The Smug Style in American Liberalism

[theeedude]

While EMOs are concerned about subjective nonsense such as who is smug and who isn't:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/life-expectancy-for-white-americans-declines-1461124861

Life expectancy fell for the U.S. white population in 2014

Such reversals, even small ones, are unusual for wealthy nations, where people tend to live longer with each successive generation, as health care and public safety improve and the standard of living rises.

Here is the good part:

Disappointed expectations of social and economic well-being among less educated white men from the baby-boom generation may also be playing a role, she said. They grew up in an era that valued “masculinity and self-reliance” — characteristics that could get in the way of asking for help.
“It appears this group isn’t seeking help but rather turning to self-destructive means of dealing with their despair,” Professor Phillips said.

Maybe they aren't seeking help because they are worried about stupid sh!t like smugness...

 

[sm625]

Nazis were smug too. And they busted their arms patting each other on the backs about how their reasoning and their logic was so much superior. All the while they held completely delusional beliefs and rationalizations. Even as Dresden burned to the ground they could not be made to see what in their way of thinking was so wrong. Liberalism is the same way. That is why is not a valid argument to say that one side "eschews Reason, Logic, Science" while the other does not. It is NOT an argument, it is meaningless babble nothing more.

If I had a nickel for every time I've been around a group of total idiots making fun of someone stupid...

 

[brycejones]

Nazis were smug too. And they busted their arms patting each other on the backs about how their reasoning and their logic was so much superior. All the while they held completely delusional beliefs and rationalizations. Even as Dresden burned to the ground they could not be made to see what in their way of thinking was so wrong. Liberalism is the same way. That is why is not a valid argument to say that one side "eschews Reason, Logic, Science" while the other does not. It is NOT an argument, it is meaningless babble nothing more.

If I had a nickel for every time I've been around a group of total idiots making fun of someone stupid...

Goodwins law

 

[Jhhnn]

Nazis were smug too. And they busted their arms patting each other on the backs about how their reasoning and their logic was so much superior. All the while they held completely delusional beliefs and rationalizations. Even as Dresden burned to the ground they could not be made to see what in their way of thinking was so wrong. Liberalism is the same way. That is why is not a valid argument to say that one side "eschews Reason, Logic, Science" while the other does not. It is NOT an argument, it is meaningless babble nothing more.

If I had a nickel for every time I've been around a group of total idiots making fun of someone stupid...

The modern economic analog to Dresden was the Ownership Society going down in flames, taking the middle class with it. There's also the small matter of disastrous Neocon foreign policy, as well.

Yet you still believe, obviously.

 

[Atreus21]

Link


Long but good article from Vox on the smug manner which seems to dominate the liberal/progressive movement. I don't agree with everything in it, but some good points are made.

The open mocking those who "just don't get it" happens every day, in every thread on this forum. We've had prominent members post threads that conservatism is merely a brain deficiency, and plenty who jump on board to cheer it on. Several posters who constantly ridicule those who disagree with them, calling them idiots and quite frequently much worse.

I read about a third of it. Good article.

 

[Atreus21]

This is it here. Evidence and facts form the basis for a lot of "liberal" issues such as birth control, climate change, abortion, etc. The typical arguments against those typically come from a 2000 year old book or bogus science funded by big $$$.

Evidence and facts are most assuredly not on the side of abortion.

 

[hal2kilo]

There is a saying, one can become so wise in their own eyes they end up making fools of themselves.

And so it goes with the democrat liberals who changed their goals to doing whatever it takes to win even if it means compromising their core beliefs, neglecting the very middle class that was their backbone for corporate America, while conveniently pointing the finger at the other guy not realizing they have become the other guy with few exceptions like Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile their Koolaid drinking parrots lap it up like it's a good thing, as evident by the pretend liberals on this forum.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/...-of-pushing-the-democratic-party-to-the-right

I completely agree. In this one narrow area. This is the thing I hate about the Clintons. Which was basically, abandonment of the policies of FDR that had created the most successful middle class in the history of mankind.

Still going to vote for her though. The alternatives are still completely unacceptable and would even push the middle class further down the tubes.

 

[interchange]

I wonder if this is not an essay on the growing smugness of America period, incorrectly attributed to liberalism.

There is a strong problem with all of this. Either side can recognize the fallacies of each other rather easily. Yet, it seems highly uncommon to divorce oneself from the assumption that because one believes differently from something that is wrong that this implies that one is therefore right.

More than productive ideas and policies, we have a serious problem with our capacity for complexity, independent thinking, self-reflection, and collaborating with those who are different.

