Liberals and Conservatives Think Differently

Biden tells voters to "Watch what I do...Judge me based on what I do, what I say and to whom I say it." That is fair. His past is relevant, too.

He has a history of being untruthful that has been so thoroughly documented it doesn’t need reiteration. He has been videotaped saying (and doing) some bizarre things to people, too. The latest was to Charlamagne the God, the "If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” Some dismissed this is as just Joe being Joe, which has some deep psychological truth embedded into it, even for a dilettante like myself.

Many blacks were offended by Joe seemingly dictating what black voters must do. But there are blacks who agree with what Joe said.

Carla Hall, an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times and one-time aspiring actress, wrote that Joe was correct: "Biden was right. He just didn’t have the right (sic) to say it." She then gave insight as to why she thinks what she thinks: "As a political and social liberal — who is also black — I was dismayed that anyone, black or white, voted for Donald Trump in 2016."

Ms. Hall may be incapable of understanding why anyone voted for -- and will vote for again -- Donald Trump, because she is a liberal (a term I hate to see applied to thought smearing the classical meaning of the term); so, perhaps she could enlighten herself – if she cared to – by finding out what it is that makes a Trump Conservative tick. There are plenty of black Trump Conservatives, too, for her to interview.

My challenge that Ms. Hall may be incapable of thinking any other way than how she thinks because she is a liberal is not “anecdotal.” It comes from The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness, by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., who is not a dilettante like me. According to Rossiter, people are bipolar by nature. Liberals and Conservatives think differently and therefore see the world differently, one from another. Check out the website for the book at http://www.libertymind.com/.

There is a good article in Business Insider, “These key psychological differences can determine whether you're liberal or conservative” at (https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2).

The Chasm of Ideology

Many (most?) of those who read Murrow's words in the meme will automatically assume they refer to the 'other' of 'Us' versus 'Them.' This is especially true of our national political mentality. But it is more than a dichotomy of political ideologies. It is a moral dichotomy that has taken on expanded meaning given the state of the world in 2015. And, like most, if not all, dichotomies of thought and reason, it is a false dichotomy. <http://bit.ly/1Ig7g4p>

Thomas Paine's "These are the times that try men's souls" reverberates today as loudly as when it was written in 1776. <http://bit.ly/1Ig7dW8> The American Revolution marked a "watershed moment in the advance of political freedom in the modern world." <http://bit.ly/1Ig8Naw> Like all watershed moments, the American Revolution was a Truth or Dare style "game" threatening dire consequences for failure.

Events since 911 lead me to believe that it, too, was a watershed moment marking the struggle between submission and liberty. And it, too, is a Truth or Dare style "game" threatening dire consequences for failure.

The polarization of political thought in America begs for mediation and conciliation. To adhere to either side of the Us/Them dichotomy creates a scotoma or blind spot to other viable alternatives. Somehow, someway, Americans must find a way to traverse the chasm of ideology.

I don't have a lot of faith that large numbers of people will be able or even willing to question, much less escape, the security of their particular ideology. But failing to overcome that mental scotoma may decide the dire consequences to which Murrow alludes.