A mindset is a difficult thing to change — but not for the reasons you think
Posted by lookingforlissa on July 31, 2008
Neo-neocon wrote an intensely interesting account of how her mindset changed from a staunch Democrat liberal to a, well, neo-neocon. She writes at length of how difficult it was to question all her assumptions, her frame of reference, and how she changed political parties.
I wish I had that much detail, and insight, of how I came around to my present mode of thinking. I don’t. I wish I’d kept a blog back in those days so that I could pull actual details, articles and websites that changed my worldview. I don’t. However, I’m going to try and explain it anyway.
Like Neo, I really believed in the left side of the political sphere as I grew up. I have a very vivid memory of ranting in my diary about how “god-damned George Bush wanted to go to war the whole time, the false jade LIED to get elected and then just did what he wanted!” Um, that was the first George Bush; I was ten. Curses learned from company around me and “false jade” from The Chronicles of Narnia. Shut up.
I truly believed in affirmative action. Like all my friends, I made fun of Clarence Thomas and railed at his utter hypocrisy at wanting to ban a system that he freely used to get his current position. “Like he’d even be on the Supreme Court if he wasn’t black, and NOW he says it’s wrong!”
I truly believed that Democrats cared about the poor, which is why they tried to help them, and that Republicans (and all conservatives) didn’t care about the poor, which is why they resisted helping them. Rich white men ruled the United States, you could tell just by examining the Presidential rollcall and the Fortune 500 CEOs, Q.E.D.
So. How did I get from there to here? Truthfully, I’m damned if I know. I think, like Neo, it started around the time of our war in Afghanistan. I started having contradictory impulses — on the one hand, I *did* think our country had been attacked, and I sympathized with the need and desire to protect ourselves. Also, the Taliban were hardly an endearing bunch. But, on the other hand, one part of me darkly looked forward to the pounding that America would take, invading land that didn’t belong to her, being stupid enough to follow the Soviet Union’s footsteps, and wondering only whether we’d escape with the level of casualties that the USSR sustained, or if it would be worse.
Unlike Neo, I didn’t start checking blogs and alternative sources of news at that point. I simply logged the inevitable defeat in my mind as a foregone conclusion and went about my business. I continued doing so as Operation Iraqi Freedom came about and, instead of spending a weekend in France, I spent it sitting on a couch in London watching tanks roll towards Baghdad.
Again, Saddam Hussein was hardly an endearing opponent, so I didn’t feel any particular guilt about the invasion. Also, due to copious reading of Tom Clancy growing up, I was generally admiring of and sympathetic to American soldiers. I suppose at that point I was fifty-fifty; I wanted our soldiers to succeed, but I completely understood those who protested another imperialistic meddling foray by America-Who-Thinks-It-Runs-The-World.
So, when did it change? I think it was late 2003 and early 2004, when I started reading blogs on a regular basis. My father introduced me to Michelle Malkin and it was FASCINATING to see news and opinion presented in that way. I didn’t agree with a lot of what she said — it went against everything I’d grown up believing — but, then again, she was a minority female, so I couldn’t dismiss her opinion out of hand. I couldn’t stomach Daily Kos, but I tried to find left-hand blogs that would “cancel out” Michelle’s work. I read The Moderate Voice, Think Progress and Oliver Willis, as well as my usual New York Times.
It didn’t work. Perhaps I’d just picked the wrong left-wing blogs, but the writing just wasn’t as INTERESTING. It couldn’t hold my attention. I’d read them every day, but I’d race through the articles as quickly as I could before racing over to Michelle’s. The left-leaning blogs were the vegetables I made myself eat before relishing the meat and dessert.
At this point I was severely uncomfortable. As I’ve mentioned before and can’t emphasize enough, my family is very left-leaning. (As I’ve also mentioned before, they are also intelligent, loving and caring, so think twice if you’re planning on dissing them in the comments.) What if, God forbid, I became a conservative? That would be unconscionable. I’d gotten into enough passionate arguments over whether the United States had the *right* to invade Iraq; I could only imagine the difficulty it would create if I started advocating gun rights and the like.
