After a long period of utter bafflement, I have finally figured out why the Right and the Left can’t agree on anything. And probably never will.
Liberals think. Righteous Righties don't. What NeoCons, Teabaggers, and FoxNoisers do may appear to be rationale thinking, but it is really thunking. Yes, thunking. Thinking involves something like the scientific method, where a rational person has an idea (hypothesis) and tests against the real world, and then makes a decision about whether they were correct or not. Righties work from a set beliefs and extrapolate from there. Not clear? Let me explain.
In case you missed FoxNews for the last ten years, NeoCons think Progressives are clueless, stupid Libtards ruining their America. NeoCons know what Progressives have forgotten, that the USA is still fighting the good fight against socialism and communism — only now enemies like Russia and China have been replaced with everybody who doesn’t believe as they do, starting with the Liberal Left and extending to the Centerist Republican heretic traitors here in the USA.
The Righteous Righties passionately feel Obama must fail, even if the country is screwed blue in the process. They must fight change at every baby step. They must defend pure American Conservatism at all costs.
A good example of their strategy is revealed in the election in the New York 24th Congressional District, where they’ve formed a circular firing squad to destroy a moderate in their own party in order to send a message to the rest. In this process they will probably cause Republicans to lose yet another Congressional seat. The 24th is their Alamo. They are saying to the rest of the party, our way or the highway to the cemetery for the GOP.
There seem to be two kinds of Conservatives. Conservative to the point of irrationality. And Conservative to the point of insanity.
Please remember, those who are destroying their own political base and putting America at risk with their nay-saying are the good guys, the patriots, the irrational Righteous Righties. The completely insane, far-far-rightwing Nutjobs would rather secede from the union than live in a moderate America where they can’t carry guns to church to shoot illegal immigrants who might be sneaking by on the way to the emergency room.
It wasn’t easy for me to comprehend how such a deep enmity could exist when both Democrats and Republicans been brought up in the same country, gone to the same schools, read the same history, the same books, even watched the same tv. I mean, we’re the same, aren’t we?
Yet, with all that in common, we don’t agree on much of anything. And that disagreement is getting nastier. And deeper. And nastier. And deeper!
This realization made me examine my basic assumption. Maybe we are more different than we are the same. Maybe we’re as different as Klingons and Munchkins.
My sartori is that Righteous Righties and Progressive Lefties really weren’t brought up in the same country in the same way. We don’t think the same. The religious Righties were brought up to follow the word of others rather than science or logic. And the current societal war is the end product of that upbringing.
This is my epiphany. “Righteous Righties don’t think. They apply what’s been thunked.”
“Thunked” is not a typo. Let me explain.
What Righties do, it seems like thinking, but isn’t. They no longer have original thoughts. They take rules developed in the past and apply them to the present. That’s how they were taught — learning the literal word of God as stated in whatever translation of their Holy Bible they use.
The thunkers find solutions to current problems by applying what has been thunk by their predecessors.
Examples?
Our proposed Missile Defense Shield in which Bush was trying to build the last fortress of the Cold War. Even though Bush pretended we were protecting Europe from Iran, both the Russians and our leaders knew what the real reason for the missile placement was. Because to thunkers, the Cold War isn’t warming any more than Planet Earth. The Cold War is still on and Righteous Righties are still fighting communism. I’m not sure why, but they are. That’s just how they thunk.
Then there’s Global Warming which they still adamantly deny — in spite of the collective judgment of the scientific community. Once upon a time, they believed Global Warming was sci-fi, bs, mumbo jumbo, so they still do. Ask Senator James Inhofe, he’ll tell you.
Let’s face it, if scientists are wrong on creationism, evolution, and global warming, then why listen to them on anything? Why apply the scientific process to anything? Just look for an answer that has already been thunked.
Now we are dealing with a potential changes in Health Care system in which sustaining the status quo is their only objective. This is not because what we have now is better than what we could have, but because the Thunkers have declared Big Government is bad. And they’ve declared that America has better Healthcare than Canada or Europe or anywhere. It has been thunked. Therefore, it is.
If this sounds reminiscent of the cliché of Generals always trying to fight the last war, it is. Their Maginot Line is the Status Quo.
Their old style thunking does not help solve today’s complex, nuanced problems. So they don’t try. So it is better to say “No, let’s keep the Staus Quo.” And from their point of view, they are right. Because from their point of view, all change is bad.
The top tier Conservative Thunkers can brilliantly reiterate what was thunked before. That’s 2009 Conservatism. That’s driving thru the rear view mirror. That’s the reason we don’t see the world the same way. Progressives like our President are peering down a foggy road to see what’s ahead. NeoCons and Teabaggers are more concerned with what’s behind, and in following that line in the road in the mirror — even when it doesn’t get them where they want to go.
Look at the history of Great Depression which began with a Wall Street crash not unlike our financial meltdown. Compare the tight-ass spending policies of Herbert Hoover that pulled us deeper into the depression with what the Righties are saying now. It is the same. Stop spending. It’s time for the government to tighten their belts. Don’t create a big national debt for our grandchildren to pay off. Duh!
The Righteous Righties have a set of beliefs that they will follow no matter what. Even when something has been proven not to work, and it could plunge the world into a decade of disastrous depression, it doesn’t matter. They have their Conservative Principles to keep them warm.
Thunkers live in the intellectual past. They revere the Constitution, and the simplistic science of 150 years ago. They want the social status quo of a simpler world they grew up with.
