold
 
Gun Animal

Gun Animal

Member
the nature v. nurture debate will never go anywhere conclusive and it's a matter of faith and/or personal experience whether you believe human behavior is largely determined by genetic instinct---like every other lifeform on earth---or whether we are special, blank slates, in need of constant indoctrination lest we be perverted by bad thinkers.

personally i know in my heart that the earth is flat and yes i WILL choose this hill to die on (speaking of which, how could hills exist on a spherical earth? checkmate, globecucks)

special banme edit: if you're having fun with the idea that conservatives are born racist or whatever the article that i didn't read is probably implying, don't think too hard about the implications that this kind of biological determinism would have on the subject of Race. Also imo even tho 64% of lethal dog attacks in the US are by Pit Bulls, I know that Pit Bulls are harmless sweet babies and that you should blame the owner, not the dog, otherwise you are dog racist. But what I don't get is, why are there so many bad Pit Bull owners? Maybe they're all conservatives.
 
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P

Punchpudding

Member
A couple more interesting findings, you can make liberal thinkers more conservative by priming them with threats and you can make conservative thinkers more liberal by priming them to imagine they have super powers (http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-turn-conservatives-liberal-john-bargh-psychology-2017-10).

I feel like this shows that the gap isn't as big as we make it out to be; we tend to want similar things but disagree on how to get there and how we assess risk.
 
synchronicity

synchronicity

Member
Any position/mental state that requires life/the universe to be anything other than what it is in order to be satisfactory, is rooted in fear.
 
D

Dunki

Member
Musky_Cheese said:
The only thing people are born as is hypocrites. We all are, and we hardly ever know it.
Click to expand...
I do not think so. Children are very innocent. Colorblind have no prejudices etc. The moment they get in concentrate with people they getting manipulated by society.
 
Mohonky

Mohonky

Member
StrikeNinja24 said:
Considering it seems like any topic is open, let's look at a study back from 2011 that I found particularly interesting.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...1104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds

According to this, the amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the human brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. The bigger it is, the more paranoid and frantic a person gets in times of stress and fear. Meanwhile, Liberals tend to have a larger region to handle complexity. It's got me thinking, the entire Republican base is based off of fear. And the conversations tend to go nowhere between any of the parties or independents in general. Is this because they aren't being met on the same wavelength as where these platforms come from?

Guns and the Military? Fear of outside threats that could cause harm to oneself

Religion? Fear of Death and the unknown. It's more comforting to know than to not know.

Desires for Laws? Fear of lack of structure and lawlessness, even when it doesn't apply. Hell, the whole voter ID horseshit was over an almost nonexistent issue because of something that could theoretically could happen to upset the current structure.

Recently, Donald Trump? Fear of Deep State and being neglected by the government, which, let's be honest, a lot of the Republican voters depend on for multiple things.

So, are Republicans ran off of fears and insecurities? Are they born with these insecurities that get reinforced by their surroundings growing up? And how's the best way to handle these scenarios by an outsider?

I'd like to see where the Newgaf takes a conversation like this.
Click to expand...

Its not the first time Ive heard of people being born with a distinct difference in perception of fear; but this primarily related to matters of self preservation vs risk.

A mixture of both would be beneficial to group; people who are likely to push beyond boundaries or safety and normality as a means of furthering what might be possible or more readily risk takers that are necessary to test possibilities and then those who are more likely to refrain from taking risks as a means of survival. If everyone spent their lives taking risks, a population could go backwards, having an equal number of those people who are the opposite, that being those who do not take risks and instead avoid any task or experience that might be seen or known to be life threatening ensures a decent number of the population continues to exist.

The best way to explain it; why some people will bungee or jump from a plane while others simply dont or wont. From an evolutionary stand point, you had to have the first person who was prepared to pick up a tool to take on a predator vs the person who would much rather flee. Or those that would stay home and look after those around them vs those that would readily go to war.

Ive never heard of this being a 'liberal vs conservative' comparison though and Im not sure how it applies when you consider the context of this discussion is focussing purely on a US centric position; when you take for instance entire countries built on fundamentality ultra conservative views with others being far more liberal. Doe s that mean those nations or groups are born with a pre-disposition to those traits? I dont think so.

