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The fascism of Patrick Jost and his "friend" Ramesh REVEALED
Vinod Ramesh must have been having a bad day yesterday. The editorial
page article by Patrick Jost et. al. defending their research on political conservatism is simply terrible. It is terrible not because of what it says but rather how it distorts what they previously said in thier research. They claim that they did this research as arm's length unbiased academic research and their findings have been distorted by an irresponsible press. As much as I hate to defend the press, they interpreted what Jost et. al. was saying in their reprehensible articles correctly. (Indeed, the cause of the press's interpretation was most likely a Stanford university press release that described the research. Having read the original articles, I do not believe that a journalist would have the patience to read the things in the first place.) Anyway several points need to be made. 1. The press did not create the pejorative terms to describe conservative or conservative beliefs, the researchers did. The terms dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity to describe conservatives appear throughout both articles (They wrote two articles. The original article and then one responding to a criticism of that article. Both articles appear in the May issue of Psychology Bulletin) but most prominantly in the abstract of the original article. In the abstract of the reply article, the following terms to describe conservatives also appear, "lack of openess to experience; uncertainty avoidence; personal needs for order, structure and closure; fear of death; and system threat." They then repeat these claims in the first paragraph of the article itself. Moreover, they repeat these claims throughout the article and the follow-up Reply article. In short, despite the protests of the authors, the pejorative description of conservatives is not due to any misinterpretation of the article by the press but rather the content of the article. 2. The most outrageous comparisons of conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh to Hitler and Mussolini is based solely on their claim that all preached a return to some idealized past. This is a claim that remains unproven. I do not remember Reagan championing such a thing nor have I heard Limbaugh champion such a notion. If one could link political ideologies to Hitler and Mussolini by one possible similarity then on the basis of their support for and creation of social security, New Deal liberals could be placed in the same camp as these two. Furthermore, German Greens could be linked to Hitler as they share certain reverences for nature. In the Washington Post article, Jost et. al. simply do not address why they rely so heavily on such a tenuous link between Reagan and Hitler and Mussolini. 3. They selectively attribute motivations to conservatives (from their Exceptions reply). "American conservatives may support a market-based economy (which introduces uncertainty and risk) because it preserves the status quo and results in inequality of outcomes even though it may conflict with personal needs for stability and security." In other words, if a policy has an impact that conflicts with their hypothesis, they will search among other possible impacts until they find one that is consistent with their hypothesis. In short, it is impossible to test their hypothesis. This is not science. 4. Finally there is no control group. Suppose that everything else these guys find is true, it does not prove that these are "conservative traits." These may be human traits and by focusing only on research examining conservative (and fascist) beliefs, they are attributing to conservatives, personality traits that exist in people of all political ideologies (and even among those who are completely apolitical). This too means that Jost et. al.'s research is not science. To understand how completely these guys are out of touch with reality consider this statement in their Exceptions Reply, "(Reagan's) chief accomplishment, in effect, was to roll back both the New Deal era and the 1960's, which was also the goal of former Speaker of the House of Represenatives Newt Gingrich and many other neo-conservatives often regarded as advocates of change." In addition to being factually wrong, there is a logical error. Why would rolling back the New Deal and 1960's be a goal of Newt Gingrich and Neo-conservatives if that had already accomplished by Reagan? Another statement in the Exceptions Reply illustrates the contempt and bias these researchers have for conservatives. "there seems to be no shortage of ideological rigidity among right-wing emigres from Cuba living in the United States, as demonstrated by the Elian Gonzales case." It is simply unclear to me (and unexplained by them) how the Elian Gonzales case illustrates any such thing except the author's hostility to hispanics who do not follow the liberal party line. I realize this email is long (and probably late given that Remesh's original post was from yesterday and about yesterday's Washington Post editorial page), but my main point is that we should not be decieved by an academic's self-serving description of his own research. Consulting that research to determine what it says and its purpose is much better. We do this with regard to many other kinds of research, we should also do it with psuedo-psychological research into the psychology of conservatives, especially research by Dogmatic Liberal ideologues who think it is reasonable to liken conservatives to fascists and Nazis. |
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#2
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The fascism of Patrick Jost and his "friend" Ramesh REVEALED
