This thread might start off a little rough in explanation and will need some revising, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Are a lot of the ideological beliefs that we hold come down to what our general opinion is on people?

This is obviously going to be a stereotype, and certainly it doesn't hold true in all cases, but this is the perception that I get when I take a look at the partisan beliefs. Right wingers tend to have more faith in people that they are familiar with, and less with people that they are not familiar with. Examples have probably been explained elsewhere in the forum plenty of times--a fear in gay marriage, possible lack of perspective in racial or class issues, etc. However, if it's a person they trust, they trust that they will do the right thing.

I get the exact opposite feeling from left wingers. They have more empathy for those that don't share their lifestyle, but tend to have a negative view of the people they're familiar with in general. One of the primary obstacles in my way from subscribing to the left wing worldview is the notion that "people are too stupid/ignorant/greedy/evil, therefore the government must step in to correct their inherent faults for them".

I feel that both notions are a rather sad indictment on society. I think it's pretty miserable to just blanket assume that people will do X or Y just because of some predetermined factors. Just let people be who they are, for all their positives and negatives, and let them live and learn their life.

I can think of at least one person who will likely disagree with me entirely, but I won't call their names out quite yet.

I think all people are equally horrible, regardless of race, income, or geography.

I'd say your basic idea is accurate in a very broad strokes kind of way.

i'd say most people a generally good people, but self interested. when people encounter strangers it may not seem this way, but if you really got to know most of the people you encounter, I have a feeling you'd find a lot of them are decent.

I'd agree.

The most hard core bigoted people I've ever met are the most liberal with their political views. I've met many that truly think the people they're helping (?) are completely incapable of providing themselves and that they are basically stupid as shit. They adopt a worldview of superiority.

On the right I've met people who do not acknowledge that ineqaul access to opportunity, cultuaral or socio-economic background should be any hinderance to achieving. Quite often this is through complete ignorance or that they themselves have overcome the same challenges and believe if they did it then anyone can.

Neither side is right. If I have to choose I'd go witha belief in people and that they can achieve and overcome obstacles. Hence I believe in handups and not handouts and this is reflected in the type of social safety net programs I support.

Sorry but if you actually think that this is an accurate representation of how bigoted the left and the right are, you are delusional. The right empirically supports bigotry in many of their programs. The left... not so much. The implications of your post are ridiculous. Maybe you should go meet a broader sample of people to get a grasp on which party is truly bigoted.

First of all, I have a problem with your depiction of liberals as the exact opposite of right wingers, especially when you say they "tend to have a negative view of the people they're familiar with". I really don't understand what this means and I think it is probably demonstrably false. It feels like you used that terminology because you wanted to set them up as being contrary to the right wing belief you explained, without much of a basis. Even liberals seek out other liberals to associate with. Could you explain what you mean here?

I also have a big problem with your hypothetical. I actually agree with the antecedent, that people are too stupid/evil/etc, and most political philosophers agree with that too, but you left out the part of too stupid/evil to do what? They are too stupid/evil to live together peacefully without government in society. My biggest problem with your hypothetical is in the consequent, that government must step in to correct their faults???? Dude, you know this is not even close to true. Liberals want the government to step in to ensure peace and equality. I can't think of a single instance that would lead you to believe that liberals want to try to forcefully correct fundamental human nature through government. Do you have examples? I mean, this sounds ridiculous, it is completely against the liberal ideology if you think about it... that liberals recognize X as a fundamental part of being human, and they want government to forcefully make X go away? What you describe is a socially conservative idea, and um, liberals aren't socially conservative. Socially liberal means, literally, that people should be able to do whatever the fuck they want in their personal life, that people can be whoever they want to be.

You protect yourself by saying "this is obviously a stereotype... doesn't hold true in all cases.. etc" but then go on to say "it's pretty miserable to just blanket assume that people will do X or Y", so I ask you, why, when you clearly understand the nature of making general statements about people, and that it can never be done in absolutes, go on to attack an argument based on general statements about people without favoring them with the interpretation you would expect of your own arguments? In other words, do you really think that a liberal would say "ALL people are evil and will WITHOUT FAIL do X or Y where X or Y are evil/selfish things to do"?? No. So I think you damage your own argument by not faithfully representing theirs.

Maybe I'm confusing what you mean by the left, perhaps you mean the incumbent Democratic party in the US? Because if you look at what you just wrote, "Just let people be who they are, for all their positives and negatives, and let them live and learn their life.", well, dude, that is basically the definition of social liberalism. And I don't mean social liberalism as in social democracy as in socialist, I mean the social scale as opposed to the economic scale, but you probably already know that.

The more I think about it the more I am confused by what you mean by right and left. When you say left, do you mean communism? Because certainly historical communist experiments have done what you accuse liberals of doing, and communism is considered "left"... but that is economically speaking. Are you aware of the different movements in modern liberalism, progressivism (whether you like the term or not), social democracy, etc? If you look at those ideologies, do you really see your critique applying to them?


Let me tell you what I think. I think that some political ideologies are influenced by belief in people, and that conservatism is strongly influenced by belief in similar people, not just belief in but desire to do good by similar people. I think that liberalism is above all based on ideas of justice, equality, and tolerance. Surely some liberals feel this way or that way in general about people, for example I think people are shit, but I think many liberals, maybe even most liberals, think people are intrinsically wonderful. In any case, it's really hard for me to say that this influences the liberal ideology very much either way. I just don't think that's the case.

Yeah, I'll try to ask the places I've volunteered to get a better sample of left wing bigots to help out.
You say my experiences are out of touch but what life long experiences are you basing your non-delusional wisdom on. Maybe you should just change your user name to "Oh wise one".

