April 12, 2016
How it looks to look down on Trump voters.
(How much evidence of tech savvy is it that somebody can photoshop a hat on an anime character?)
ADDED: The name Elspeth Reeve is familiar. In May 2015, I had a post titled "Masculinity is hard," about something she wrote in TNR called "No Campaigns for Manly Men." I paraphrased her position as: "without the broad, loud-mouthed, bullying Chris Christie in the presidential race, we have no 'manly men.'" That was, of course, pre-Trump.
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62 comments:
Stop squirming.
Ick. Didn't watch. They look like Bernie voters.
Ummm, like, you know.... Whatever.
Not found. Maybe they took it down?
@Ken B
Still works for me.
As someone who frequents 4chan and Takimag, I completely agree with their analysis.
Re: their discussion on the alt-right, I liked the second answer on Quora in which Komane says (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-American-alternative-right):
"....Paul Gottfried, a prominent figure within the paleoconservative movement, has argued that the "alt-right" is a post-paleo movement. As the "post" implies, Gottfried believes paleos have failed in their quest to overtake neoconservatism as the dominant ideology within American conservatism, so in some ways, though the alt-right can be seen as an expansion on paleo ideas, it's also a rejection of them in other ways.
Mainstream conservatism is practically neoconservatism, and tends to be focused around neo-liberal economics, interventionist foreign policy (with very strong ties to Israel), and "blank-slate" theories on human nature. [That is many neocons share a similar outlook to mainstream liberals with regards to human nature and the intersection of sociology and biology; heck a significant amount of mainstream conservatives don't even believe in evolution!].
With regards to culture, many neoconservatives don't see The United States as an explicitly European civilization, and tend to view it in terms of what the prominent paleocon, Sam Francis, dubbed, a "proposition nation": that is, a nation built on abstract ideas like "freedom" & "democracy", rather than a nation with an ethno-cultural core.
Both paleoconservatism and the "alt-right" are rejections of neoconservatism in this sense. "HBD" - or Human Biodiversity (a term dubbed by Steve Sailer I believe) - is a very common sociobiological theory within the alt-right, that for instance, explicitly rejects the idea that race and gender are social constructs..."
That's spot on. Describes the alt-right support for Trump very well.
heck a significant amount of mainstream conservatives don't even believe in evolution!
Horseshit.
Everyone always thinks, like, that they are at the high point of human existence
These two provide compelling evidence to the contrary.
@AprilApple:
Ben Carson is a creationist. So is Huckabee. That's just two examples from the top of my head. I'm sure you can find more.
How much evidence of tech savvy is it that somebody can photoshop a hat on an anime character?
This much?
As evidence of intelligence it apparently ranks somewhere between BA and ABD amongst young lefties.
If these two snots are anti-trump the pro Trumpers must be doing something right.
It's the kids talking politics.
"heck a significant amount of mainstream conservatives don't even believe in evolution!
Horseshit."
I got into a pissing match at Ricochet about evolution. I don't know percentage-wise how many were involved but I found almost no support for evolution there and did not renew my membership.
Evidence.
@nyamujal Two is not a "significant number" ("amount" was an awkward usage) in the real world.
Tiptoeing through the tulips.
The Trump Brothers are enjoying following a straight male leadership style. It allows them to be themselves instead continually putting on a college campus imposed Beta male Tinker Bell style. They are not perpetually afraid that someone somewhere in a vast imaginary world of sensitive wounded feeling victims will claim to be wounded when a real man speaks the truth in public.
Shorter Version: The No More Bull Shit guys are in charge.
They can deal with the truth. It is the fantasies that have let them down.
Professor Althouse may also want to mention that Ms. Reeve is the wife of Scott Beauchamp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Thomas_Beauchamp_controversy
Isn't Elspeth the wife of Iraq war hero Scott Beauchamp?
Check your archives AA...lively discussions about Elspeth's significant other.
@Northoftheoneohone Well, that helps put Elspeth into a little perspective. Have to give Ann credit for properly categorizing this piece.
@ MK - "Evidence" - I'll take your word for it. I'm certainly not interested in reading the micro-aggressions of creationists who are also anti-evolutionists at an obscure blog.
I know plenty of dastardly right-wing Christians (and some left-wing Christians, too) who believe in evolution. I get sick and tired of the left trotting it out all the time. I don't care if someone believes in UFO's, blue men who live inside the earth's core, or that God created the earth a few thousand years ago.
