The psychological profile of the “pseudo-conservative”

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This explains a lot – such as people who simultaneously demand lower taxes and more and wider roads, those who proclaim that “now is not the time” to take steps to protect our perennial streams (which is sort of like saying “now is not the time to begin treatment for your cancer”), and those who insist that their religious freedom has been stolen from them when they are prevented from interfering with the religious expression of others.

I suppose it’s comforting, in a way, that this is nothing new.

4 thoughts on “The psychological profile of the “pseudo-conservative””

  1. Epluribusunum

    have to keep contradictory assumptions separate, lest they inadvertently call into question the maxim “there are no contradictions; if you think you see a contradiction, check your premises. One of them is wrong.”

    Of course the universe isn’t so cooperative as to conform to our fundamentalist this-explains-everything human maxims. You can see the problem.

    It does seem to me that there is a temperamental type (it may be overreaching to call it a mental disorder) that has low tolerance for ambiguity and is attracted to ideologies that provide a kind of comfort and security in the face of that insecure feeling. Temperamental types just are the way they are – so what’s the answer?

  2. Epluribusunum

    Here’s another: People who want to shrink the federal government down to where they can strangle it in the bathtub, who also want to know why the federal government hasn’t fixed BP’s oil spill yet. These people are hilarious. Here’s Fareed Zakaria:

    Calls for more government are coming from the most unlikely quarters. Carville’s wife, Mary Matalin, argues that the cleanup is very much the federal government’s responsibility. Yet in response to the only comparable U.S. oil disaster in recent history, the Exxon Valdez spill, the George H.W. Bush administration, for which she worked, specifically denied that the federal government bore any responsibility for the cleanup. In fact, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner declared that government involvement would be “counterproductive.” Conservatives who have long urged limits on the federal government are now suddenly discovering their inner FDRs.

  3. JonathanWeintraub

    Ouch, ouch, ouch.

    I’ve wondered how this could happen and came to the same conclusion.  It’s a mental disorder that allows a person to encapsulate information such that two tightly-coupled contradictory assumptions can be embraced without acknowledging that they are interconnected.  The emotional will to keep the assumptions disconnected is sacrosanct.  If that’s not postmodernism…

    Now don’t get me wrong.  That’s not the same thing as holding two contradictory ideas like “the situation is hopeless but we still have hope“.

  4. Dave Nemetz

    that this:

    The pseudo-conservative believes himself to be living in a world in which he is spied upon, plotted against, betrayed and very likely destined for total ruin. He feels that his liberties have been arbitrarily and outrageously invaded …

    explains this and this:

    Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, “Delgaudio what are you doing here?” Dozens of men began moving toward me. I’d been recognized.

    As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, “This time Delgaudio we can’t lose.”

    Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win.

    You see, even though homosexuals are just 1% of the population, if every one sent a petition to Congress it would generate a tidal wave of two or three million petitions or more.

    What an embarrassment.

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