Dude, I'm not basing this on my life experiences of who I have met. It's entirely possible that I've met more left-wing bigots than right-wing bigots because I lived in Austin TX for 20 something years, and I knew far more liberal people. I think it's folly to base any kind of opinion on this based on personal experience alone.

My point is that it's blatantly evident in the actual recorded ideologies and platforms of these parties that the right is bigoted. It is empirically true. If you could point me to a liberal policy prescription that is bigoted, I would love to see it, because I can't imagine what it could be. And you should know that if you pick something from the incumbent Democratic party I will probably scoff at it, because US elected Democrats aren't even close to left-wingers by my definition of the word, nor by the definition of the vast majority of liberal Americans.

I wish we had a psychologist on the board, lol.

both ideologies can be interpreted in a bigoted sense, it depends on the interpretations.

the left with their "helping hand" mentality can be as bigoted and condescending as the right's "let people stand on their own" mentality. i think letting people try and stand on their own vs needing help from a third party is a case to case basis, and if you have an ideology that favors either and subscribes the ideas to races or socio-economic you are going to be generalizing in a way that leads to bigotry.

I completely agree that if you isolate one particular mindset of the ideologies and abstract them in this way, they can seem equally bigoted, maybe in fact ARE equally bigoted.

But I'm talking about the bigger picture. Which party actually has bigoted policies? True bigotry, not just condescension, because I might point out that while condescension is bad it is NOT the same thing as bigotry.

Further, the nature of helping people up in the liberal perspective is essentially non-discriminatory. The whole idea is the reverse of bigotry, it says that no matter who you are or where you're from or what you have, you deserve X Y and Z, respect, freedom, means to live a non-terrible life, etc. In fact, I don't think the right-wing policy of wanting people to achieve through their own freedom of will is bigoted either. Neither of these ideals are bigoted and they both have value, imo. But the parties are definitely bigoted in other ways.

*posts meccas green penis*

yeah, i think of liberal thought nowadays, the bigotry is more in an exploitative act. a lot of their ideology sets up dependence on the government programs, so that people need to vote that way to maintain their lively hood. the right's bigotry is more outright and more reflective of historical prejudices. at the same time the left has racist policies such as affirmative action. so i'd say its better to focus on the problem of bigotry rather than try and jumble it to one side of the political spectrum.

I had a feeling Ben would give me a lot to chew on. The response will have to wait until this evening, though.

I have another question for you. You said this keeps you from being a liberal:



So what would your own statement look like? "People are inherently good, therefore only an absolutely minimal amount of government is needed for humanity to flourish"? If so, I hope you have good reasons for believing "people are inherently good".

i was gonna participate here but it's full of a lot of tldr so i'm just gonna say this thread made me think of this lyric

Buff, here's my take on GH's OP. I've heard the idea, and even posted it here before, that the further right you go, the more those people tend to have more faith in people, and when you go to the left, the reverse is true. This is basically from the idea that the further right you go, the less government is wanted, culminating in anarchism on the far right; conversely, the further left you go, culminating in communism, the more government is desired. Where optimism and faith in man comes into play is that the anarchist (far right) believes that no government is required to maintain civilization (think the arguments Lysander would make) and that it would run in as orderly, if not more so, a fashion than it currently does. The anarchist (and more realistically, the libertarian) believe that with very little or no government, individuals will have as much freedom as possible, and that they will by and large use their freedom in a positive way, including taking care of the poor without it being compulsory.

Conversely, on the left you largely (major generalization warning) have people who look at the plight of others, usually if not always less fortunate than themselves, and they want things to happen in their favor. They see them working jobs and not being payed well. They see their children receiving inferior health care and education, etc, etc. The solution of the left often involves government action. A person on the left would likely agree with this very broad characterization, but wouldn't agree that it shows a distrust of their fellow man, in fact they would likely argue that it shows empathy, a desire for equal opportunity, and other noble causes. The idea would be that they have less belief in people because they want these changes to occur through officially mandated government decisions, laws, etc. They don't believe that the average working class person will get a fair break if things are left the way they are, so they look for systemic changes to force one group of people to give another group what they perceive to be their rights.

That's how I see the argument in a nutshell. IMO, GH opened Pandora's Box by a couple of problematic statements:
Just the latter part here. He cites discrimination and bigotry as examples of this. IMO, this is not a right/left thing. In America, it probably so happens that this is somewhat accurate, but the same could probably be said about many Democrats, as this is a center-right nation. This issue is much more to do with fear, the way people are raised, lack of exposure to persons different from themselves, etc.
I think his wording was a bit off, but I understand completely what he's saying here. Middle class liberals want government programs that will better the lives and opportunites of the poor. Again, the idea is that they want these changes to come from the government, and thus giving the government more power, because if it were left up to their fellow middle class bretheren, nothing would be done and the poor would be left to their own devices. This is where his next statement comes in.

Basically the same thing I've said a couple of times. It comes down to the left believing that people must be coerced to do good, whereas the further right you go, the less a person believes in coercion, and the more he believes that good will happen on its own.

IMO, bigotry, racism, and war are things that don't fit in any one spot, or any one side of a political diagram. Those are issues that go much deeper than political ideology.

Also, the main issue that I'd have with this as a whole is that it more accurately is describing the differences between more and less government authority, which is not necessarily the same as right and left. There are rightists that yielded extreme governmental authority and vica versa.

My wording was definitely off, and I prefaced the thread with the fact that it would probably be the case. Hopefully I'll find a way of refining what I'm saying when I go over the responses in more detail.