Evolution is a chaotic process. It is just a physical process that is incompletely characterized and unwieldy, and therefore unpredictable other than its initial source and final sink in limited frames of reference. The rest, including evolutionary creationism, is the product of inference (i.e. created knowledge or pattern matching) from a permanent state of limited, circumstantial evidence. The pro-choicers in particular reject or corrupt both the physical process and the moral character of human life, and elevate their gods, emanations, or whatever from the twilight zone to reestablish an orthodoxy that was momentarily displaced in human history by competing interests.
That is many neocons share a similar outlook to mainstream liberals with regards to human nature and the intersection of sociology and biology; heck a significant amount of mainstream conservatives don't even believe in evolution
A lot of Progs think GMO food is really, really bad for you and that vaccines cause autism. Every group has their issues.
I'm probably "anti evolution" as I feel evolution and the Bible work just fine together. Evolution is the nuts and bolts of how it happened. The Bible dealt with WHY, not HOW.
"heck a significant amount of mainstream conservatives don't even believe in evolution!"
If not believing in evolution includes people who believe God created or set in motion and guided the process, then most Americans "don't believe in evolution" — including President Obama (if we take him at his word).
@khesanh0802
I don't know if you're being willingly obtuse or just lawyerly on the question of mainstream conservative views on evolution.
From my blog post on the "Compassion Forum" in April 2008:
"Asked about the Biblical creation story, Obama says he's one of those Christians who don't take that part of the Bible literally, though he says there's a legitimate debate over whether the universe was created in 6 of our 24-hour days or some other time frame. He's firm that God created the world, but hastens to say that he believes in evolution and thinks religion and science are fully compatible. The more science discovers, he says, the more he is aware of "mysteries" that strengthen his faith."
Trump is an anti vaxxer. Most progressives are NOT antivax.
The religious right's anti vaxxer hysteria is reviving dread diseases in America.
I knew that point about who her husband is. I just don't see why that fact belongs in a short post like this.
Probably when leftists think of conservatives denying evolution they are thinking back to Scopes Trial days when religious people were trying to ban the teaching of it, and so they picture some guy in a revival tent mocking anyone who thinks he was born from a monkey or that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old.
But most of the "evolution deniers" aren't really denying evolution so much as finding evolution compatible with a less strict view of creationism, or in some cases quibbling with some parts of Darwin's evolution theories (such as the specifics of how some species evolved rather than whether they did and still do). There's lots of room for worthy debate there, but this writing off as though everyone who doesn't stick to a strictly atheistic and strictly Darwinian view is some sort of science-denying troglodyte may help with nothing more than that feeling of smug.
@ Ann 9:32
Surprisingly, Obama's answer is a common answer among many Christians.
So Obama is a Creationist! A Creationist who also believes in evolution. shhhh - don't tell the left. (certainly, don't tell the media)
"Anti-Science Views Are a Bipartisan Problem/The truth is anti-vaxxers are made up of liberals and conservatives." That's in Slate, written by Jamelle Bouie. Totally liberal source.
"Because we see the strongest anti-vaccination beliefs among clusters of affluent, left-wing parents, we assume a one-to-one connection—it’s their politics that drive their conviction. And when their conversations turn to deceitful doctors and untrustworthy pharmaceuticals companies, that’s a fair assumption to make. At the same time, as Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan makes clear, “[P]olitical liberalism is part of a correlated cluster of beliefs and lifestyles in those places and isn’t seemingly the most important explanatory factor in determining who’s a vaccine skeptic.” That many vaccine skeptics are liberal doesn’t make vaccination skepticism a liberal belief, driven by liberal concerns. And this is true for a whole host of anti-science beliefs—like belief in astrology—that are associated with particular political teams but aren’t themselves political."
"Surprisingly, Obama's answer is a common answer among many Christians."
I don't know why you consider that surprising. It's the absolutely stock answer, which is, I assume, why he gave it.
It should be "number of mainstream conservatives" not "amount of mainstream conservatives." Writers who eschew grammar aren't trustworthy authorities.
It's funny how everyone latched on to the evolution comment in the Quora post and completely avoided the bloggingheads discussion on the alt-right phenomenon and the support it enjoys on certain online forums.
