I've seen it here and elsewhere where some call the leftists a name such as libtard or dimocrat or something like that. These people are not stupid. I personally know those that I'd consider genius that call themselves leftists/communists/truthers/etc. I can't imagine how they came that considering my thinking is polar opposite but here we are.

I was watching the Thomas Smith vs Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin) last night and I was wondering how two educated and intelligent people could have such different views. Two people can have different perspectives, sure, but to be so diametrically opposite seems so very strange to me.

I think it hit me near the end, Thomas Smith said his time was up and goodbye. He was clearly there for the paycheck (or the exposure for future financial opportunity) and not there to prove any point. Carl Benjamin stayed afterward and politely answered questions.

An old friend is a truther/leftist/hyper-democrat. To call him intelligent is an understatement. However, he's a member of a leftist publishing organization and I can't be sure if he actually believes what he says or if his pay and position depends on it. I can't say that he doesn't believe the things he says but it a lot of it makes no rational sense unless you straddle the truth with talking points picked up between his bachelors and masters degrees. I find it hard to believe that one so intelligent could be so severely indoctrinated but it looks like that's what happened. I haven't talked to him in years because it always turns into him insulting me and my other friends because we don't have the same worldview. So, I eventually cut him out of my life.

Of course, to him and his sort, we are the indoctrinated ones. I don't know. I guess I just want to talk about your views on how smart folk can be so different and can rarely see their own faults.

I wonder this often myself, esp after Supreme Court decisions, something I would think would have a very high objective consensus.

One can be very intelligent and lack insight. It is actually quite common and part of the human condition.

Leftism is a mental illness. Simple answer.

I've often pondered the same thing. I think there are a multitude of variables, however I think a large factor is an individual's heart and what types of things are going on inside of them. Corruption begins in the heart, and a high I.Q. is a vehicle that can carry those corrupt ideas a long way by escaping, evading, and contradicting truth, decency, and common sense.

When this subject comes up I tend to think back to this quote from T.S. Eliot;

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

The reasons are legion.

Some for money, some for fame, power, or fixated on a point of the position, and more.

Matters not, left, right, dead center.

Think of it as understanding autism. The spectrum is 3 dimensional and a origin can be anywhere x, y, z.

And the perspective of the viewer is in a different origin.

Then add that the person you are observing, can be looking in any direction, so you cannot fully comprehend what they perceive, and anything more than a general acceptance of their point of view, filtered through you bias, is going to frustrate your brain.

I tend to deal with people on evil/not evil.

Makes it less complicated

You can't have your side without them having theirs.

For every one of us that thinks their thinking is crazy, there is another on that side thinking the same thing.

To them, they likely think they are the free thinkers who have it right and we are indoctrinated to an extent. The only thing that dictates which side you are on is your choices.

To quote a show the other day, "we're monsters to the monsters".

The bigger problem is those that won't listen or talk about something, who just instantly assume and shut down all conversation. And I see and meet plenty of those on both sides.

I truly believe that the divide is not about the individual topics and more about core beliefs of a person. If a person generally believes in personal responsibility then they are on the right, if they don’t then they are left.

Think about every leftist position on the most common topics that divide us. Gun control -individuals aren’t responsible enough to own guns. Abortion - individuals are not responsible for their actions and should be able to murder a baby as a result. Crime/punishment - criminals are not responsible for their actions. Race - POC are not individually responsible or able to make it on their own and need help. Student loan debt - people shouldn’t have to pay back loans they took out. Healthcare - people can’t buy their own insurance. It even goes the other way, Police - there aren’t bad individual cops, it’s the whole system so every cop is a bad cop (ACAB). Every rich person is only rich because they exploited someone else.

I could go on and on, but virtually every major point of argument between the left and the right boils down to a persons core belief in personal responsibility. And that core belief isn’t based on how intelligent you are.

Once someone has the core belief that that people are not responsible for themselves and that the government should control our daily lives, then they tend to support most leftist positions, even those not related to personal responsibility.

Or maybe I’m wrong. That’s just my observation.

