Puncturing One Stereotype to Create Another
TIME GOES BY | Puncturing One Stereotype to Create Another I certainly have gotten more liberal as I've gotten older. I was a Goldwater Republican. Most of you were probably not even alive back then, but his campaign slogan was "In your heart you know he's right" I even did a little caucusing for him and repeated the mantra as doors were closing in my face. That was the last time I let my heart rule my mind. It may also explain why I'm so offended by the emotional appeals of the Obama campaign and the mindless chants of change and hope.
It is a long-term article of faith that seems impossible to counter: young people are flexible, liberal and eager for the new; old people are rigid, conservative and stuck in their ways. Elders themselves know the latter is not true, but conventional wisdom says otherwise and the stereotype has negative effects every day in age discrimination in the workplace, less aggressive healthcare and a general, cultural sidelining of elders. Now, there is a new study published in the October 2007 issue of American Sociological Review that shows the reality about both age groups to be the reverse of what is believed.FindArticles - Old Dogs, New Opinions
Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2008, by Conner, Alana
Tweet
Comments
do you have the link for the article? i am sure i can google scholar it, but am curious
link
That bugs the hell out of me, too-- and that sort of crap has always bothered me, so I know it's not because I'm old. The more specific he gets on policy, the better I like him, even if I don't agree with him. When he starts going on like some fundamentalist preacher, I just tune him out, as I've always done with preachers (and cheerleaders).
As for aging and liberalism, I find I'm about the same amount of liberal politically, but more conservative financially (although more generous, because I've saved more to give away). I'm more liberal when it comes to ideas about sexuality (and the behaviors of others) but more conservative in my own actions. I'm also more conservative when it comes to drug use but, once I'm even older, I'll bet that changes once again. :-)
Agreed, Norm. At the very least, however, we know that Obama is no idiot, and no conservative. Hillary is doubtful on both counts.
As a London Financial Times columnist put it recently, "Just because Mr Obama gives lousy, empty speeches, it does not mean that he will be a lousy, empty president".
True, I just don't know what kind of president he will make, not enough data. He would certainly be better than a John McCain.
Actually (and sadly), I am old enough to remember Mr. Goldwater and his campaign. I also remember the reply to "In your heart you know he's right" to be "In your guts you know he's nuts".
http://boskolives.wordpress.com/
“It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved.” -Irwin Edman
"I was a Goldwater Republican"
"emotion"
I thought I was kidding around about the false choice, and, thanks for the demotion, but,
"I let my heart rule my mind."
THAT bugs the hell out of ME, the very idea that EITHER you so-called heart, or your so-called mind rules, is executive over, I mean, think of the alternative, like Bachian* counterpoint, the interweaving of voices, or even, in unaccompanied string suites, the interleaving of voices (caveat cavatinas, no, out-of-phase discants of discounts? Never mind) within a single line. There is no heart, no mind, no single ruling kind, there is, ideally, a harmony of, or, to the contrary, a ...cognitive DISsonance of voices, e.g., in the cases of Hillary, and type specimen Colin Powell: a painfully unresolved...uh vibe of slowly throbbing unresolvingness, i.e., to the ear as is to the nose a whiff of something "rotten in Denmark", a not adding up...the words don't match the music which doesn't match itself. Winged wolf tones. Teeeth tooo big, Big Eyes, Giant Old Parrot (Goldwater girl) as top predator, Gastornis redux rictus (Du hast's rict's). Sometimes I think those among you who have not endured the hard knocks of these con-men, hustlers, and other such Dosteyevskian ghetto characters are naive to the point of being babes in the woods-inhabited-by-obvious-wolves, for all of your mega-networking skills and achievements, how would you handle a Big Cat, a crouching lion (a real sneaky one)?. I have the unfortunate wounds to know better, never again. Whatever, whoever. If any one of these three, now that the Huckster is out, wins, we will, in a certain sense, have the first trace-of-genuine person in office in 32 years. But of the three, Hillary is by far the more iffy, iffier, whatever it is. Ralph, of course, is totally real, which is why he is where he is.
Did I say "Dostoyevskian"? Who put in Putin? At least we don't have to deal with Putin up close, we can rely on....
John McCain
to do it, a man you can trust. A man you can trust to get us into World War III.
.
*as Brasileiras, "In your heart you know he's right" Goldwater, his family was great for planned parenthood down here, but I will never have the fanaticism of a convert. The either/aura halo of the true believer-or-rationalizer, (they are equally dangerous). My corpus collossum is quite enlarged, thank you. "In your guts you know he's nuts". Beware the enchanter/chanter of repetitive rhymes. If it doesn' fit, you must still NOT admit the sentimental sway to sway you into dressing it up with voodoo rationalizations. Go back and find where you took the wrong exit.
Or maybe I'm just Parrot-annoyed.
It only bugs you because you wanted to be bugged and needed something to write about and so set up a false dilemma. I'm not complaining I enjoy your rants. All I was saying was that my support then was more emotional than rational. It is something I now guard against, which less you misunderstand is not to say that no emotion is good. Fear is an emotional response and good thing too, it can save your sorry ass. It's not all or nothing take the current race you have Obama, Hillary, or McCain it's like choosing between herpes, the clap, or bowel, cancer. I'm just saying I don't want to exchange 8 years of dope for 8 years of hope.
Oh, if that's the choice, I'll take the clap, because at least it's curable. :)
It's a false choice, its not like Obama is going to spend 8 years giving speeches.
The argument that he will fail at some or all at what he tries to do is valid but its hard to argue he won't try to do some good, The comparison to Clinton is that she will give away more of our country to corporations and hawks just to trade it in for some small success. That is where her experience lies. That's the Clinton Legacy. They get Welfare reform, NAFTA, DOMA, and the war in Iraq We get SChip Family Medical and don't ask, don't tell.
http://www.dlc.org/
Norm is calling me on my charitablity issues here. I don't mean to say that Norm was calling Obama substance less. I believe his point was that he didn't want to support any candidate based on emotion alone.
My remarks were intending to argue that Obama will offer Hope and policy direction. A direction not certain to succeed but also not designed to fail.
??? What does RedSeven's "false choice" comment have to do with charitability? Granting that he has posted some jibes in earlier comments, this comment in particular seems very reasonable to me -- certainly compared to many, many comments that have been tolerated here.
Logical fallacies are pointed out here all the time -- false choice, appeal to authority, ad hominem. I don't get it.
Norm wasn't warning me or anything as far as I could tell, just making his point.
Sensitive times require sensitive measures
Oh. Sorry, I jumped to conclusions.
"Fear is an emotional response and good thing too, it can save your sorry ass."
As it has in many a wild animal. Domesticated animals/humans are like indifferent (bureaucratic?) psychopaths. Is Obama so calm and smooth because he's ....stupid? That could be a line of criticism. I see a mirage, but I'm sooo thirsty.
No one will vote for Ralph because no one will vote for Ralph. A vicious logic. Who was that guy? Ron Paul. A passing, passed, fad. Nader is no fad.
What the hell are you talking about?
e-GAD. red, don't! nooooooooooooooooooo
Post a comment