I don't really care about Elspeth's personal life or her politics. I'm interested in her analysis.
To quote Hitchens on Paul Johnson and his reactionary drivel in "Intellectuals": "Yes. I had to say, "Look, I don't think this kind of stuff counts." I, if I was writing about Voltaire, would not go and look in his linen basket in order to attack his ideas, but if you're going to do it, then you've become a hostage to it yourself. So the first part of the piece is supposed, really, to be a lampoon. I say, "If I was doing Johnson as a political figure, and if I was Johnson doing it, I'd do it like this," just to show him how it feels. Then, I hope successfully, I make a transition into the rest of the article and say, actually, that's all for show; that's not the point. The problem with Johnson's theory about Noam Chomsky, who he attacks revoltingly, about Voltaire, about Marx, about other great figures of the modern world can and should be attacked in other ways. I don't know what the American equivalent is exactly, but in England there's a motto, a schoolboy morality motto, which says that you attack only the bull and not the man. - See more at: http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/51559-1/Christopher+Hitchens.aspx#sthash.PLicDjbR.dpuf"
"There's lots of room for worthy debate there, but this writing off as though everyone who doesn't stick to a strictly atheistic and strictly Darwinian view is some sort of science-denying troglodyte may help with nothing more than that feeling of smug."
Those who push it that far are giving legitimacy to the fear that many parents have had over the years: to teach evolution is to teach that there is no God. If that's true, then they are right to see a terrible problem that children are compelled to go to school and compelled to take instruction and to give the demanded answer on exams that there is no God.
AprilApple:
UFO's, blue men who live inside the earth's core, or that God created the earth
It may be true. It may have happened. There may be individuals who observed their existence. There may be individuals with second-hand knowledge. There is physical evidence to infer or observe patterns that support their claims. Unfortunately, none of these observations, including evolutionary creationism, can be established in a scientific or limited frame of reference. And with the separation of time, or just space, the accuracy of their or its (e.g. physical evidence) testimony fades.
In any case, there are four intersecting logical domains: science, philosophy, fantasy, and faith. Fortunately, most people do not possess a motive or need to conflate the logical domains, until there are gross and progressive violations of moral principles and natural imperatives. It seems that only in matters involving the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, leisure, egoism, and control, are the domains routinely and liberally conflated. The new orthodoxy is the same as the old orthodoxy, but the recycled orthodoxy (i.e. contemporary) has proven it is capable of only selectively reconciling moral principles with natural imperatives. It's just a point of leverage.
It's surprising to me. Obama admitted he's a creationist.
Progressives deny the difference in IQ between blacks and whites (and blacks and Asians for that matter). When people dislike what they think is the moral or economic implications from facts, then they deny the fact.
n - n - my point is a simple one. Individuals believe all sorts of odd things. Why are "people on the political right" singled out for ridicule?
Just watch SNL for all sorts of examples. Most of the ridicule is based on lies. Like Cruz being anti-Semitic.
And back to vaccines. They are not magical elixirs. They are stimulants that simulate a pathogen to evoke a controlled immune response They do have side-effects, including causing death. Vaccines are part of a risk management protocol.
If material determinism is the nature of the universe then it makes no scientific sense to talk about morality. What happens is the effect of some previous cause, which itself is the effect of a previous cause. At no time is there a cause of human free will in the process. So whatever happens, happens. It makes no sense to blame the Nazis as they were not moral agents but were just a clump of biochemical processes. But these people will still talk about right and wrong because they are just a clump of biochemical processes. Whatever happens, happens
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075637#s1">The role of conspiracist ideation and worldview in predicting reflection of science.
Althouse is probably right, it's not just the left or the right exclusively, it's a mixed bag of the mixed up.
"Abstract
Background
Among American Conservatives, but not Liberals, trust in science has been declining since the 1970's. Climate science has become particularly polarized, with Conservatives being more likely than Liberals to reject the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the globe. Conversely, opposition to genetically-modified (GM) foods and vaccinations is often ascribed to the political Left although reliable data are lacking. There are also growing indications that rejection of science is suffused by conspiracist ideation, that is the general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories including the specific beliefs that inconvenient scientific findings constitute a “hoax.”
