It’s also important to remember that the dichotomy of US liberal and US conservative is a very small window into humans and society and politics as a whole. And we can see in practice from how quickly some liberals shift to vicious foreign policy that they’re plenty capable of fear and hatred. So there might be something real being observed in a very specific context, but it doesn’t mean it generalizes well. We should always be wary of narratives that try to make a complicated cultural phenomenon into an unchanging biological one. They tend to be narratives in the service of reactionaries and elitists and tend to erase/ignore a lot of contradictory information in order to seem at all credible.
Psychological studies do have alot of problems with reproducibility. Psychology is a relatively new field in the grand scheme of things. But that doesn’t mean every single psychological study is wrong or that psychology isn’t real, or that these studies aren’t true or that they are worthless. I hesitate bringing up problems of reproducibility in science, since that is an inherent problem that the scientific method already attempts and mostly corrects for, and it reads more like some of you are dismissing the results of studies like this because you find issue with the implications.
I don’t disagree that the overton window in the U.S./Global North/West is incomprehensibly, microscopically small, and I don’t dispute that the difference between most Amerikkkan liberals and conservatives is a fucking Planck-length measuring stick.
I understand your concern, but I don’t see how stating this fact makes cultural phenomena into purely a biological or uncomplicated one. It makes things even more interesting and malleable, rather than simplifying it, in my view. Cultural phenomena are partially formed by concrete material conditions and reality. I never once said that democrats are intelligent or angels or inherently smarter.
Well we know historically that psychology can be used as a manipulative, controlling tool. For example, how drapetomania was at one point proposed as a mental illness to explain slaves fleeing captivity. This isn’t to say “none of psychological study is real” - I even made a point of centering my criticism on the US specifically to try to help make it clear that I’m not trying to be discarding of the field of psychology as a whole.
But neither should we take an interpretation of an alleged psychological observation at face value. Notice I say interpretation, not observation alone because I’m trying to make an important distinction here. It is one thing, for example, to observe that depression is a real phenomenon. It would be a whole other thing to say that depression in the US is caused by a lack of wild pandas in national parks.
Which brings me to the matter of correlation and causation. It is possible that studies have observed a correlation between USian conservatives and brains that are physically more associated with fear responses. This doesn’t necessarily mean the one is related to the other.
I don’t believe you are defending democrats or something. My points are about the narrative as I understand it, it’s nothing personal.
I purposefully toned down myself, and yet I still feel bad like I jumped down your throat. You are very cordial and matter of fact and I appreciate that. Thank you. I gotta grab a coffee and take a break.
I’m not sure about in other countries, but in the context of the US, psychological studies have a lot of problems with reproducibility. Here is a quick source I could find on it: https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9216565/psychology-studies-reproducability-issues
It’s also important to remember that the dichotomy of US liberal and US conservative is a very small window into humans and society and politics as a whole. And we can see in practice from how quickly some liberals shift to vicious foreign policy that they’re plenty capable of fear and hatred. So there might be something real being observed in a very specific context, but it doesn’t mean it generalizes well. We should always be wary of narratives that try to make a complicated cultural phenomenon into an unchanging biological one. They tend to be narratives in the service of reactionaries and elitists and tend to erase/ignore a lot of contradictory information in order to seem at all credible.
Psychological studies do have alot of problems with reproducibility. Psychology is a relatively new field in the grand scheme of things. But that doesn’t mean every single psychological study is wrong or that psychology isn’t real, or that these studies aren’t true or that they are worthless. I hesitate bringing up problems of reproducibility in science, since that is an inherent problem that the scientific method already attempts and mostly corrects for, and it reads more like some of you are dismissing the results of studies like this because you find issue with the implications.
I don’t disagree that the overton window in the U.S./Global North/West is incomprehensibly, microscopically small, and I don’t dispute that the difference between most Amerikkkan liberals and conservatives is a fucking Planck-length measuring stick.
I understand your concern, but I don’t see how stating this fact makes cultural phenomena into purely a biological or uncomplicated one. It makes things even more interesting and malleable, rather than simplifying it, in my view. Cultural phenomena are partially formed by concrete material conditions and reality. I never once said that democrats are intelligent or angels or inherently smarter.
Well we know historically that psychology can be used as a manipulative, controlling tool. For example, how drapetomania was at one point proposed as a mental illness to explain slaves fleeing captivity. This isn’t to say “none of psychological study is real” - I even made a point of centering my criticism on the US specifically to try to help make it clear that I’m not trying to be discarding of the field of psychology as a whole.
But neither should we take an interpretation of an alleged psychological observation at face value. Notice I say interpretation, not observation alone because I’m trying to make an important distinction here. It is one thing, for example, to observe that depression is a real phenomenon. It would be a whole other thing to say that depression in the US is caused by a lack of wild pandas in national parks.
Which brings me to the matter of correlation and causation. It is possible that studies have observed a correlation between USian conservatives and brains that are physically more associated with fear responses. This doesn’t necessarily mean the one is related to the other.
I don’t believe you are defending democrats or something. My points are about the narrative as I understand it, it’s nothing personal.
You have very fair points. I feel like generally we agree more than disagree on this.
Probably so.
I purposefully toned down myself, and yet I still feel bad like I jumped down your throat. You are very cordial and matter of fact and I appreciate that. Thank you. I gotta grab a coffee and take a break.
No worries, I appreciate you being candid about it. Take care!