 

[Subyman]

Evidence and facts are most assuredly not on the side of abortion.

The straight facts are. Legal abortion stops back alley abortions and has been linked to lower crime rates. Most other arguments center around moral issues.

 

[glenn1]

"Smug" is no different than "elitist." It is merely an attempt to beg the question and avoid the real discussion. If, for example, a liberal says that conservatives tend to live in a bubble and expose themselves only to like minded viewpoints, the correct response is to either a) admit that this is true, or b) argue against the observation. If instead of doing either of these things, the response is to say, "you are being smug" then I think we have a pretty good idea why. The threshold question is whether that person is right, not how you perceive their attitude in delivering the argument. "Smug" is just an ad hominem which doesn't even address what is being argued. How about we first determine if the liberal in question is actually right? The OP's article is long on condemnation of liberal attitudes and short on refutation of liberal arguments.

If you find yourself disgruntled by an opponent's apparent "smugness," quit whining and acting so traumatized. If you want to put that person in his place, defeat his argument, then the smugness will go away promptly, and even if it doesn't, so what. You will have accomplished everything and anything that matters.

The author seems to be using "smug" in the additional sense that the left sees some issues as simple truisms and no longer bother forming a coherent justification or consistent logical underpinning for some of their beliefs. For example, "increasing inequality is bad" is simply continuously repeated as facially true and self-obvious when it's not, and the left no longer even bothers trying to support it other than some pro-forma "well the proles might revolt otherwise" which is an Argument from Anger logical fallacy.

Of course the right has plenty of their own echo chamber thinking going on where the belief is held unquestioningly and without the need for any supporting evidence whatsoever, stuff like American Exceptionalism or the godlike wisdom of the Founding Fathers (who quite often directly contradicted their own Constitutional protections and stated beliefs when they saw fit, see the Alien and Sedition Act for a prime example).

 

[Atreus21]

The straight facts are. Legal abortion stops back alley abortions and has been linked to lower crime rates. Most other arguments center around moral issues.

Because the entire issue is a question of morality.

We could start executing young black men en masse and that would drastically cut down on crime. Why don't we? Because it's immoral.

 

[zinfamous]

All you bitches be smug.

 

[Moonbeam]

I wonder if this is not an essay on the growing smugness of America period, incorrectly attributed to liberalism.

There is a strong problem with all of this. Either side can recognize the fallacies of each other rather easily. Yet, it seems highly uncommon to divorce oneself from the assumption that because one believes differently from something that is wrong that this implies that one is therefore right.

More than productive ideas and policies, we have a serious problem with our capacity for complexity, independent thinking, self-reflection, and collaborating with those who are different.

Aren't people just supposed to grow up as trained cattle to compete for resources and buy things? All those traits you mention as problems would create the bigger problem of upsetting things as they are. How do you herd people who think independently, for example. How would you get them to eat Twinkies? All the good money comes from managing the herd. We just need maybe 1% of the population with real cunning to introduce the putrefactant, dump the whey and sell the cheese.

I'd be a bit cautious, were I you, about pushing those ideas in public. Special methodologies have been developed for those with whom the programming doesn't take. A name with change in it is bad enough. Inter has a ring of socialism about it. Fortunately you didn't call yourself innerchange. That would be a red flag.

 

[zinfamous]

Because the entire issue is a question of morality.

but it isn't, though. That's your issue.

Now who's being smug?

 

[hal2kilo]

All you bitches be smug.

Like this?

 

[WHAMPOM]

Link


Long but good article from Vox on the smug manner which seems to dominate the liberal/progressive movement. I don't agree with everything in it, but some good points are made.

The open mocking those who "just don't get it" happens every day, in every thread on this forum. We've had prominent members post threads that conservatism is merely a brain deficiency, and plenty who jump on board to cheer it on. Several posters who constantly ridicule those who disagree with them, calling them idiots and quite frequently much worse.

That is Conservative Brain Defect (CBD) not deficiency.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Like this?

Close. But it needs to be a little more haughty.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Because the entire issue is a question of morality.

We could start executing young black men en masse and that would drastically cut down on crime. Why don't we? Because it's immoral.

It would not reduce crime. It would increase crime because each killing would be another murder. How do you not understand that?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

It would not reduce crime. It would increase crime because each killing would be another murder. How do you not understand that?

Some say that legalized abortion has dropped the crime rate by as much as 50%.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w8004

The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime

We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.

