What are you talking about Carrol? Me, I'm a gloomy left liberal.
I rather do suspect, btw, that politics is an expression, not a simple one of, personality (itself a social product in part but not in whole), in the sense that people end up where they do depends on who they are and how they see themselves rather than on being persuaded of conclusions by reasons. But you agree with me on this point, having stated it forcefully yourself many times over the years. So why is it a fantasy? Or maybe you mean something else.
Obviously the truth value or appropriateness to the historical circumstances of politicalk principles are partly -- nmot whilly -- independent of the inner being of their advocates. That's true in the sense that, for example, national health is a good idea even if advocated by a souless bureaucrat for accounting reasons.
It's only partly true in the sense that some political principles are embodied for prctical purposes in the moral being of the advicates: Lincoln's character was integral to his vision of the Union, FDR's to the New Deal, Reagan's to the Reagan Revolution, and Bush II to the current state of affairs. One might also think of King and Malcolm.
jks
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> What is it about left-liberal politics that drives
> adherents to invent a
> fantasy of the gloomy leftist?
>
> What is it about left-liberalism that requires
> nurture by the fantasy
> that left politics are a simple expression of
> personality?
>
> Why do left liberals cling to the fantasy that
> political principles
> cannot be separated from the inner being of the
> person who holds them?
>
> What psychological or political comfort do left
> liberals extract from
> holding these fantasies as a matter of faith?
>
>
> Carrol
>
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