Trying to understand conservative reasoning, (A well mannered thread.)

[corrado33]

Somebody please help me understand. I can't get it.

 

First off, let's keep this thread clean. Mods, if it's not on the up and up with the community standards, please delete/lock/whatever. I did quickly view the standards and there's nothing explicit that bans political threads. At least that I found.

 

I'm trying to understand conservative/Trump supporter reasoning. My reasoning for this is that if I understand how they work, I can maybe try to make things better.

 

(Note, "conservative/republican" means different things in different parts of the world. I mean the American definition. Far right = conservative = republican = trump supporter.)

 

Here's the general anatomy of a liberal/conservative argument.

 

Conservative says something.

Liberal says "that thing isn't true."

Liberal says "here is the scientific data supporting the opposite thing." 

Conservative says "Science is shit, I don't believe it."

Liberal says "Science is the best thing we have to understand everything in the world."

Conservative says "I don't care, it's wrong.

- OR - Conservative scientist says "You have to consider who was funding that research/who performed it."

Liberal calls conservative some expletive out of sheer frustration.

Conservative says "All you do is attack me."

Liberal thinks "Well it's because all you do is say "I don't believe in science" and that's the dumbest thing you could say."

Liberal tries to explain the frustration they're going through

Conservative sticks with the "attack." Claiming they can't win the argument because they feel "attacked."

Liberal gives up.

 

I can't get through. I can't argue with someone who doesn't believe science.

 

And the awful thing is... some of my friends are conservative scientists... they SHOULD know better. But the worst of the worst is when they start blaming "funding sources" for research, undermining the entirety of the scientific community, peer review process, scientific method, etc. Fun fact, the very large majority of the scientific community are liberals. Much of scientific experiments are performed by liberals. But that SHOULDN'T matter. A scientist is, by definition, unbiased. You cannot go into an experiment expecting a certain result and refusing anything else. That's not science. That type of science doesn't survive the peer review process. It is our JOB to look at the DATA and not our biases. 

 

Yes, there are very biased journals, hell, there are RELIGIOUS journals, but the major journals, the ones that matter, are unbiased. If the science is there and the reviewers can't poke holes in it, it gets published. Period.

 

All I want is to have an intelligent argument with a conservative that will support their views with evidence and credible sources, not conjecture and hearsay. 

 

In my experience, the conservatives I've talked to are unwilling to even LOOK at the evidence that does not support their views. Why is this?

 

I DO NOT want to this to become an echo chamber. If you are conservative, please respond. We will refrain from name calling and bad manners. 

[Mug]

There are different ways of persuading liberal people and conservative people that something is right.

 

I'll give toy a totes non-controversial topic: abortion

To persuade a liberal, all you need is the figures but to persuade a conservative, you have to tell them how the reforms you want fit in with what they want (e.g their beliefs in family or religion). It's usually about emotional arguments. That's ok though, society needs both groups to function.

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, Mug said:

There are different ways of persuading liberal people and conservative people that something is right.

 

I'll give toy a totes non-controversial topic: abortion

To persuade a liberal, all you need is the figures but to persuade a conservative, you have to tell them how the reforms you want fit in with what they want (e.g their beliefs in family or religion). It's usually about emotional arguments. That's ok though, society needs both groups to function.

See that's the issue though. It basically boils down to "conservatives won't change their beliefs" and "you need to essentially lie to them to tell them that the new thing will support their beliefs better."

 

Can people not see that is wrong? This is what I don't understand.

[Guest Kloaked]

6 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Far right = conservative = republican = trump supporter.

I would like to clarify something. Conservative means power to the people, personal responsibility, less government, and conserving constitutional values. Trump is a very liberal, [now] Republican who is coming around to conservatism. This does not mean every single Republican and/or Conservative is a Trump supporter. I would even venture to say a huge chunk of them voted Trump because they always vote Republican - that and he wasn't Hillary.

 

8 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Conservative says something.

Liberal says "that thing isn't true."

Liberal says "here is the scientific data supporting the opposite thing." 

Conservative says "Science is shit, I don't believe it."

Liberal says "Science is the best thing we have to understand everything in the world."

Conservative says "I don't care, it's wrong.

- OR - Conservative scientist says "You have to consider who was funding that research/who performed it."

