Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

February 10, 2005

Conservatism and Alpha Behavior

Here is a powerful statement thats basically one anthropological analysis of conservatism. Linked to this quote is a startlingly insightful article about the political landscape in America. The analysis and the metaphors employed are chilling to say the least. But being an Anthropology minor, I tend to think of man as the Naked Ape, a book written by Desmond Morris. So, to me, the quote below rings too true to ignore.
What Conservatives and Liberals Fear
Is conservative aggressiveness what Hall calls the Alpha behaviour in times of adenaline-fired extreme stress: The manifestation of preparing for the culling of the weak, the self-sacrifice of the lower hierarchies in deference to the dominants, the eating of the young that allows a massively-overpopulated tribe of animals to bring its population into balance?



Complete Article
fingerwagging

What Conservatives and Liberals Fear


David Pratt of Ecopundit writes:

Conservatives depend on external, authority-driven rules and ideologies. They've grown up asking the why questions. All children do. They've grown up breaking the rules, of course, because we all experiment with breaking the rules. That's human. The real problem begins with what each of us does within our own history of rule-breaking and question-asking.

Conservatives repent and atone to the rules, and accede to the "reasons" given by authority. In so doing, they learn to define themselves as rule-followers belonging within the secure boundaries of the authority structure. The problem with this is that it creates a myopic moral duality. It causes them to be angry and condemning toward anything not status quo, while they are still impulsively drawn to whatever the rules have forced them to reject. Conservatives close ranks around the rules. They are deeply frustrated, agitated, and aggressive toward anything that reminds them of their repressed desires and uncertainties.[archetype: finger-wagging, portrayed above] They often live double lives of hidden "sinfulness" and aggression, while maintaining upstanding "clean" public images. They tend to enclose
themselves in rule driven groups and experiences that will not remind them of their unresolved vulnerabilities and uncertainties. They feel unhinged and assaulted by liberal "fancy pants" ideas.

For liberal/progressives the rules are open to constant challenge and
reevaluation. When we break the rules and see the problems, we have
learned to seek change and self-correction without condemnation.
[archetype: shrug, portrayed below] We're expansive in our thinking,
openness, and range of experience. We are also fearful of the
thinly-restrained aggression of conservatives toward our more open beliefs and lifestyles. Today, in the U.S., with the "red states" moving toward old models of patriarchy, we are afraid. We are justifiably afraid. We can see that conservative certainty is breaking down the rules and laws that have been established to restrain them from (en masse) harming us.



shrugThis is a powerful reading of the psyches and fears of conservatives and liberals that are at once formed by our different Lakoffian 'frames' and help form those frames.

What is the evolutionary basis for these fears?

Is conservative aggressiveness what Hall calls the Alpha behaviour in times of adenaline-fired extreme stress: The manifestation of preparing for the culling of the weak, the self-sacrifice of the lower hierarchies in deference to the dominants, the eating of the young that allows a passively-overpopulated tribe of animals to bring its population into balance?

If this is the case, because of our separation from nature, and from our true natures, this normal balancing behaviour is manifesting itself in an utterly dysfunctional way. Neither liberals nor conservatives are playing their proper evolutionary role, taking their aggression out instead on the very nature it is designed to protect.

If this isn't the explanation, there must be another one. Why would our natures, conservative and liberal, be pitting us against each other so fiercely and fearfully at exactly the time we most need to work together to save not only our own species, but the rest of the planet that now depends on our intelligent stewardship?

3 comments:

Cosa Nostradamus said...

I think it's worse than that. I think that these so-called "conservatives" are, in fact, the very sociopaths for whom rules must be written. They are born, or reared, without a conscience, or feelings of empathy and sympathy for the other, real human beings all around them. They come to recognize early in life that they can "fit in" simply by pretending to obey the rules, whever anybody is looking. And that they can gain even more acceptance, at least from their fellow authoritarian sociopaths, by enforcing the rules upon others: Tattling, bullying, punishing. This gives them free reign, in their own minds, when nobody is looking, to break any rule. Then they can act according to their true nature: Spitting in someone's food. Pinching the baby. Strangling the cat. Exterminating the Jews...

I believe that the more extreme "conservative" types are actually mentally ill, or cerebrally defective. I believe that they know this, too. By their own standards, they should be culled. They realize early in life that the best way to avoid this is to become the Chief Cullers. It's self-preservation, really. Cull or be culled, so to speak, at least in their sick minds.

But when they manage to reach the very pinnacles of society, the whole system begins to break down. You just can't have madmen and mental defectives running the world. And yet we do. And look where it gets us. Two world wars, lots of smaller ones, in the XX Century alone: 100,000,000 dead.

There is somerthing grievously wrong with a system that allows this. We have to find a way of identifying and isolating these people, before they can intimidate and brutalize their way to the top. We need to examine the whole psycholgy, and mental health of our system. Christ, just LOOK at it!

Dave Marco said...

I think the folks you are talking about do indeed exist, but in very small numbers. Unfortunately, since they have no scrupples they tend to be very effective. So they find themselves being offered increasingly powerful positions. Karl Rove appears to be one of these folks. Anyone who would brand someone a pedophile just to get their opponent elected has no scrupples. Such people are very dangerous. And now Rove has the run of the White House as Deputy Chief of Staff.

Cosa Nostradamus said...

It's the intelligent sicko's that are dangerous. And the really violent stupid ones. There's your Hitler, and your brownshirts. Or your Carl Rove and your Abu Graibh guards. It doesn't take many, if they're in the right positions --the wrong positions.

The point is, the rest of us ARE the majority. We have to break this insane cycle, and change the system so it can't keep happening. We're the ones who'll suffer, if we don't.