On a political spectrum I dont think this plays much role, at least not a large enough role to overcome nurture and social bias.
 
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gioGAF

gioGAF

Member
That opening post is wildly biased, so I will ignore the terrible points it makes.

I think human beings start out more liberal and become more conservative as they get established.

During their early years, people are trying to explore their environment and find their place. They are more willing to take chances, try new things and entertain new ideas.

As they get older, they figure out what they like and don't like, so this leads to trying fewer new things and entertaining fewer new ideas (+conservative). They also might have a family and a career, which means they aren't willing to take as many chances as before (+conservative).

So, in general, people are usually more liberal early on and become more conservative over time. I don't think either of these words (liberal/conservative) should be treated as a pejorative. There is nothing wrong with being either, the world needs both to be a better place.

The problem has always been the existence of closed-minded individuals who are devoid of critical thought on both sides. These people mindlessly follow ideologies they probably don't even fully understand.
 
manfestival

manfestival

Member
considering that babies are a product of their environment. It is hard to take any points made in the OP serious considering how horribly biased they are
 
Bluntman

Bluntman

Member
Malakhov said:
I used to be very leftwing when I was in my 20s. I have turned into a conservative in my low 30s.

Theres a famous saying here, if you arent a liberal in your 20s you have no heart and if youre not a conservative as you grow up you dont have a head on your shoulders.
Click to expand...

Basicly this. I don't think people are born to anything.

People are liberal when young mostly because they have no experience and then become conservative when they grow older and see how the world works.
 
X

Xyphie

Member
High heritability of many cognitive/psychological traits is well-established in behavioural genetics. So yes, some people are more likely to have certain political views than others.
 
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G

gohepcat

Banned
AranS said:
Guns aren't the problem. People are. Remove the five worst (and not coincidentally Democrat controlled with high amounts of 'gun control" laws) cities from our crime statistics and we drop to below 180 out of 193 countries in firearms crime.
Click to expand...

So remove high-density statistically relevant areas of just one country, but leave all of the high-density statistically relevant populations of all the other countries?
Hahaha. You don't really understand how stats work do you?

How exactly are we supposed to have a conversation about this stuff with people whose understanding of a subject is only as deep as a fucking jpeg with words on it?
 
Spheyr

Spheyr

Banned
gohepcat said:
So remove high-density statistically relevant areas of just one country, but leave all of the high-density statistically relevant populations of all the other countries?
Hahaha. You don't really understand how stats work do you?

How exactly are we supposed to have a conversation about this stuff with people whose understanding of a subject is only as deep as a fucking jpeg with words on it?
Click to expand...
Well, if I had said "Remove one race that barely makes up a little over 10% of the US population from the statistics and we'd be at Western European levels of firearms crime" you'd call me racist...
 
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M

More Fun To Compute

Member
I believe in determinism so conservatives were going to be the way they are from the big bang and maybe earlier. Possibly by measuring parts of the brain you could try to statistically predict how people will vote but there seem to be much easier ways of finding out like asking them. In terms of people being terrified of the future and understanding complexity then it's not always obvious which political "team" appeals only to one or the other since they don't use strategies in that way. Just look at the Guardian and you will find that most articles are fear porn of the first order. Explaining how we are all going to die in an apocalypse of climate change, micro plastics, AI and underfunding of arts institututions that only upper middle class people have access to.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
gohepcat said:
So remove high-density statistically relevant areas of just one country, but leave all of the high-density statistically relevant populations of all the other countries?
Hahaha. You don't really understand how stats work do you?

How exactly are we supposed to have a conversation about this stuff with people whose understanding of a subject is only as deep as a fucking jpeg with words on it?
Click to expand...

Why would you necessarily expect the same amount of crime in one area of the US as in another disparate area over a long period of time? The US is massive - each state is essentially its own European country.

Centralized one-size-fits-all solutions do not make sense for a massive dispersed population.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that the largest population centers will have different problems from smaller ones.
 
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