Thursday, January 13, 2011

Interesting Reading About Leftist Psychology

OK, I know I am going to get it, but I tripped across some interesting material on the psychology of the left that I found fascinating. I normally try to present the case for my position in a manner intended to persuade, but I occasionally get frustrated with leftist arguments that seem to make no sense. Without impugning everyone who is a lefty, I wanted to share some of this material. I have been reading IMAO, which linked to a column by its author, Frank J. Fleming, on why liberals (leftists) hate the constitution in Pajamasmedia. He is of course a humorist, but the truth of his points help make the humor. Some quotes:
No matter how much liberals try to mystify the Constitution and obscure its meaning, hearing the actual text of the document quickly destroys that fiction. It almost reads like a direct condemnation of all the government expansion and power grabs liberals have been up to lately. You can’t hear its words without imagining the ghost of George Washington punching hippies. So you can see why they’d rather it not be brought to the public’s attention.
. . .
And so liberals hope that no one reads the Constitution and that everyone leaves all the questions of what the government can do to left-wing judges who will make decisions based on what they feel is right. Then liberals will be freed from having to get the consent of the unenlightened American public who give their kids Happy Meals and eat trans-fats. They will then have the ability to force people to do what’s best and give the government all the power it needs for a better, more ordered, peaceful society.
Reading the comments section from the post, I stumbled on this link to an article on the psychology of the left [link removed due to malware warning]. Some of the money quotes:

Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)
. . .
Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They say they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he grudgingly admits that they exist; whereas he enthusiastically points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

. . .
His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
Prize to the first person who can identify the source of those quotes without using Google or another search engine. If you can't figure it out, follow the link. These are certainly generalities, but they feel like the truth, regardless of the political incorrectness of the source.

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