 

[fskimospy]

Some say that legalized abortion has dropped the crime rate by as much as 50%.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w8004

From what I remember that paper is highly controversial and has been shown to have a number of serious methodological flaws.

EDIT: Found it!

http://www.economist.com/node/5246700?story_id=5246700

 

[Moonbeam]

It would not reduce crime. It would increase crime because each killing would be another murder. How do you not understand that?

No rationalization, no matter how far fetched, is too far for bigots not to employ in defense of their favorite bigoted opinion. Atreus suffers from smugness. He is a decent and highly moral person who passionately believes there is something called morality and The Good. The fact that he is right about this and the certainty of this truth within him unfortunately carries over onto whatever indoctrinated opinions he picked up along the path of his moral development. There is no idea simpler for a decent person to believe in than the sanctity of life. That is as it should be, and nothing is simpler after that than that human life begins at conception. Few ideas are easier to believe in than that each person conceived is unique and precious. If you stop there it follows that abortion is evil. But the conservative brain defect and the blind bigotry that accompanies the black and white low level simplistic thinking it engenders to keep moral analysis simple rejects the gray areas and complexities that occur when one absolute truth, a simple one, runs up against a more complex one, like the right to control your own body. Atreus is simply an inflexible bigoted fanatic, completely unable to differentiate the fact that because the good exists does not mean that what he was programmed to believe the good is actually is what is good.

It would cost him excruciating pain to give up his certainty because his ego and his notion of what is good are intimately connected. He would experience the feeling that there is no such thing as the good and he correctly certain that can't be. He is trapped in a trap that makes it impossible for him to see what the trap is.

Sadly, self hate makes it difficult for people to actually believe at a feeling level there is a good, so the ego clings to a false representation of the good to bask in the feeling one is part of it.

 

[IEC]

One side eschews Reason, Logic, Science, etc. Those that embrace those things may appear smug, but why should they give it a second thought?

This is decidedly false, despite media caricatures and the random boneheads they interview seemingly demonstrating otherwise.

As is the subject of the OP. Not all liberals are smug.

 

[woolfe9998]

The author seems to be using "smug" in the additional sense that the left sees some issues as simple truisms and no longer bother forming a coherent justification or consistent logical underpinning for some of their beliefs. For example, "increasing inequality is bad" is simply continuously repeated as facially true and self-obvious when it's not, and the left no longer even bothers trying to support it other than some pro-forma "well the proles might revolt otherwise" which is an Argument from Anger logical fallacy.

Of course the right has plenty of their own echo chamber thinking going on where the belief is held unquestioningly and without the need for any supporting evidence whatsoever, stuff like American Exceptionalism or the godlike wisdom of the Founding Fathers (who quite often directly contradicted their own Constitutional protections and stated beliefs when they saw fit, see the Alien and Sedition Act for a prime example).

I didn't read that article so much that way, as a critique of substantive beliefs of liberals. I read it as a critique of the attitudes of liberals. Particularly with respect to poor people. The author is arguing that if liberals want to profess to support the poor, they should stop having such demeaning and condescending attitudes toward them.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is decidedly false, despite media caricatures and the random boneheads they interview seemingly demonstrating otherwise.

As is the subject of the OP. Not all liberals are smug.

What the smug fucking hell do you mean by decidedly false. Actual scientific studies prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that conservatives are more inclined to reject facts, scientific facts included, that are painful for their egos to admit to. You have an opinion here and it is bunk.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

From what I remember that paper is highly controversial and has been shown to have a number of serious methodological flaws.

EDIT: Found it!

http://www.economist.com/node/5246700?story_id=5246700

The error was corrected....with results of the study largely unchanged. The results are actually quite disturbing and I understand the highly dismissive reaction.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/measurement error.pdf

Measurement Error, Legalized Abortion, the Decline in Crime:
A Response to Foote and Goetz (2005)*

Donohue and Levitt (2001) argue that the legalization of abortion in the United States in the 1970s played an important role in explaining the observed decline in crime approximately two decades later. Foote and Goetz (2005) challenge the results presented in one of the tables in that original paper. In this reply, we regretfully acknowledge the omission of state-year interactions in the published version of that table, but show that their inclusion does not alter the qualitative results (or their statistical significance), although it does reduce the magnitude of the estimates. When one uses a more carefully constructed measure of abortion (e.g. one that takes into account cross-state mobility, or doing a better job of matching dates of birth to abortion exposure), however, the evidence in support of the abortion-crime hypothesis is as strong or stronger than suggested in our original work.