Despite what everyone thinks is correct....whether it's left or right, history has proven a LOT of the answers. To not acknowledge history is a serious error.

There's a lot to disagree with in this article, but maybe it has some hints. Although I believe this article doesn't explain why some entire counties are liberal while others are not.

https://www.scientificamerican...me-real-differences/

Conservative and Liberal Brains Might Have Some Real Differences


Scanners try to watch the red-blue divide play out underneath the skull

On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity. If you had put Buckley and Vidal in a magnetic resonance imaging machine and presented them with identical images, you would likely have seen differences in their brain, especially in the areas that process social and emotional information. The volume of gray matter, or neural cell bodies, making up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts, tends to be larger in liberals. And the amygdala, which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats, is larger in conservatives. While these findings are remarkably consistent, they are probabilities, not certainties—meaning there is plenty of individual variability. The political landscape includes lefties who own guns, right-wingers who drive Priuses and everything in between. There is also an unresolved chicken-and-egg problem: Do brains start out processing the world differently or do they become increasingly different as our politics evolve? Furthermore, it is still not entirely clear how useful it is to know that a Republican’s brain lights up over X while a Democrat’s responds to Y.

Life experiences can shape your political opinions as much as anything. The older I get the more conservative I become.

Two people in my friend group who were quite liberal have started to swing more to the right as a result of the last two years.

People may be very intelligent or highly educated, but lack something many less smart people have: Common Sense.
I scanned through my news feeds on Bidens speech and was amazed to see quite a few people who stated they support him and that they thought he was doing well. Anyone with common sense or some modicum of critical thinking can see he is not and we are suffering because of his actions.

Typically, we all see things a bit different, but we see things similarly in the mein.

Cognitive dissonance answers the OP's question to my mind.

A foundational lie in one's makeup, not allowing them to trust their lying eyes to the facts before them.

Leftism is a religion. There is no room for negotiation in one's religion, is there? How can you reason with people who think it impossible that they are ever wrong?

That's the short answer, the very short answer.

"I will say one other thing- that the left, over that period (50 or 60 years) have tended to take the view that simply by holding the opinions they have and being on the side of what they term 'progress' , they are themselves moral and that those who don't hold their views- which I don't- are themselves immoral." - Peter Hitchens

I went to school with a lot of extremely bright people. Did they agree with one another? No way, Jose.

The very idea makes me break out into a grin.

People aren’t as smart as you may think they are. The intelligence quotient is averaged so the median score is 100.

Think about that just for a minute. Average adult has the IQ score of 100.

It’s a simple distribution curve, so about half of the people are below that metric.



Now add in a key political strategy of identity politics/tribalism that divides the nation. A culture war similar to the ones in Russia and in China.



In my life, I’ve been constantly floored and reminded how few people actually read and comprehend knowledge from others. Books/e-readers hold a treasure trove of knowledge that no one really accesses much any longer.

Rarely is anything in the human condition new. Our current situation was predicted well over 100 years ago (Rand, Huxley, Orwell, etc.). Our present situation shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody semi-lucid, yet there are posts where people are truly shocked at the current state of affairs.


How did folks not see this coming for certainly the past 20+ yrs?

I think people’s experience is a big part of their viewpoint.

It may be true that leftists view the individual as the problem and the government as the solution while conservatives see the individual as the solution and the government as the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
People aren’t as smart as you may think they are.

...or, as smart as they wish to appear.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
People aren’t as smart as you may think they are.

...or, as smart as they wish to appear.

I don’t trust appearances…

Learned that one very early in life.

Leftism requires the rejection of reason.

I had a discussion with a conservative leftist physics professor.

At one point, he said, “You may be right, but I cannot let myself think that way.”

The only time I’ve said something similar, is when certain trains of thought, lead to conclusions which conflict with my Christianity.

In that professor’s case, instead of Christianity, it was anything which conflicts with Socialism.

In some ways, I am rejecting the reasoning of my own mind, as well, but that is because I have accepted that God is something greater than myself, and it is reasonable to submit to His judgment.