Of course, but this is the signature difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives reduce all complex issues down to a single talking point and they all agree on that talking point. I've been watching this my whole life and it is the reason when you look at my biography, I have that one quote by HL Mencken.
Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people". Conservatives seldom discuss ideas.
I learned a long time ago, that there are complex problems out there and the more complexity that you can bring to the idea, the more accurate will be your analysis.
One of my 10 favorite quotes says it perfectly:" the sophistication with which one solves a hypothesis is dependent upon how many variables they can hold in consideration at any given time"
The conservatives take the simplistic approach, because more often than not they don't spend time reading books and discussing ideas.
Story I tell sometimes is that I spent several years working on the Alaska oil pipeline as a laborer to pay my way through graduate school. In that entire period of working primarily with southern pipe liners, welders, etc. I never heard a single discussion about ideas.
90% of their conversation revolved around stories of hunting, fishing, cars, sports, females. But no one ever discussed ethics, or democracy-lol.
And even though we often had to just sit on the bus and wait for other crews to catch up, some times for days, they were so intimidated by us and so anti intellectual they would not let us read. I never saw any of them reading. They sat and stared out the window and made us do the same.
<<For every complex problem there is a simple answer - and it is usually wrong. H.L.Mencken |
