Right-Wing Labels

from Pick Wayne's Brain:

The Right-Wing in this country uses fear and hate to win public support for their ideas. This cannot be disputed, and was even studied by Associate Professor Jonathan Haidt (“What Makes People Vote Republican?"). In a nutshell, when our fears and emotions are tapped, we tend to react first and rationalize what we did later, even if our “rationale” is in conflict with the facts. Rather than appeal to our intellect and ability to reason our way to a solution, the Right-Wing stokes fear and hate and then tells you who to fear and who to hate. The reason why you should fear and hate becomes completely irrelevant once they have tapped into your emotions, for any kind of “reasoning” will make sense if it makes you feel justified in doing what you did, even if you normally would have thought that what you were doing was wrong. Without this tactic, they could not win support for their arguments on the facts alone. (And when I talk about “facts”, I’m talking about things that are actually true, not what many people might believe to be the truth.)

Whether they want to admit it or not, this attribute in humans to have our sense of fear and hate be easily tapped comes from our evolutionary survival skills. Our ancestors needed to be able to spot danger by seeing who or what was different around them. If they came across another human-like creature that looked different from themselves, they would know he was not from their own clan/tribe/collective/village, and that he might pose a danger. A good place to grow food, hunt animals, and live peacefully was worth defending from those who would take it by force.

But we have evolved beyond the need to immediately be fearful of someone who looks different. And we have learned that cooperation benefits everyone when resources are plentiful. The key to advancement as a society and a civilization is cooperation, not division. The Right-Wing tries to make you fear or hate someone or something, and then gives you a plausible-sounding (but usually illogical) argument for doing so, and tells you what to do about it. You rarely ever hear them give a rational explanation for supporting what they want you to do.

Rush Limbaugh has been big on labeling the current economic mess as “The Obama Recession”. It’s stupid because the economic problems began more than a year ago and Obama is not yet the president. But they have given the situation a Label, and then they will define for you what it means. And they will make you afraid of what Obama might do (based on nothing but their own personal fears and imaginations), and tell you that you have to stop him before it’s too late. I know, because I’ve already seen them doing this. But they will never explain why they are right in the first place. And do you know why? It’s not simply because of their anti-intellectual attitude. It’s because they don’t have one.