Evangelicals revere the Holy Bible, just as much as Islamic terrorist revere the Koran. Both take the words literally.
I was taught to take lessons from the parables of Jesus, and to treat the bible as one big lesson, Old Testament and New. I was brought up to believe that approach to the bible can make it work in real life in this century.
Literally interpreting the bible to believe the world was created in six days and on the seventh God watched football, that doesn’t work. It leads to denying not only evolution, but all science. But that’s what they want to do anyway, so what the hey.
Righties also revere the words of Ronald Reagan. But to them, whether the words are in the Bible, the Constitution or are oft repeated Reaganisms, the words and meanings are all literal. They have very little ability to think it through the words to a new and better conclusion.
When it comes to refocusing and rebuilding their grand old party, every day a different one of their leaders channels what Ronald Reagan had thunk. And the rest break into applause.
Can we ever see eye-to-eye? I don’t see how. Not as long as we exist on completely different astral planes. And as long as they won’t think fresh thoughts, and we don’t respect their thunking, we can’t get together any more than Keith Olbermann and Colerguiest.
What can we do?
First, let’s try to clearly understand the other side.
If you are a Righteous Rightie reading this, you must understand that Liberals don’t speak your language, and don’t accept your basic premises, they don’t want to take the proven path back to better times, and they won’t be convinced by arguments that were made by the founding fathers, or Ronald Reagan, or the Fair and Balanced truth tellers on FoxNews. Because basically, Libtards were brought up wrong, and they think wrongly.
If we Progressives want change to make a better world, we must understand the Righties don’t speak our language and never will. We can speak, but they can’t understand. Because basically, NeoCons and Teabaggers were brought up wrong with the different values, and they can’t think. They can only thunk.
There is not and may never will be common ground between Liberals and Conservatives. As far down the road as I can see, Conservatives will not waver in their negativity. Progressive will not stop thinking about tomorrow.
So now that we understand each other, what can we do?
Progressives must form strategies and tactics based on the reality that we can’t get there from here. At least we can’t do it together.
There can be no compromise with the Righteous Right. Tune in next week and I’ll let you in on all the details.
Note: I borrowed the concept of thunking from the philosopher Larry Rosenthal who introduced the concept back in 1980’s in his digital comedy zine aptly titled tHunk. This theft makes me wonder if I thought this all up, or if I was merely thunking. OMG, soon I might be talking like Michelle Bachman or Glenn Beck with thunks instead of thoughts. Ahhhhhhhhh!
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Comments
If you will indulge me a small riff:
Conservatives are dinosaurs howling their death throes.
Progressives are cockroaches imperturbably hunkering down.
Look forward or look backward it should be evident which species will survive or has survived.
@ Noni - C'mon, girl. While a genuine Conservative would most certainly capitalize Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh I cannot imagine one who would fail to capitalize the words ". . .the bible, the constitution. . ." as you have just done.
If they are typos, mea culpa.
If they are NOT typos, your slip may be showing.
Just sayin'.
But I agree with Noni. The Bible has all the answers. And Ronald Reagan was God.
R
R
Great read! Rated.
Progressives ideas start with the government. They believe only the government can do what you can't do for yourselves.
They believe that by taking from one group to hand out to another will somehow make the that lesser group better off.
They believe in the collective and not in the individual.
About a year ago, after years of hearing and using the term "cognitive dissonance" I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. It was coined by a Sociology professor to describe a phenomenon which he discovered in an elaborate experiment he did. It explains why right-wingers are immune to any factual evidence about global warming, evolution, the disappearance of the Soviet Union and thus the Cold War, etc.. The Wikipedia article is fascinating. In the 1950's there was a woman in the US who claimed she could communicate with a race of space aliens who told her the Earth was going to blow up. However they would come in flying saucers to rescue her and anyone who joined her before the end which was very soon. This woman developed a fairly large following. The flying saucers were going to land in her back yard, so this was the assembly area for the evacuation. As "E-Day" approached, some believers quit their jobs and sold their homes before heading for the assembly area. All this was carefully monitored by the prof's students who were working on this project. They even joined the evacuees, pretending to be fellow believers. When the flying saucers did not arrive on time, the woman announced that she had misunderstood their message and that she would get back in touch and let everyone know what the correct rescue date was. Most of the evacuees, if they had not sold them, went back to their homes to wait for the revised information. This farce dragged on for some time.
This is no different from the mental state of the hard core right-wingers. What is really, I think, a serious problem for our body politic, is not that such people exist, but there are so many of them and they occupy positions of leadership in politics and the media.
It is not possible to have a rational discussion with a mentally ill person. The majority of Republican politicians are either ideological right-wingers or completely dependent on this faction of the party to remain in office. As you pointed out, any Republican politician that does anything rational is viciously attacked as a traitor (RHINO is the favored epithet). A case in pont is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who recently announced he would support measures to control Global Warming. He is now being viciously attacked on the Internet by the right-wing establishment there. I personally saw one example which shocked me, which is normally pretty hard to do.
This reality, means that from day one and into the indefinite future, the idea of compromise and bi-partisanship with the Republicans is a fantasy. I hope President Obama and the people around him are finally waking up to this. Even if they are, they are arriving very late to dinner
Nancy Pelosi and Patrick Leahy couldn't answer the simple question "Where in the constitution does it allow the government to create a mandate for health care."
the mouth fires before the brain lights up. no one group has a patent on stupidity. it's in the public domain and people use it like fast food.
except bill moyers, the coolest man in the universe.