Methodology/Principal findings
We conducted a propensity weighted internet-panel survey of the U.S. population and show that conservatism and free-market worldview strongly predict rejection of climate science, in contrast to their weaker and opposing effects on acceptance of vaccinations. The two worldview variables do not predict opposition to GM. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, predicts rejection of all three scientific propositions, albeit to greatly varying extents. Greater endorsement of a diverse set of conspiracy theories predicts opposition to GM foods, vaccinations, and climate science.
Conclusions
Free-market worldviews are an important predictor of the rejection of scientific findings that have potential regulatory implications, such as climate science, but not necessarily of other scientific issues. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested. We highlight the manifold cognitive reasons why conspiracist ideation would stand in opposition to the scientific method. The involvement of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science has implications for science communicators."
"Those who push it that far are giving legitimacy to the fear that many parents have had over the years: to teach evolution is to teach that there is no God. If that's true, then they are right to see a terrible problem that children are compelled to go to school and compelled to take instruction and to give the demanded answer on exams that there is no God."
It's common in political argument to point not to your typical opponent (and certainly not your opponent with the most reasonable argument) but the caricature opponent who makes the entire other side look bad. If you want to mock feminists, don't find a well-reasoned argument for feminism--look no further than some of the weakest articles on Jezebel.
"Just watch SNL for all sorts of examples. Most of the ridicule is based on lies. Like Cruz being anti-Semitic."
I never got the leap that "New York values" equals anti-Semitism. Everyone knows when a conservative uses "New York values" as a pejorative they're talking about big city liberalism, mostly of the limousine liberal sort. What exactly are these "Jewish" values Cruz is afraid of? Not driving a car on the Sabbath? Not mixing meat with dairy? The foreskin thing?
Not that I'd expect much from SNL. Hell, they gave Trump a full episode right in middle of the election cycle, and gave Hillary and Bernie cameos. I won't hold my breath for them reaching out to Cruz.
"Evolution is the nuts and bolts of how it happened. The Bible dealt with WHY, not HOW."
I have no problem with that belief.
What got the nuts at Ricochet going was a comment that I would not write a letter of recommendation for an applicant to medical school who did not believe in evolution.
From the "obscure blog" a discussion of how evolution is important in medicine.
"Worldviews and acceptance of science
We have shown that people's political orientation and worldview can present strong obstacles to acceptance of scientific evidence, albeit to widely differing extents among the issues examined. Worldviews once again constituted an overpowering barrier to acceptance of climate science. Conservatism and free-market endorsement were correlated but distinct constructs (Model 1 in Figure 2), each of which contributed a substantial share of variance to the rejection of climate science. When considered in isolation, each worldview construct on its own strongly predicted rejection of climate science (Models 2 and 3), replicating much previous research and underscoring a formidable challenge to science communicators [2]–[4], [6], [7], [27].
In summary, although a free-market worldview is a powerful predictor of the rejection of scientific findings that have regulatory implications such as climate science, we found its effect to be far from general: The involvement of worldview in vaccinations was arguably small, and it was entirely absent for GM foods. Nonetheless, it must be reiterated that we found limited evidence for the rejection of vaccinations based on liberal or “left-wing” political leanings: When free-market worldviews are parceled out (and only then), people on the political left were less likely to endorse childhood vaccinations than people on the political right."
"Climate science has become particularly polarized, with Conservatives being more likely than Liberals to reject the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the globe."
There is no science in "climate science" as it is a scam motivated by federal grant support.
The GMO thing is similar to the anti-nuclear hysteria that was the KGBs most successful caper for the 1950s.
AprilApple:
Leverage.
I agree with you, with one caveat. My internal classification of phenomenon, claims, beliefs, etc. does not necessarily correspond with my external response until there is sufficient cause. So, while what I may consider to be odd creates an internal bias, I make a conscious effort to constrain its general expression (e.g. judgment).
Anyway, stay strong. Seek people with a balanced perspective (e.g. separation of logical domains). This play is recycled with each generation.
As to the actual podcast snippet......they are making a valid point. People who have a negative or positive view of a movement or candidate and by default the supporters of such movement, need to be aware of their OWN prejudices and biases.
As she said: the perception of all Trump supporters as downscale, ball cap wearing, uneducated, angry, WHITE men is not necessarily true. To keep that image in your mind because it makes you feel elevated and superior is not facing reality.
Thinking that you and your ideas are the pinnacle of human thought, culture and correctness, and that anyone who is not in your 'club' is a lesser entity, only blinds you to the reality of what may be happening. When you are blind, you can't respond effectively.
