Horizon

I understand that her name is her brand, but it always seems bad form to name things after yourself.

Dunno. I did say what I said yesterday in that other thread. And pluralism is a lovely thing. But it's a lovely thing that can be exploited by anti-pluralist ideologues. Just because your basic American liberal ethic includes a belief in the Marketplace of Ideas, it doesn't follow that liberals have a moral obligation to welcome hecklers whenever they speak in public. There is a difference between generosity and abjection.

Walter Cronkite already has a slightly tart commentary on the project.

Just because your basic American liberal ethic includes a belief in the Marketplace of Ideas ...

At its best, yes. The thing is that I think your basic American conservative ethic at its best also includes a belief in the Marketplace of Ideas, and it's the suggestion par Keillor that there is something fundamentally alien, detached, un-American about Republicans, whether he does it with a cute toss of the hair and a twinkle in the eye or not, which bugs me. I am tired of listening to one group of Americans describe another group of Americans as basically foreigners in their own country, and they started it isn't much of a defense in law or morals. And toleration is a lovely thing that's wasted on others is a cul-de-sac of an ethic.

On the other hand again, this is interesting re: heckling.

And I'll say at least that comments like "Republicans aren't comfortable with free speech" do give the sense that the speaker is trying to give the hard-righties a taste of their own medicine -- which in the long run is really accepting the hard-right terms of debate. It does, however, happen to be true that they started it. They're the ones who were saying things like "Go back to Russia!" long before you and I were born. And in my book it happens to be OK to be intolerant of intolerance. But, yeah, maybe we should all take a few deep breaths and think more elevated thoughts once in a while.

It does, however, happen to be true that they started it. They're the ones who were saying things like "Go back to Russia!" long before you and I were born.

Like I said, 'who started it' is pretty meaningless at this stage. But I can assure you from personal observation that many preserves of modern liberal thought are not bastions of good-humored open-mindedness either. I've seen some pretty nasty and intolerant behavior towards people in, for example, the academy who bucked the prevailing mores of the day.

... and incidentally, just because the leftwing version of "go back to Russia" doesn't have a specifically patriotic twist doesn't mean that it's any less mean-spirited. It's true that liberals don't as a rule accuse their opponents of not being American. They accuse their opponents of not being human beings ...

Not human beings? Huh?

Funny part is, there's such intense party discipline now on the right, and such a ferocious attempt to politicize apolitical matters, that I've ended up saying a bit of "go back to Russia" myself. E.g. was talking this weekend with a fellow who has a friend in the federal space program. He says the friend isn't allowed to refer to programs or systems as "evolving" any more. I mean, cripe, what kind of country distinguishes between normal science and politically correct science?

They accuse their opponents of not being human beings ...

Wow, Alan! I'm so shocked I don't know what to say!

Not human beings? Huh?

Not in a biological sense, I grant you, but certainly lacking all of the fundamentals of human decency. I've seen laid out in this very blog the suggestion that only subscribers to a certain set of narrow presumptions can be regarded as humanitarian, in true believers of the concept of human equality, and so on. It's not so much Get Back to Russia as Get Back to Mars.

Are you suggesting that there is some reliable psychological/moral difference between those on the left and those on the right?

I'm not sure if that question is addressed to me, but I think I've been trying to suggest the exact opposite.

Well, someone has made the case that conservatives are crazy, but Conservatism as Pathology dismisses it.

Mr. Clemens got it right:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

Well, I decided to start reading that article and this seems to sum up the researchers' perspective. As it turns out, it's not unlike Twain's:

Our first assumption, too, is that conservative ideologies—like virtually all other belief systems—are adopted in part because they satisfy some psychological needs. This does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled. From the present perspective, most human beliefs are subjectively rational in the sense of being deduced from aset of premises to which believers subscribe (Kruglanski, 1999; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b), and they are also at least partially responsive to reality constraints (Kunda, 1990). In this sense, any given person’s conservatism may well be principled in that it is related logically or psychologically to other observations, values, beliefs, and premises. At the same time, adherence to principles and syllogistic reasoning do not occur in a motivational vacuum but rather in the context of a variety of virtually inescapable personal and social motivations (e.g., Hastorf & Cantril, 1954; Kunda, 1990; Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979) that are not necessarily consciously accessible (e.g., Kruglanski, 1996, 1999). Thus, political attitudes may well be principled (e.g., Sniderman, Piazza, Tetlock, & Kendrick, 1991; Sniderman & Tetlock, 1986) and motivationally fueled at the same time.