A sharp blade slices

Disgusted Conservatives

When Moo means moo

I know.  This is not a destination blog for people looking for lofty ideas presented by an accomplished word crafter.  As one of y'all said, "I'm here for the pictures." Which is my reason too.  But this posting, and reader commentary by Shannon Love on the Chicago Boyz blog are things I have to pass on. “ Disgusted Conservatives Ever since the days of Karl Marx, leftists have tried to stigmatize the political beliefs of non-leftists as stemming from some irrational pathology. Marxists developed the idea of “false consciousness”  to explain why everyone in the world didn’t immediately recognize the obvious correctness of Marxist ideas. Later, leftists of all stripes resorted to explanations based on Freudian pseudo-science to “explain” that conservatives rejected the obviously correct leftist ideas because of sexual repression or other Freudian mechanisms we now know to be without any scientific basis. Today, we see an increasing number of “studies” that seek to link non-leftist beliefs to mindless biological factors. The latest comes from political scientists at Cornel University. The press release from Cornel says:  Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? Do crawly insects make you cringe or dead bodies make you blanch?          If so, chances are you’re more conservative — politically, and especially in your attitudes toward gays and lesbians — than your less-squeamish counterparts, according to two Cornell University studies.  Morals don’t exist to be philosopher’s toys. They exist to provide practical guidelines for peoples’ day-to-day lives. If you dig deep enough into the morality of every culture you will find a practical underpinning for most moral rules. The goals of many of these rules don’t always align with our modern goals, but the practical underpinnings are there nevertheless. We intentionally created a protected environment for academics in which they pay no penalty for being wrong. This is good in that it allows truly-original thinkers to thrive, but bad in that it leads its inhabitants to believe that abstract ideas that win academic debates automatically have relevance to the real world. [Shannon Love] ” Today Shannon follows up with Those Disgusted Conservatives Vs. The Chicken F*ckers “ [Warning: This post uses sexual imagery and a satirical tone to make a serious point.] The authors of the disgusted conservatives study I discussed earlier reveal their ivory-tower bias when they sniff at the way real people make real decisions.     Disgust seems to be particularly implicated in many of our moral judgements (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999b). But should disgust play any role in these judgements? According to many liberal, educated Westerners, the answer is no. Whether a practice or behaviour is considered morally palatable or reprehensible should depend on whether that behaviour harms or infringes on the rights of another individual; disgusting but harmless behaviours do not deserve moral condemnation (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993). According to this view, consuming faecal matter, engaging in sexual intercourse with animals, or masturbating to pornography is not immoral, as long as no other people are harmed by one’s behaviour (Bloom, 2004b).35 Up until a few years ago, I would have agreed with that reasoning. (Except for the sex with animals part. Animals have a right not to be raped. Moo means moo.)   - continued ” MISS, MS.,MISTER Dilbert: I had some questions, sir...er, ma'am...sir? (pause) Are you a man or a woman? Department Head: In Accounting, it doesn't really matter. — Shannon "Pat"  Love?