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Louis Giglio's avatar

Thank you for the condensed version!l Frederick certainly has a thought provoking epistle. But like President Carter and Al Gore each given to intellectual analysis and solution to a problem, this 12 point proposition would leave many folks bleary eyed reading it!

Personally, I see the ‘conservative mind’ built on ‘either or’ reasoning. Thus right wing propaganda sound bytes become effective through the constant repeating of the distortions and out right lies.

The ‘liberal mind’ absorbs and ponders ‘shades of grey’. The liberal mind rejects the position ‘all…are…’ because one exception breaks that ‘rule’! As noted in a prior comment, the liberal mind evaluates different positions become making a judgement.

The conservative mind is susceptible to the dogmatic; this is how you do it; tell me what to believe!

The liberal mind is exemplified by my wife’s Irish Granny, who gave her brother 3 books when he started at a junior seminary, one by Thomas Aquinas, one by Martin Luther and one by Ghandi!

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

There is another, biological explaination for some of this. People who self- identify as either liberal or conservative assess and process information in different parts of the brain. One study had self-identified liberals and conservatives make a financial investment decision which boiled down to "high risk/high reward" and "low risk/low reward". The decision itself was unimportant (but had nothing related to the self-identification as liberal or conservative; that result was mixed); what was important was the areas of the brain used in the decision making process. SI liberals accessed the frontal cortex for their thinking, SI conservatives utilized the midbrain. The gross oversimplification is that the frontal cortex is complex thought and the midbrain is the "survival center" of threat assessment. I find that fascinating.

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Frederick Warren's avatar

Ally, do you know where this analysis is from? find this fascinating as well - the distinction between liberals use of the "complex thought" source of the brain, and conservatives' use of survival aspect of the brain!

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

I don’t have the original source; I’ve seen it referenced here by another reader, but lost the paper I wrote it down on.

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Frederick Warren's avatar

Thanks for being, ... you 😃

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Ransom Rideout's avatar

Frederick, thanks for taking the time to bring us the Laskoff piece. Ally brings up an interesting point of discussion. The source would be valuable. Prehaps Steve Schmidt is not, by that definition, a true conservative. In his writings he does not apprear to be.

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John Marksbury's avatar

The majority of Americans have only a sixth grade level of reading comprehension which means an

inability to properly analyze information and perform critical thinking.

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SPW's avatar

That sixth grade level is down from eighth grade level fifteen years ago. Dumbing down is working just as republicans want.

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John Marksbury's avatar

Absolutely. That’s why they want home schooling and starve education budgets.

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Ransom Rideout's avatar

Hmmm, very interesting. I wonder then if Steve Schmidt is by nature a genuine conservative. I read him every day and find him to be a genuinely warm and thoughtful human being. For many years, conservatives have been referred to as "reactionary". Interesting that midbrain thinking seems to be somewhat reptillian. We need more of this.

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Mary Ellen Harris's avatar

I have seen/heard similar information where SI conservatives operate from a fear relationship to the world and SI liberals operate from a comfort relationship to the world...ah, where to find that again...

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Doreen's avatar

Wow, that is fascinating about the brain

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JDinTX's avatar

I’ll buy that

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becky estill's avatar

I also think it is influenced by believing that people are inherently bad (original sin, must protect self from them) v. inherently good (buddha nature, must water their seeds of goodness).

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