Liberal calls conservative some expletive out of sheer frustration.

Conservative says "All you do is attack me."

Liberal thinks "Well it's because all you do is say "I don't believe in science" and that's the dumbest thing you could say."

Liberal tries to explain the frustration they're going through

Conservative sticks with the "attack." Claiming they can't win the argument because they feel "attacked."

Liberal gives up.

This is also completely wrong in the space where it matters. Science is very important even to conservatives. Because they don't think that this new climate change stuff doesn't matter and are not taking it seriously doesn't mean they're science deniers. They just are not convinced it's something we can control and that it's not just Earth going through it's usual historical climate change. The religious-right may say bad things about the big boogieman called science, but that's not all of them.

 

I could go on more, but it's not fair to make this type of argument against conservatives, in my opinion.

 

11 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

I can't get through. I can't argue with someone who doesn't believe science.

The main problem is that people generally don't like being told that they're wrong and/or they don't like new ideas. This whole election for example brought out the worst in some people. It had divided families and friends because of political differences. In my opinion, conservatives are generally the ones who are willing to talk about things, and it is the snowflake leftists who are drawing lines in the sand - hence the "women's march" protests that aren't about women, and so on.

 

13 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

And the awful thing is... some of my friends are conservative scientists... they SHOULD know better. But the worst of the worst is when they start blaming "funding sources" for research, undermining the entirety of the scientific community, peer review process, scientific method, etc. Fun fact, the very large majority of the scientific community are liberals. Much of scientific experiments are performed by liberals. But that SHOULDN'T matter. A scientist is, by definition, unbiased. You cannot go into an experiment expecting a certain result and refusing anything else. That's not science. That type of science doesn't survive the peer review process. It is our JOB to look at the DATA and not our biases.

Nobody can be unbiased, which is why there are disagreements with everything. You can be as objective as possible but you cannot be unbiased. People only regard the truth that they want to see, and that goes for everyone. However, if you're making a claim it is up to you to prove it and not leave it to be anecdotal.

 

15 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

In my experience, the conservatives I've talked to are unwilling to even LOOK at the evidence that does not support their views. Why is this?

 

I DO NOT want to this to become an echo chamber. If you are conservative, please respond. We will refrain from name calling and bad manners. 

I've looked at a lot of evidence about this climate change stuff given to me by my liberal friends, one in particular who has an Ph D in some field of research. I wasn't convinced that it's something that humans are causing and something that we can control.

 

I am however on board with taking care of the environment anyways. I do not like going outside of my own yard and seeing trash in it that people who drove by couldn't wait and toss in a garbage can, for example. So I do what any normal person would do and I pick it up because leaving garbage in my yard, even if I didn't do it, is nasty. If everyone did their part we would be a little better off as when it comes to personal responsibility (hearkens back to conservatism), you can get more done instead of expecting everyone else to do it.

[Mug]

15 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

See that's the issue though. It basically boils down to "conservatives won't change their beliefs" and "you need to essentially lie to them to tell them that the new thing will support their beliefs better."

 

Can people not see that is wrong? This is what I don't understand.

It's not about lying, it's about compromise and well-mannered persuasion techniques.

 

I'll give you another example, liberal politicians in Texas were tryign to push through a bill that included new prisoner rehabilitation programmes. Normally, such a bill in Texas would be unthinkable but it's because the liberals were able to persuade the conservatives that it meant that offenders could continue to support their families and work in a cohesive society that they were able to get the bill through. I watched a documentary the other week about it, apparantly it's been really successful. The figures alone were enough to persuade me that such a good programme was a good idea but when persuading the conservative, you would have to structure your argument well or you'd be accused of being weak on crime.

[GSTARR]

Conservative reasoning doesn't work like how you described it

I think your problem here is you are under the impression that you have a grasp on how the majority of humans think, when the majority of America and people in general don't relay that sort of information A) often and B) well

 

Not alot of people can give their reasoning with decades of experience and feelings and facts all together in a cohesive manner, so they throw in some feelings in their argument and call it a day

[AresKrieger]

29 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

 

Both the far left and right are filled with dogmatic ideas, neither of which are logical, if you think that these are only issues with the right you have failed to see the issues with the left

 

As for conservatives not believing in science I think you fail to understand the right is more so a coalition of ideologies formed to gain more political clout, some conservatives are very religious others like myself are atheist

 

My main issue with the left is they want to expand government, I do not, additionally they practice identity politics which I despise, though if I had my way political parties would not exist because both parties are bad.

