Close Mindedness and Identity

I've been trying to understand the conservative mind more... and it seems I have no end of things to blog about. The problem has been getting into any of them with any depth. I recently had a rather interesting exchange with a woman who considered herself liberal on gun control, followed by another discussion with a woman on "entitlements"

One of the interesting things in both cases was that the women didn't want to discuss it, didn't want to weigh pros and cons or look at evidence, they wanted to appeal to emotions.

In the later case,after putting my case before her, the woman said that I'd brought up a number of good points, but that she wasn't going to change her mind.

A lot of the comments supporting this woman were the typical "God and hard work = America" type comments that I expect from the wingnuts, which had me thinking about why these individuals are willing to ignore rational arguments and evidence. I came to the conclusion that they so closely bound their identity with their political/religious belief systems, that anything that would destabilize that faith in those beliefs also destabilized their faith in themselves.

It's a rather interesting concept for me, and one that hadn't occurred to me before. Basically I was willing to put this all down to ignorance or in some cases stupidity, now it seems to me to be more about insecurity, self definition, and ego. A threat to these concepts is seen to be a direct threat to the individual. I thought it was perhaps a premature assessment, although it was also consistent with my comparison of political ideologies to various developmental models, until I started Google Scholar searching the topic, where I found out I was really going over well covered ground.

I think it's interesting the way this bonding between the self and the concept seems to take place... usually the result of some emotional appeal, some response to an emotional rather than rational need. It's probably a lot easier to say "trust me and God" when you're in dire emotional straits, or you've been taught to distrust reality all your life and hang your life on the words of a pastor or politician (or actor or actress).

I've never understood the "aren't you a REAL AMERICAN" appeal, the assumption that I'm so darn needy that I'd belong to a group of people who would metaphorically kill and eat those who don't measure up to their standards. They assume that everyone who reads their gospel statements are Christian (or should be) and that just by calling on the name of Jesus that everyone will fall into agreement, because if Jesus is invoked, it can't be wrong. They want to argue that taking away guns is a violation of the second amendment, but that taking away freedom of religion is not a violation of the first... but they don't want to argue it with facts, evidence, historical precedent, or logic... they just want to say glory "Hallalujah can you feel it brother? this is what God and America are all about!"

Those who believe unquestioningly are "good" those who seek understanding, disagree, or find evidence to the contrary are "evil".

I keep thinking that there is common ground here somewhere. At least I read today in an article that some 62% of Republicans feel Sarah Palin is not qualified for the Presidency. On the other hand, Mike Huckabee is encouraging her to stay in the Republican party. I wonder just how many people think that the Republican party should be rebuilt on the concept of Christianity above the 1st amendment, and that it's not so bad having a woman who belonged to an organization who wanted Alaska to secede from the union and become a religious mecca of sorts for those awaiting and riding out the apocalypse.

Just how much control do the right wingnuts hellbent on theocracy have on the Republican party? and will mainstream or middle of the road Republicans stand for it?

I suppose a lot of it depends on how far the need to identify ones self with the Republican party goes. Are individuals going to mindlessly follow people like Palin and Huckabee into theocracy merely because they consider themselves "Republican"?

In a case like my friend's, I have no doubt that her feeling of belonging and security in these emotionally triggered manipulations by the far right wing will not loosen enough for her to actually think about how she feels and what she believes. Close-mindedness, is, after all, a defense. And if we're to believe the right wing, we're living in dangerous times, on attack from all sides.

But mostly, they're on attack from the side of reason.

They have no real defense against that, other than to shutter up their brains, put their hands over their ears, and go "la la la I can't hear you" as loudly as they can.

It seems to me to be a sad sort of life.