I sent out a cry for help. I emailed my liberal, politics-following friends (good, intelligent people all) and asked for assistance. I explained that I was starting to lean toward the conservative side and asked for blogs, articles, arguments — anything that would help keep me firmly in the liberal camp. I received back a few variations of “Bush is an idiot” and “Bush is a horse’s ass.” Despite the lack of liberal counterbalance, I did vote (unenthusiastically) for John Kerry. Yes, as Mike likes to tease me, I did vote for John Kerry before I was against him. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Around this time, I started backchecking how that Afghan war was going. I’d followed it casually — I still do — without really analyzing details (a mile wide and an inch deep, remember?). I was really shocked to realize, and remember, what I’d THOUGHT was going to happen in the invasion, versus what had actually happened . . . and that NO MEDIA HAD REPORTED THAT THEY GOT IT WRONG.
I couldn’t believe it. All through college, I thought I’d been very diligent and responsible in following the news — I read the New York Times as well as the Economist, and occasionally the Wall Street Journal. Now I discovered that the media had darkly — almost spitefully — predicted the worst in Afghanistan, had gotten it wrong, and had not acknowledged that they got it wrong. This, to me, was the real problem. It’s understandable to make an incorrect prediction; we all know that hindsight is 20/20. But you have to acknowledge that you got it wrong, or you lose credibility. That’s a very basic rule for human interaction; why didn’t it apply to the media?
So I started looking for news sources that either got it right, or were willing to admit and analyze where they’d been right and where they’d been wrong. I started reading more blogs that were honest, and unapologetic, about their conservative leanings. Once I did that, I realized how the mainstream media also was unapologetic about its liberal leanings . . . without being honest about it.
It sounds extremely trite, folks, I know . . . but I felt betrayed. I’d been diligent, and conscientious, about keeping myself informed about the world . . . only to find that the media had been filtering the world to show me only one side. And with that, I dove headlong into the opposition.
To be continued . . .
“A mindset” continued
Posted by lookingforlissa on August 1, 2008
(The first half is here.)
It’s not fun being on the right side of the political spectrum, folks. At least not if you’re me.
I miss a lot of things from my days on the left side. I miss being able to make really passionate arguments and believe in them with my whole heart. I miss the true confidence in my positions that I used to have, from a moral standpoint.
It’s especially difficult if, like me, you enjoy reading but don’t retain numbers well. I might read a very logical, coherent, convincing article but be unable to use it in a discussion later because I can’t remember the details. Trust me, there’s NEVER any danger of my losing the forest for paying too much attention to the trees. It comes down to my reading an article or a blogpost, thinking “that makes so much SENSE!”, and *still* not being able to articulate my position on the discussed issue.
But once you flip, how do you go back?
Once you decide that most soldiers are upstanding, decent, intelligent people, and every soldier you’ve met nicely supports that assumption, how do you go back to thinking they are children who can’t think for themselves and are being exploited by the neocons?
Once you decide that the bigger government is, the more inefficient and greedy it becomes, how do you go back to thinking that all social problems would be fixed if we properly funded them?
Once you decide that the problem with education isn’t lack of funding — see the schools in DC — but a screwed-up union and an ossified system which disregards merit, how do you go back to “It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”?
Once you decide that affirmative action is generally not a good idea because race preferences are generally not a good idea, no matter what the context, how do you go back to supporting ethnic preference in government contracts? (Clarence Thomas is the uber-perfect example here; I railed at him for decrying affirmative action when the only reason he had gotten on the Supreme Court was to be The Black Justice. It NEVER crossed my mind that perhaps he was QUALIFIED for the job. Witness my soft bigotry.)
Once you decide that some people — NOT ALL PEOPLE, NOT MOST PEOPLE, but some very small percentage of people — are poor because they won’t work hard enough to get un-poor, how do you go back to believing that, because there are poor and hungry in our country, our nation has failed?
(Note: These aren’t strawmen. The ideas to “go back to” are ones that I believed, truly.)
And more importantly . . . if you could go back, would you want to?
The answer in my case is . . . well, yes, sometimes, I do.
I still shiver when I think something like that — some people are poor because they won’t work hard enough to be un-poor. I wonder if it’s a callous, shallow, evil thought. I would never say it around my friends who lean liberal, because I’m afraid that I would genuinely horrify them, and maybe rightfully so. I would never suggest to them that maybe we shouldn’t have more welfare, we should have more personal accountability. Some of these liberal friends are spending their lives and careers working with the underprivileged, and I think I would sound unbearably self-righteous and uncaring. With them, I fall back to the old-fashioned attitude that it’s not nice to discuss politics or religion with company.
