(thanks to David Flanders….)
There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience…. “Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood,” he said.
Man, I can almost hear the hue and cry, the weeping and gnashing of teeth from Conservatives who will undoubtedly react to this badly. Surely, I can hear them say, this is just another example of evil, insidious Liberal bias on the part of the scientific community, who by temperament are preternaturally oriented against Conservatism. Uh, yeah….
Except that I happen to agree with Hodson’s assessment. From a purely anecdotal standpoint, it seems clear to me that he’s right. While we Liberals are not exactly immune to prejudices of our own (and my Conservative detractors will of course see this post as proof), it’s Conservatives that tend to fail the intellectual rigor test. Remember the screaming ninnies from 2009’s town hall season? Remember the woman who asked Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) a question and called President Obama a Nazi? Remember those who laugh at Al Gore every time it snows? Those weren’t Liberals, y’all….
I don’t want to pretend that we Liberals have cornered the market on political intellectualism. Still, when you consider what Conservatives have to offer: Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, the Religious Right, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum, any reasonable person would wonder why ignorance and reaction seem to be driving the bus. Why does rage, reaction, and a non-existent devotion to facts and reality seem to be among the chief characteristics of Conservatives? Perhaps because Hodson is spot on.
Conservatives can, and probably will, scream about the unfairness of it all, but Hodson’s study isn’t the first to make this argument about Conservatism, an ideology too often characterized by reaction, anger, and willful ignorance of facts and reality. Hey, if you don’t like it, do your own study. I’m sure the Koch brothers, the Federalist Society, or the Heritage Foundation would be happy to entertain funding something that could be use to confirm their tightly-held and less than empirical prejudices.