It would have been more enjoyable if they had only stopped squirming like worms on a hot sidewalk.
mccullough:
There is no reason to believe that the system has been sufficiently, let alone completely, characterized.
If we are merely automatons, then it doesn't matter one way or another.
There is another possibility. While Nature is the predominant causative force, there are also minor causative forces (e.g. human consciousness).
As for religious or moral philosophy, the principles are either intrinsic or axiomatic, reinforced through structure (e.g. community). They are either a property that characterize our consciousness or are realized through adaptive consensus. Without knowledge of our true nature, it is either your choice or your destiny.
ADDED: The name Elspeth Reeve is familiar.
It should be. Elspeth Reeve used to work as a “fact checker” for the New Republic where she hired her husband, Scott Thomas Beauchamp as the infamous “Baghdad Diarist” who turned in phony stories of American servicemen running over dogs with tanks, wearing the skulls of dead children as helmets and mocking the injuries of women disfigured by IEDs. The New Republic was forced to retract these stories when people who actually knew a thing or two about the military pointed out the implausibility and inconsistency in his claims but both husband and wife continue to be gainfully employed as journalists.
Thorley beat me to it.
The memory hole is bigger than the Internet, and the community of journalists working in national media is small.
I keep seeing Dave Weigel cited: he was the house conservative at multiple places, but his posts at Journolist (remember that) showed that he wasn't any different from the others. All those people are still writing news and commentary.
Thorley Winston -
Thanks for the reminder. No wonder she squirms. All that fraud probably makes her a nervous wreck.
There's that term again: "downscale whites."
With all due respect to one of our commenters here, anytime I see a post larded with "alt" this, or "paleo" that, or HBD, or "neo" etc, I am reminded of three year old children who are known to make pattycakes out of their poop.
Those labels in discussion remind me of the old Texan/Comanche saying that, "You kin put feathers on a dawg, but that don't mean it can fly."
And as for Ms. Reeves saying that only Chris Christie was a "manly man" in the race, I think she is confused about what constitutes a manly man. You don't have to be a beer and a shot guy, with a big belly and a loud voice to be a "manly man". Although by that definition, Trump is one. Courage, honor, integrity and devotion to duty come in all sorts of packages--big, small, quiet and--sometimes--loud. Those are manly men. Bob Dole and Gerald Ford fit that mold. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton do not (although Billy Jeff is a lascivious horn dog, so there is that that might satisfy Ms. Reeves.)
I found another interesting blog post on Elspeth Reeve.
http://theothermccain.com/2013/07/05/what-can-elspeth-reeve-teach-us/
A New Republic perennial: How many facts could a fact-checker check, if a fact-checker could check facts?
Wasn't there a character much like Reeves in "Harry Potter"?
Not a nice one.
You know, almost any response I can give will boil down to "complaining that right wingers don't get enough respect" and I remember how tiresome Professor Althouse finds that assertion when repeated...so I'm not sure what to add.
Stop squirming.
Her squirming is adorable--makes me wish there was a BloggingBodies.
"With all due respect to one of our commenters here, anytime I see a post larded with "alt" this, or "paleo" that, or HBD, or "neo" etc, I am reminded of three year old children who are known to make pattycakes out of their poop. "
Jeez man, who lets three year old kids play with poop anymore...
"As she said: the perception of all Trump supporters as downscale, ball cap wearing, uneducated, angry, WHITE men is not necessarily true. To keep that image in your mind because it makes you feel elevated and superior is not facing reality."
Agreed.
Anti vaxx? Ever been around an autistic child? I have. Several, in fact. Each different. I used to think autistic was a euphemism for retarded. I am pro vaccination, but if I was concerned my kid would be autistic,and thought there was a slim chance vaccines would cause it, I believe I would skip them.
I know vaccines do not cause autism. I also know that some forms of autism are heartbreaking.
Climate change? Climate changes. We evolve or adapt if necessary. We cannot control it. Hysteria is a scam. As obvious as the daycare abuse hysteria in the 90's (?)
Scott Beauchamp is a staff writer at The Atlantic now. What's with The Atlantic? I think it was responsible for helping Elspeth get back in the game after the "old" New Republic fired her. The "new" New Republic hired her back, of course.
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