Which begs the question . . . why am I doing it in this blog???
Because I’m tired of reading all sorts of things I agree with and then not being able to form my own, coherent opinion on it. Because I need to be more honest, instead of relying on assumptions. Because I need help figuring out what I believe in, and why, and then articulating it. Because as things go right now, I assume that my friends and family wouldn’t agree with any of my viewpoints, so I keep them to myself — where they do not get developed OR challenged. And that’s not useful.
Finally, because I need to grow a thicker skin. When I said in my “About” page that I’m a professional middle child, I meant it. I pride myself on my “schmoozing” skills, in that I can get along with and entertain just about anybody. But, conversely, I quake when writing things that I *know* my nearest and dearest think are wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t like rocking the boat, and I’m pretty thin-skinned when it comes to their approval.
I’m hopeful that by blogging, not only will I be forced to better develop my thoughts and positions, but I’ll be better able to handle the political discussions at home. Since my flip, it’s been hard for me — I don’t want to tell everyone they’re wrong, since 1) it’s just my opinion, like they have their opinions, and 2) when I came home as a Poli-Sci student in college I was UNBEARABLY insufferable. (I once snottily informed my mother that red wine does NOT go in the fridge, and was properly, and vigorously, put in my place.) But I’m a very talkative person by nature, and when they all get to chatting about how stupid Bush is, I don’t know what to do. And on the other side, it’s hard for my family, because these people genuinely love me, and sometimes genuinely worry that I’m becoming a more shallow, uncaring person.
With all of this pouring out of me, you might wonder why I say my blog will not be a political blog. The answer is that I’m not smart enough or dedicated enough for that. The good political blogs do it for a living, and they’re both educated and diligent enough to do a good job. Or, you have blogs like Bookworm’s, who is so articulate, intelligent and logical that it’s a pleasure to read. I can’t do that and so I’m not going to try. (BTW, Bookworm is very educated and very diligent; she just doesn’t do it for a living.)
I’m going to try and do what interests me. That means that I’m going to take notes on my daily life in the interests of keeping a daily journal, so that I can look back at what I was thinking at the time. (If I’d done that back in 2003 to 2005 I’d have a much better idea of what, precisely, caused my flip. Right now my family kinda-sorta thinks it was dating my fiance, which just isn’t true.) That means tracking my progress in domestication, as I try to go from being a single young woman to a responsible married one. That means keeping track of my hobbies, the brand-spankin-new one being guns, shooting and Second Amendment Rights. That means posting about my cat, ’cause he’s an incredible doofus and adds incredible joy, and cat fur, to my life. And, occasionally, it will mean political coverage that entertains me for some reason or another. In other words, my blog idol is Breda, though she keeps telling me “not Marvelous Breda, or OMG Breda, just Breda!” I kind of beg to differ.
Finally, I’ll confess to y’all what made me go through these “mindset” posts. I got a note from a family member who very, very nicely, and very, very gently let me know that s/he probably wouldn’t be reading my blog anymore, ’cause s/he felt I was wandering into an “icky” direction. S/he also very, very politely asked me to reconsider aiming barbs at my family. (S/he also congratulated me on having fun with my blog and encouraged me to keep writing what I wanted, so think three times before dissing this person in the comments.) Folks, I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating — I love my family, they are intelligent, they are smart, and they are caring. I don’t agree with them (now) about a lot of things, and that should be okay. When I criticize things they believe in, it’s because I USED TO BELIEVE IN EXACTLY THOSE SAME THINGS and don’t anymore. It doesn’t make me smart and them stupid; in fact, I know for dam’ sure some of them are way smarter than me.
I’m pretty sure that the problem is mine — remember how one of my goals is to grow a thicker skin? – since I know they don’t WANT me to feel like a leper during political discussions. I don’t hope to convert them to my point of view, as that’s not my place. My goal is that we can have a discussion where we both hear both sides, they ask me about my reasons and try to poke holes in them, I ask about their reasons and try to poke holes in them, and then we end by laughing and agreeing how politicians are ridiculous creatures in general. And I hope that this blog both siphons off any ranting that I might be tempted to do and forces me to more diligently challenge and support my own arguments. Lord, let it be so!
WHEW! Okay enough with all that! Thanks for listening, thanks for letting me get this off my chest, and the next post will be light and fluffy. I promise!
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