The position I’m outlining is not “Independent”, it could be Libertarian – and yes Libertarians tend to be more Rational and less emotional than average.

Just look at Ron Paul’s demeanor in any of the debates – he’s coolly thinking, and his answers cut to shreds the weak arguments of his opponents, without too much emotional content.

Now, of course, I do realize that most of the electorate want the drama and burst of emotion, and feel good BS, but there are some of us who are more on the rational side, who are happy to do without that, people who are actually interested in policy and budgets and all that “boring” stuff…

My thoughts are dictated strongly by “common sense”, which by liberal philosophers does not exist.
What I have read by most of you elititst is opinion only and in Southrn-ease is known as BS.

Very good point. I was being seriously sloppy in usage of terms here — essentially taking the package of views many would think of as “conservative” in some economic or social sense now and applying it to other periods or places out of context. Clearly, in the context of, say 1965 Soviet politics, a “conservative” was Stalinist. Or in the English Civil War you had fairly socially libertine “conservative” royalists versus socially puritan roundheads.

many ppl would suggest that the second half of the 18th century was more liberal and secular than the first half of the 19th century (revolution/enlightenment vs. reaction/romanticism). my main immediate objection is that the emergence of phenomenon such as ‘muscular christianity’ in the 19th century, and the decline of deism, might have more to do with a broadening of the culture and a widening of the scope of the ‘culture producing’ classes.

Fair point. Working from written accounts that are obviously only available from the literate portion of society obviously brings a lot of frame of reference issues one doesn’t normally think about. You’ve also got leadership effects — Victoria was simply a more uptight personality in regards to moral issues than her predecessors and successors, and she managed to have a fairly strong cultural influence in the English-speaking world.

Plus, it’s not possible to go back to some period in history when it seems like trends are changing and administer opinion polls and IQ tests. Though it would be wonderful fun if we could…

I’m fairly certain Razib himself has had posts showing strong evidence that “independents” are in fact less intelligent than Republicans or Democrats. In a sense, this isn’t surprising, as the majority of “undecided” voters are undecided because they do not have strong political views. They lack strong political views in part because they don’t find politics interesting enough to become informed on the issues, relying on vague perceptions of the issues they passively encounter to make voting decisions.

Of course, a subset of independents are different, but in my experience, more independents fall into that stereotype.

The conservative tends to support the “the familiar set of social assumptions and stereotypes” of their parents or even grandparents: they dream of a world that never changes but not in relation to the present but to the ideas that their already conservative parents and grandparents taught them when they were kids. So a conservative of my age (43) today is typically dreaming with the conservative ideas of 1910, when my grandparents were born, or the 1920s, when they became quasi-adults.

Not exactly but quite.

A problem with this is that if the “conservative position” is not, by definition, the “familiar set of social assumptions and stereotypes”; in other words, the concept of the “flow of history” running conservative could be intrinsically contradictory (if the position X was against the traditional ideas in a given society but in the recent times is gaining popularity, the position X can be called “conservative”?).

However, with these objections

Tom,

I totally agree with this assessment.

I find it funny that people bicker over whether Republican or Democrat have the higher IQ, when IMO, those who adhere strictly to any partisan ideology are inherently lower IQ. Most Republicans and Democrats just have a will to power and control. The opposite of Control is freedom. I think Ron Paul represents freedom.

Here’s an interesting article on him, by an Israeli:
http://tunewall.com/2012/01/from-israel-vote-ron-paul-and-let-my-people-go/

Enjoy!

many ppl would suggest that the second half of the 18th century was more liberal and secular than the first half of the 19th century (revolution/enlightenment vs. reaction/romanticism). my main immediate objection is that the emergence of phenomenon such as ‘muscular christianity’ in the 19th century, and the decline of deism, might have more to do with a broadening of the culture and a widening of the scope of the ‘culture producing’ classes. by analogy, most of america’s first presidents were not orthodox christians. most of the recent ones have been. i think that’s a function of democratic populism and universal suffrage. americans were always by and large trinitarian christians. it’s just that the ruling class was more insulated from this preference in earlier eras.