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

I would like to clarify something. Conservative means power to the people, personal responsibility, less government, and conserving constitutional values. Trump is a very liberal, [now] Republican who is coming around to conservatism. This does not mean every single Republican and/or Conservative is a Trump supporter. I would even venture to say a huge chunk of them voted Trump because they always vote Republican - that and he wasn't Hillary.

You are correct, I should not have made that generalization, but with this last election... that's what it looks like. And people should NEVER vote one way simply because that's what they "identify" with. I don't know the word for that, but it's BAD. That's how we got here. People should always look at both candidates and decide. This is why a two party system is ridiculously dumb, because the parties gravitate toward the extremes. 

 

5 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

This is also completely wrong in the space where it matters. Science is very important even to conservatives. Because they don't think that this new climate change stuff doesn't matter and are not taking it seriously doesn't mean they're science deniers. They just are not convinced it's something we can control and that it's not just Earth going through it's usual historical climate change. The religious-right may say bad things about the big boogieman called science, but that's not all of them.

See but that is incorrect. It is not earth going through it's historical climate change. I will look up some references if you'd like. There is a very obvious, significant jump in temperature and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when man started burning fossil fuels for energy. Yes, the earth has been through higher greenhouse gas concentrations and has survived. That's not the argument. The argument is that we certainly made a difference to get here, we can certainly make a difference to sustain our presence here. The very large majority of scientific publications say that climate change is real, is a big deal, is caused by us, and is something that needs to be addressed. If you believe otherwise, then please present me with evidence supporting that conclusion. I would absolutely read it. 

 

And for the record, that "anatomy" is directly from one of my arguments with my conservative friend.

8 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

The main problem is that people generally don't like being told that they're wrong and/or they don't like new ideas. This whole election for example brought out the worst in some people. It had divided families and friends because of political differences. In my opinion, conservatives are generally the ones who are willing to talk about things, and it is the snowflake leftists who are drawing lines in the sand - hence the "women's march" protests that aren't about women, and so on.

I would like to know where you are from because I want to go there and try to talk with them. Yes, there are bad people on both sides, left and right, but I have the opposite experience to you. Everytime I bring up evidence the person never even looks at it. "I'm too busy" is the general response I get. 

 

It just seem to me that every conservative I talk to has an excuse. "Well the science is unclear." or "I don't have time to read the science." or "I don't want to read it because this person is liberal."

 

I'll try to find a review of recent climate change literature and post it here for you. Would you read it? It's actually quite difficult because science has decided (years ago) that man caused much of it, and no one does research on that anymore. Just research on the effects of climate change. 

[corrado33]

6 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

 

Both the far left and right are filled with dogmatic ideas, neither of which are logical, if you think that these are only issues with the right you have failed to see the issues with the left

 

As for conservatives not believing in science I think you fail to understand the right is more so a coalition of ideologies formed to gain more political clout, some conservatives are very religious others like myself are atheist

 

My main issue with the left is they want to expand government, I do not, additionally they practice identity politics which I despise, though if I had my way political parties would not exist because both parties are bad.

Oh no! There are terribly bad people on both sides. There are just as bad liberals as there are conservatives. 

 

So answer me this, if the right is more of a "coalition of ideologies formed to gain more political clout" in your words, how can you believe in it? Does that not seem wrong to you? Ideologies are formed because of politics, so then you believe in those politics to further those politics. Where is the solid base? Where is the structured reasoning? It all seems circular to me. 

[corrado33]

12 minutes ago, GSTARR said:

Conservative reasoning doesn't work like how you described it

I think your problem here is you are under the impression that you have a grasp on how the majority of humans think, when the majority of America and people in general don't relay that sort of information A) often and B) well

 

Not alot of people can give their reasoning with decades of experience and feelings and facts all together in a cohesive manner, so they throw in some feelings in their argument and call it a day

Ok, that's fine, but how can people ignore evidence when it IS presented to them in a logical and cohesive manner? THAT is the question. Because that is what I see happening. 

