Thursday, August 13, 2015

In a Mirror, Darkly: Caricature and Condescension

Flopping Aces ^ | 08-12-15 | Wordsmith 

jon-stewart-cartoon-sack
When commenting at HuffPo, NYTimes, Daily Kos, and any number of other liberal sites where I can leave behind my droppings, I often encounter low information voters from the liberal spectrum and rabid partisans who conveniently offer such predictable tropes as: "That's what happens when you get your information from Faux. Try reading a real news source" (forget the fact that I am on a liberal newsrag commenting on a liberal article I just read; or that I just provided a link to my source of information that is anything but Fox). "Try reading a book". "Read history!" "Quit listening to Rush!" (My total amount of listening to Rush might amount to 2 minutes worth of soundclips). I'm automatically labeled a teabagger even though I've never identified as a member of any Tea Party movement (a number of organizations have cropped up incorporating the name, with varying agendas). Caricaturized with so many predictable talking points and anti-conservative memes applied. I have no doubt FA's liberal visitors have received their fair share of derision and dismissive mockery to their positions by those on my side of the political aisle. I bear witness to it. I see elsewhere when my allies can be just as nasty and vitriolic; just as condescending as those on the left who lack the self-awareness to see that they are the very thing that they accuse those on the right of being.
The night of the 1st Republican debate for 2016, I came home and clicked onto FB. I saw a friend who had posted to his wall a thread mocking the debate, comparing it to an SNL skit. Friends of his (some mutual) chimed in their amen chorus approval. An echo chamber of liberal smugness, oversaturated with an affliction of superiority complex.
Yes, conservatives must be women-hating, bible-thumping, gun-toting, narrow-minded, anti-science, anti-gay, racist, rich, war-mongering, xenophobic, family-values hypocrites. I apparently was an anomaly to my liberal friends and not your typical, stereotypical conservative they only know in caricature.
Because conservatives are generally opposed to abortion, they must hate women.
Because they perceive that our cultural history and identity is rooted in 90% Christian tradition and lament its eradication and intolerance for public expression for the last few decades, they must not believe in having a secular government but advocate for a theocracy.
Because they are skeptical of global warming alarmism, they are anti-science.
Because they believe in exercising a muscular foreign policy influence, they are war-mongering interventionists. (Forget for a moment the Ron Paul-wing of the libertarian-side of the Party).
Because they don't believe in redefining the institution of marriage, they are hateful homophobes.
Because they think the government is doing too much, they are anti-government.
Because they are opposed to a number of welfare legislation, they must be against the poor and non-charitable.
Because they don't rail against income inequality, conservatives only shill for rich corporations.
Because they want to get illegal immigration under control, they are anti-immigrant and racist.
Because they perceive the dangers and threat of radical Islam, they are Islamophobic and scaremongering.
And it goes on and on. So much time is wasted demonizing and dismissing the other side without bothering to listen to each individual on the merits of his own arguments. We end up setting up and shooting down strawmen, ascribing positions that the person we're arguing with never stated; we attack the messenger/news source rather than addressing the actual contents. It's a form of intellectual laziness and incuriosity; a smug belief that we already know what the other side thinks and will say.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...

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