On Aug 30, 6:14*am, wrote:
Vinod Ramesh must have been having a bad day yesterday. The editorial page article by Patrick Jost et. al. defending their research on political conservatism is simply terrible. It is terrible not because of what it says but rather how it distorts what they previously said in thier research. They claim that they did this research as arm's length unbiased academic research and their findings have been distorted by an irresponsible press. As much as I hate to defend the press, they interpreted what Jost et. al. was saying in their reprehensible articles correctly. (Indeed, the cause of the press's interpretation was most likely a Stanford university press release that described the research. Having read the original articles, I do not believe that a journalist would have the patience to read the things in the first place.) Anyway several points need to be made. 1. The press did not create the pejorative terms to describe conservative or conservative beliefs, the researchers did. The terms dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity to describe conservatives appear throughout both articles (They wrote two articles. The original article and then one responding to a criticism of that article. Both articles appear in the May issue of Psychology Bulletin) but most prominantly in the abstract of the original article. In the abstract of the reply article, the following terms to describe conservatives also appear, "lack of openess to experience; uncertainty avoidence; personal needs for order, structure and closure; fear of death; and system threat." They then repeat these claims in the first paragraph of the article itself. Moreover, they repeat these claims throughout the article and the follow-up Reply article. In short, despite the protests of the authors, the pejorative description of conservatives is not due to any misinterpretation of the article by the press but rather the content of the article. 2. The most outrageous comparisons of conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh to Hitler and Mussolini is based solely on their claim that all preached a return to some idealized past. This is a claim that remains unproven. I do not remember Reagan championing such a thing nor have I heard Limbaugh champion such a notion. If one could link political ideologies to Hitler and Mussolini by one possible similarity then on the basis of their support for and creation of social security, New Deal liberals could be placed in the same camp as these two. Furthermore, German Greens could be linked to Hitler as they share certain reverences for nature. In the Washington Post article, Jost et. al. simply do not address why they rely so heavily on such a tenuous link between Reagan and Hitler and Mussolini. 3. They selectively attribute motivations to conservatives (from their Exceptions reply). "American conservatives may support a market-based economy (which introduces uncertainty and risk) because it preserves the status quo and results in inequality of outcomes even though it may conflict with personal needs for stability and security." In other words, if a policy has an impact that conflicts with their hypothesis, they will search among other possible impacts until they find one that is consistent with their hypothesis. In short, it is impossible to test their hypothesis. This is not science. 4. Finally there is no control group. Suppose that everything else these guys find is true, it does not prove that these are "conservative traits." These may be human traits and by focusing only on research examining conservative (and fascist) beliefs, they are attributing to conservatives, personality traits that exist in people of all political ideologies (and even among those who are completely apolitical). This too means that Jost et. al.'s research is not science. To understand how completely these guys are out of touch with reality consider this statement in their Exceptions Reply, "(Reagan's) chief accomplishment, in effect, was to roll back both the New Deal era and the 1960's, which was also the goal of former Speaker of the House of Represenatives Newt Gingrich and many other neo-conservatives often regarded as advocates of change." In addition to being factually wrong, there is a logical error. Why would rolling back the New Deal and 1960's be a goal of Newt Gingrich and Neo-conservatives if that had already accomplished by Reagan? Another statement in the Exceptions Reply illustrates the contempt and bias these researchers have for conservatives. "there seems to be no shortage of ideological rigidity among right-wing emigres from Cuba living in the United States, as demonstrated by the Elian Gonzales case." It is simply unclear to me (and unexplained by them) how the Elian Gonzales case illustrates any such thing except the author's hostility to hispanics who do not follow the liberal party line. I realize this email is long (and probably late given that Remesh's original post was from yesterday and about yesterday's Washington Post editorial page), but my main point is that we should not be decieved by an academic's self-serving description of his own research. Consulting that research to determine what it says and its purpose is much better. We do this with regard to many other kinds of research, we should also do it with psuedo-psychological research into the psychology of conservatives, especially research by Dogmatic Liberal ideologues who think it is reasonable to liken conservatives to fascists and Nazis. I couldn’t waste my time reading that long, boring, off topic post, especially since I know it was wrong and stupid. Far right wackos are through in America. Let’s hope it’s not too late to repair the damage they have wrought. |
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