In observing the sheer bloody-mindedness with which some on the Left cling, in the face of almost all evidence*, to the “Sarah Palin is a moron” meme, I’ve come to a conclusion: some liberals are just firmly convinced that all conservatives are stupid, or else we wouldn’t be conservatives. This just seems to be an article of absolute faith, core dogma, for some on the Left, judging by the way they treat folks on the Right. Given that, no amount of evidence to the contrary can shake their conviction; they dogmatically insist that Sarah Palin is a moron, with no supporting evidence offered save the fact that she’s conservative, and therefore by definition must be a moron. It’s simply a matter of faith that they are the enlightened ones, and she is not.
Which is to say that perhaps we’ve been wrong in talking about conservative Christians as the “faith-based community”; there’s a section of the Left that’s every bit as much a faith-based community as all that. The difference is, their faith isn’t in God, but rather in their own superiority.
*Sure, there’s the Katie Couric interview, in which Gov. Palin most assuredly did not acquit herself well—though even there, she did a lot better than the editing made her look. But hey, even the brightest folks look really dumb sometimes; at least she didn’t say there are 57 states, or that Austrians speak Austrian, or give the British government a middling assortment of DVDs that can’t be played in Britain, or try to get into the Oval Office through a window. Even Barack Obama looks like an imbecile at times, and Joe Biden like a blithering idiot—though to be sure, VP Biden actually is a blithering idiot . . .
As a Leftist, I wouldn't agree that conservative faith is in God. I would say that conservative faith is also in it's own superiority. I think that's just human. For conservatives, it is a moral superiority, or superiority of virtue, or for neoconservative types, a superiority of intelligence and decisiveness.
For Lefties, it tends to be a sense of superiority of conscience, of egalitarianism, of concern for the greater good, and of course, intelligence.
I'm willing to posit that these are approximately equivalent fallacices for the many who seem to hold them.
Having said that, of course, I am still a Leftist, which imeans implicitly that I think being a Leftist is demonstrably better than being a Rightist, and I assume you think that being a Rightist is better, since you identify yourself as one (not with that terminology, but I'm going for contrasting parity here).
I think the challenge is how do we talk about the real differences in viewpoint without descending into objectifying each other? You as a moronic war-mongering fat-cat wannabe and me as a soul-less baby-killing government-worshipper? 🙂
Oh, I don't consider this to be a description of everyone on the Left, by a long shot; just a particularly bloody-minded subset. Equally, I make no claims for the true status before God of everyone on the Right, or even everyone on the Right who considers themselves Christian, or even everyone on the Right who's a practicing evangelical. I would say, though, that among the particular leftist subset I'm talking about, there's a particular sense of superiority that I really haven't seen in any other group of people in this country. It's sort of a fusion of the sense of superiority that elites everywhere have (which is even worse among non-leftist elites in this country, I think) with a towering sense of their own moral superiority for being liberals–something I don't see an equivalent to among the members of our elite who vote Republican; they can't feel morally superior for being conservatives, because they aren't.
In any event, I think I've said before that I don't believe in the moral superiority of groups–take any group and cut a cross-section, and it's going to look about the same as a cross-section of any other group. Those who are truly following Christ would be an exception of a sort–you'll see a difference, but that's not to their credit but to the credit of the Holy Spirit; apart from the Spirit's work, they'd look pretty much the same.
As for the challenge, I think it's two things, really: one, be careful to delimit generalizations, and two, be careful to remember they're only generalizations–individuals never neatly conform to them. Which actually implies a third thing: discuss issues, not people (and use language, especially labels, accordingly).
I just realized I'd mangled that second paragraph–I hate editing in little boxes . . . Unintentional overgeneralization fixed.
Today I shall mostly be eating ferrets.