[corrado33]

14 minutes ago, Mug said:

It's not about lying, it's about compromise and well-mannered persuasion techniques.

 

It seems like lying. And it's definitely not compromise. When one side isn't willing to budge, that doesn't seem like compromise to me. 

 

How did that bill in texas get passed if the conservatives were so against it? To me it seems like a case of "right hated it, left implemented it anyway, it worked out well."

[Mug]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

It seems like lying. And it's definitely not compromise. When one side isn't willing to budge, that doesn't seem like compromise to me. 

 

How did that bill in texas get passed if the conservatives were so against it? To me it seems like a case of "right hated it, left implemented it anyway, it worked out well."

Again, liberals were able to make the conservatives see eye-to-eye because they showed them how the new system could fit in with their ideals. It's all about spin, spin isn't lying.

[corrado33]

53 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

I've looked at a lot of evidence about this climate change stuff given to me by my liberal friends, one in particular who has an Ph D in some field of research. I wasn't convinced that it's something that humans are causing and something that we can control.

Here, I've found an article that conducted a study of almost 1000 scientific, peer reviewed publications. It found NONE that denied the human cause for global warming.

 

1686.full.pdf

 

I will try to find a review that says the same thing as technically the above could be considered "media" and I already said not to trust the media.

 

My friend's argument against this would be "Well they only looked at the abstracts, and it was probably climate change acceptors that did the research."

[corrado33]

6 minutes ago, Mug said:

Again, liberals were able to make the conservatives see eye-to-eye because they showed them how the new system could fit in with their ideals. It's all about spin, spin isn't lying.

Ahh, so you're saying the liberals said things like "Giving people a second chance is what God would do." (Exaggerating of course.)

 

Ok, I can see that, if that is what you meant. I just still can't 100% understand it though. Doesn't that SEEM wrong? Basing a government on feelings and beliefs rather than facts and data? I'm not saying the gov. has to be 100% facts, it needs empathy and sympathy obviously, but we're headed in the wrong direction right now, away from facts and data. 

 

However, I can also say that I've tried to make the argument that the US is a melting pot, it's what this country was founded on, and denying refuge for people under tyrannical regimes is wrong, morally wrong. Yet they still don't listen. (Discussing the travel ban.)

[AresKrieger]

16 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

coalition of ideologies formed to gain more political clout" in your words, how can you believe in it?

The reason I can believe that is really simple the republican party currently is composed of 3 major factions, the libertarians/Constitutionalists (I'm aware they have their own party but any intelligent person realizes the 2 party system makes it irrelevant), the Tea party/the religious right, and Neo cons.

 

There is some overlap between these groups but the divisions are present and can be seen by looking at senators with these differing ideologies for example.

 

Tea party/Religious right----> Ted Cruz

Libertarian/ Constitutionalist -----> Rand Paul

Neo Con------> George Bush

 

As for why people vote republican consistently it is simple (ie the base), they hate the democrats ideologies hence they'll never vote for them unless the party changes, personally I'd rather the parties not exist so it encourages new blood into politics, and more variety.

[Mug]

Just now, corrado33 said:

Ahh, so you're saying the liberals said things like "Giving people a second chance is what God would do." (Exaggerating of course.)

Yeah, essentially. I believe that was one of the arguments made by the lawmakers in fact

 

[corrado33]

6 minutes ago, Mug said:

Yeah, essentially. I believe that was one of the arguments made by the lawmakers in fact

 

But isn't that... awful? You have one side willing to do ANYTHING to get the other side to believe in the science and reason, even go so far as make comments for something they don't believe in. That's not a discussion, that's not a compromise. That's begging, and the things that ARE implemented are working out.

[Clanscorpia]

 Im sorry I had too

[corrado33]

12 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

The reason I can believe that is really simple the republican party currently is composed of 3 major factions, the libertarians/Constitutionalists (I'm aware they have their own party but any intelligent person realizes the 2 party system makes it irrelevant), the Tea party/the religious right, and Neo cons.

 

There is some overlap between these groups but the divisions are present and can be seen by looking at senators with these differing ideologies for example.

