Wednesday, March 22nd 2006
What’s New
The Patriot editorial board has a piece condemning a recent Berkeley study:
The Journal of Research Into Personality, a supposedly academic journal at our very own University of California, has recently published a ludicrous article that attempts to correlate youthful disposition to political thought. The article, supported by University – and thus public – funds, draws the absurd conclusion that conservatives begin as “whiny, insecure kids,” while children who are “confident, resilient, [and] self-reliant” grow up to be liberals.
The conclusion of this ‘study’ is patently ridiculous. The children put under observation in this study, all 95 of them, were based in Berkeley, in the hyper-liberal atmosphere of the Bay Area. It is hardly surprising that in an atmosphere of such intolerance and repugnance of conservatism, those children who are more apt to become liberals are going to be more comfortable and feel less pressured to be insecure about their views…
My problem is with that article:
All of us, liberal or conservative, feel as though we’ve reached our political opinions by carefully weighing the evidence and exercising our best judgment. But it could be that all of that careful reasoning is just after-the-fact self-justification.
Uh… duh? ‘Could be’? And also a demonstrably false statement, since some folks are rather open about how their political opinions are motivated by emotional impulses.
Comment by Beetle — 3/22/2006 @ 11:40 am
Beetle, that isn’t in the Patriot piece. Are you referring to the original piece by the Toronto Sun?
Comment by Morbo — 3/22/2006 @ 11:56 am
The study is demonstrably false. For Gods sake, its the liberals who are the miserable bunch. The entire liberal philosophy is predicated on how bad the world purportedly is (whence the Democrats can solve it). Lack of self-reliance is the very raison d’etre of liberals. Also, language like “whiny” is hardly fitting for a serious academic paper and simply betrays the outrageous bias here.
The “study” is a travestly. Its a disgrace that the California taxpayer has to finance this piece of liberal propaganda.
Comment by gary — 3/22/2006 @ 3:39 pm
Uh, yeah, I was. Sorry, should’ve made that clear.
Comment by Beetle — 3/22/2006 @ 3:59 pm
I wonder if they considered adulthood:
http://pewresearch.org/social/pack.php?PackID=1
Comment by cw — 3/22/2006 @ 4:06 pm
Let me clarify, I know they didn’t aim to track feelings in adulthood, though it is a sort of check on how likely their results are accurate.
Comment by cw — 3/22/2006 @ 4:07 pm
I guess there are huge tools on both sides, gary. In every post you keep saying the same thing: liberals think the world is bad. Well guess what, you might find it hard to believe….gasp….there are problems out there.
Of course, no need to whine about social security, cause there are no problems.
Comment by skeeeeet — 3/22/2006 @ 4:21 pm
whine, whine ,whine
Comment by whiner — 3/29/2006 @ 8:07 am