by LilyPatToo » Mon Jun 14, 2010 1:10 pm
I've come to believe that it's a combination of nature/nurture, Luther. Anyone who's been around a lot of infants soon realizes that they're born with different basic hardwiring--the whole "blank slate" theory is hogwash (sometimes mixed with wishful thinking or a desire to flog an agenda). Some babies are extremely irritable and others calm, some exhibit a strong startle response and others are more stoic, to mention just a couple of basic, apparently genetic or gestation-linked differences. And then comes the "nurture" (and I use that term loosely) part that can make any child fearful and wary of authority. In some, the response will be to conform and placate authority figures and in others, to rebel.
This board is really interesting reading for someone like me who was born into a Conservative family, had family and non-family childhood trauma and then, in my teens, began to reject my tormentors and stand up to authority. People can change their programming, at least to an extent. In my case it wasn't a clean or neat transition and I still have to self-monitor for impulses to placate bullies. But my sister bought the package and is a Conservative to this day. Even though we've agreed not to talk politics, over the years that I've been reading here, I've begun to notice all the ways in which her reactions are fear-driven. To me, that's the most basic difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives that I know--the reaction to fear-mongering by authority figures.
And that difference is profound. When I hear people insist that there's no real difference, they come across to me as being out-of-touch with reality in a significant way. The ability to question Authority--whether in-born or learned--is either present or not. It forms the cognitive framework that underlies our daily interactions with each other and the world. Coming from a Conservative family and painfully learning how to question Authority has made that clear to me in a visceral way. This board has helped a lot, since the Conservatives here tend to be smart people who seem to me, from my point-of-view, to marshall interesting arguments to justify what is essentially, IMHO, justification for their fear-driven stance. It's not necessarily divisive to differentiate between Conservatives and Liberals--it's a realistic way to describe very different ways of relating to the world.
LilyPat