Also, Jezebel’s coverage of the paper is simply too funny. They had better be careful about their new-found belief in the predictive powers of psychometrics: it could, after all, turn them into racists!

It seems to me that a lot of what the research is measuring here is the willingness by IQ to depart from a familiar set of social assumptions and stereotypes based on a combination of experience, empathy and reasoning. Racism and anti-homosexuality are two examples of social attitudes which used to be widely accepted throughout much of society but are increasingly less so for these reasons. Razib points out an important (though little discussed) counter examples in eugenics, where a widely held elite consensus built up based (at least, according to proponents) on empathy and reasoning and which is now seen as having been wrong (and the social conservatives, thus, right.) The temperance movement (which was originally a progressive cause) might also be an example along these lines. What would be interesting would be if one could identify a culture in which the “flow of history” seems to be running conservatively either culturally or politically and see how IQ related to ideological/social alignment in that atmosphere. On the political questions, at least, it seems like there should be some opportunities for study in Eastern Europe.

The study largely ignores that in western culture the teenage and post teenage years (13-25) are arguably the most formative years in a person’s life. Even though there is “control” for socio-economic status, how does an IQ test taken by a 10 year old have bearing on a 33 year old person that has been largely enculturated for 20 years. There are too many variables to make this argument. as 44 said, Correlation is not causation. The entire argument is a little bit too deterministic for me.

Many of you already know this, but to pre-empt some responses, I am a righty.

Your point is well taken, and I considered addressing it myself in my first response, but didn’t want my comment to drag on.

There is a difference, however, between the emotional appeals of the right in U.S. politics, and those of the left. On the left, it is almost entirely non-political actors who make the appeals. I don’t think one can argue that some left groups use similar narrative structure and emotional resonance as the right. However, these tend to be marginally affiliated groups, like black churches or labor unions, not Democratic politicians themselves.

Hell, using Razib’s example of the acceptance of homosexuality, which as been the biggest win for the social left over the last two decades, up until the past few years elected Democrats nearly universally shied away from active engagement with the general public on the issue. It was outside pressure groups, the media, and the courts which brought it grinding into normality, to the point where some blue states could begin considering passing marriage equality legislation without a court order.

I suspect that, at least in Britain (probably the only country with some religious pluralism at these times), it will be the high IQ and familiar to the bible people that were constantly creating new sects, and the low IQ/unfamiliar to the bible people that were loyal followers of the Curch of England.

And looking for whomever asked me that question (who was #16), I realized that someone else (#38) told me:

"The Nazi leadership was definitely right wing but they where not conservative".

Obviously they were opportunist rats (with a fashionable discourse) in most cases (and that is coincident with the 'amoral selfish' whom I identified as main problem and leadership of the conservative 'silent majority'). But what you really want to claim is that there is some sort of clear cut difference between conservatism and fascism, right? Well, the sociological fact is that they have almost identical social bases, which will switch between the two variants depending on circumstances. Even the leaders are often interchangeable, and if in the past the leaders of the German conservatives (and the British and US-American ones too) supported Hitler's ascension to power and the Spanish conservative party (then CEDA, now PP) recycled itself into the fascist movement Falange almost overnight upon command of Gral. Franco (up to the point that genuine falangistas felt usurped, displaced and degradated), only to recycle themselves as conservatives again in the 70s and 80s.

Sociologically they are the same bunch and display the same low IQ generic xenophobic tendencies (where 'xeno' is not just foreign but anything alien or "abnormal", including other races, or any "eccentricities" like homosexuality or mere free thought).

As our host, and other commenters, have already pointed out “Conservatism” has had some pretty bleeding-heart definitions in other times/places.

You could probably to the same with Asian immigrants in Australia- conservative cultural values, but generally broad life experience (they got here, didn’t they) and moderate pragmatic politics otherwise.