Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Political Philosophy

Ah, To Be Informed and Open-Minded

Daily Caller reports on a Pew survey, "Partisan Differences in Knowledge," which "shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats."

The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.
. . .

A March 12 Pew study showed that Democrats are far more likely than conservatives to disconnect from people who disagree with them.
. . .

A March Washington Post poll showed that Democrats were more willing to change their views about a subject to make their team look good. For example, in 2006, 73 percent of Democrats said the GOP-controlled White House could lower gas prices, but that number fell by more than half to 33 percent in 2012 once a Democrat was in the White House.

The article also mentions "novel research from the University of Virginia."

UVA researchers have used a massive online survey to show that conservatives better understand the ideas of liberals than vice versa. The results are described in a new book by UVA researcher Jonathan Haidt, "Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

The book uses a variety of data to argue that conservatives have a balanced set of moral intuitions, while liberals are focused on aiding victims, fairness and individual liberty. Conservatives recognize how liberals think because they share those intuitions, but liberals don't understand how conservatives think because they don't recognize conservatives' additional intuitions about loyalty, authority and sanctity, Haidt argues.

And this bit of "commercial research into the tastes and political views of potential customers" was also highly amusing to me.

. . . researchers have learned that Internet sites offering financial information, sports scores, online-auctions attract far more interest from Republicans than from Democrats, according to a 2010 study by National Media Research, Planning and Placement, based in Alexandria, Va.

In contrast, Democrats outnumber Republicans at online dating sites, job-searches sites, online TV and online video-game sites, said the firm.

All very interesting - and very unsurprising.

Discussions - 5 Comments

Boy oh boy, is pumpkin gonna get his panties in a wad over this one... Here comes the truck load of links....

Not to worry, if Scanlon does comment it'll just be a load of pseudo-science saying the conservatives are stupid and authoritarian (written by, of course, hard-core lefty psychologists for the most part). The latest one purports to show that conservativism is the "default" political orientation when people refuse to be enlightened (i.e., conservativism is the bedrock commonsense that has served our species quite well over the last 100K years, and it is liberalism/statism that has yet to prove itself as a sustainable political philosophy).

There's more! Bsking over at Bad Data, Bad! has a new one about conservatives and science that is the reverse of the MSM CW.

https://baddatabad.blogspot.com/2012/04/paranoia-is-just-good-sense-if-people.html

Wow, that IS interesting. While correlation is not necessarily causation, it does appear that, as science becomes more corrupt, the liberal faith in it increases. Who'd a thunk it??

This is why conservatives need to make a concerted effort to invade the ranks of the social scientists (and I'm not talking about creationists here, but actual scientifically-minded individuals who really understand human nature and are thus conservative).

Sounds the work of Haidt. Just got his book "Righteous Minds." I'm half way through and this book is a breakthrough in understanding our political mindscape.

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