 

Tea party/Religious right----> Ted Cruz

Libertarian/ Constitutionalist -----> Rand Paul

Neo Con------> George Bush

 

As for why people vote republican consistently it is simple (ie the base), they hate the democrats ideologies hence they'll never vote for them unless the party changes, personally I'd rather the parties not exist so it encourages new blood into politics, and more variety.

I definitely agree that we shouldn't HAVE parties. But I also think the majority of people who think that AREN'T conservatives. I like you, because you're willing to talk and teach me things I wouldn't know otherwise. But the majority of the conservatives I've met (I live in Montana) don't think that way. 

 

The way I see it is that the majority of the well mannered liberals (let's leave the neo feminists out of this.) just want the other side to believe in what science is telling them. There is no counter argument from the other side. The conservative's argument is "I like things the way they are/I believe in what I believe because I like things they way they are/I believe in what I believe." There is no base, nothing solid beneath it. Please correct me.

 

The left is trying to use facts and knowledge to convince the right, but the opposite isn't true. Am I wrong?

[Mug]

5 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

But isn't that... awful? You have one side willing to do ANYTHING to get the other side to believe in the science and reason, even go so far as make comments for something they don't believe in. That's not a discussion, that's not a compromise. That's begging, and the things that ARE implemented are working out.

Compromise is better than nothing. I guess whether that's acceptable is based on what you believe in ideologically.

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, Mug said:

Compromise is better than nothing. I guess whether that's acceptable is based on what you believe in ideologically.

That's funny, because that's the exact same conclusion my friend and I came to. Unfortunately, it's not acceptable to me. She said "Accept it or be unhappy." I refuse to accept a regime not based on facts. Is it not wrong that the "conclusion" to that argument is "Well you have to accept the right or else?" Can people not see that? This is what is confusing me.

[chrisholland03]

There's a formational perspective that I think summarizes the difference between the two positions:

 

Conservatives believe that people at their core are bad and need boundaries and consequences.  Liberals believe that people at their core are good and need support and guidance.

 

I like to think that people are much more dynamic than 'liberal' or 'conservative'.

 

 

[AresKrieger]

2 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

The way I see it is that the majority of the well mannered liberals (let's leave the neo feminists out of this.) just want the other side to believe in what science is telling them. 

I assume you are specifically talking about climate change if so it is really simple, Al Gore's scare tactics backfired as no calamity occurred in his predicted time table and no calamity will occur from a slight change in temperature thus people took the entire field as bogus by association.  Additionally we don't fully understand the climate in general to make such broad claims about warming trends all we can say for certain is carbon dioxide (and other similar gases) creates a greenhouse affect which is contributing in a large way to temperature rises.

 

All this nonsense about the world being in danger from this is just silly, now if it were global cooling that would be a different and worse scenario as crops generally require warm weather, thus slight warming isn't as much as a problem as cooling.

[GSTARR]

39 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Ok, that's fine, but how can people ignore evidence when it IS presented to them in a logical and cohesive manner? THAT is the question. Because that is what I see happening. 

It's a case by case situation, I can't answer that

[SansVarnic]

1 hour ago, corrado33 said:

Conservative says something.

Liberal says "that thing isn't true."

Liberal says "here is the scientific data supporting the opposite thing." 

Conservative says "Science is shit, I don't believe it."

Liberal says "Science is the best thing we have to understand everything in the world."

Conservative says "I don't care, it's wrong.

- OR - Conservative scientist says "You have to consider who was funding that research/who performed it."

Liberal calls conservative some expletive out of sheer frustration.

Conservative says "All you do is attack me."

Liberal thinks "Well it's because all you do is say "I don't believe in science" and that's the dumbest thing you could say."

Liberal tries to explain the frustration they're going through

Conservative sticks with the "attack." Claiming they can't win the argument because they feel "attacked."

Liberal gives up.

I have had the same conversation in the polar opposite.

 

Conservative does not necessarily mean Republican but it does relate more to the republican.

Trump ran as a Republican but is not necessarily Republican by political standing.

 

There is science and there is garbage science - take from that what you will, but the thing is there are theories and there are factual hard proofs, global-warming (for example) is a theory not a hard proof. (just for the record - I am not in a position to debate global warming it was just an example)

Edited January 31, 2017 by SansVarnic