[lbo-talk] conservatives vs. leftists

[Nathan]

On Thu, Feb 02, 2012 at 11:02:39AM -0500, Wojtek S wrote:
> dismiss such opinions as propaganda, it occurred to me that  based on
> my personal experience there may be some kernel of truth in it.  I met
> a number of people with conservative ideas, which I found rather
> objectionable, but many of the people who expressed them were quite
> nice fellows - gregarious, polite, respectful, courteous, even
> helpful.  On the other hand, the opposite was true of many lefties I
> met - I liked their ideas, but the people who expressed them were
> rather sanctimonious, arrogant, full of themselves, judgmental,
> vitriolic, and quite intolerant of the views of other people.  Not
> that every conservative I met was nice and every leftie was nasty -
> but enough of them fit the mold to make one wonder.  I recall Graeber
> making a similar remark that personal animosities and vitriolic
> polemics were frequent causes of the breakup of leftists groups.

You obviously haven't listened to a John Bircher any time recently. I
think ravi's characterization fits the mold more, and think he's right
to point to internet polemic not being the best judge of
character--imagine reading legal briefs and drawing conclusions on their
authors' characters from statements like "so-and-so wrongfully claims X
which is emphatically not based on anything in reality". 

That said the nastiest people I've ever dealt with have been academic
faculty, so that might have some bearing on this. By the same token one
of the nicest people I know gave me a black eye in boxing practice last
night. It's very difficult to do any sort of calculus on this sort of
thing as far as I can tell. But on the same side of that coin I'd say
that New Yorkers aren't rude, they're just in a fucking hurry, which
might come off as rude to someone who doesn't know how long an avenue
block is.

I wonder if there isn't some sociological pattern that transfers
personal animosities into animosity directed towards out-groups.

-- 
Nathan