Monday, September 21, 2015

Allergic

Boston Globe: The Republican Party has an allergy to facts
The Republican Party is dominated by candidates who are proudly, even boastfully ignorant.

4 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

Their hero and saint R. Reagan said about "the facts" that they are a stupid thing. The GOP makes it up as it goes along. The facts are fitted to their worldview or they're discarded. When you enter the GOP world you have to put on GOP tinted glasses to see things the way they require you to.

Jim Sande said...

That's how it is, it has to fit their worldview. If it doesn't fit it can't possibly be real. This is how Fiorina for example scores points by not backing down from a video that doesn't even exist.

Glynn Kalara said...

Another part of all this is focus. The GOP and the people who subscribe to its worldview view the same phenomenon through a different ideological filter. The things that interest these folks are different then what other people see and are interested in as they try to figure things out. This is why when you speak with these folks when certain topics come up you find yourself scratching your head and wondering how on earth did this person come up with this view of reality? If you are framing what you see and filtering what you see through a certain type of lens then the data you accept as valid could be radically different. For instance, a right wing person looks at unemployment in a totally different way then the general public does. They would say a person is unemployed because they are lazy and don't want to work, where as the average person might say they are unemployed because there are few jobs and more people trying to get them. To the GOP person those facts aren't important. Even if they are presented them they will either question the source or say it doesn't matter. Many other topics fit this pattern. Unfortunately, this way of thinking isn't just found on the right. The same kind of thinking can be found happening on the left at times depending on the topic. It's less prevelant though since science seems to be a more acceptable measure of reality on the left then it is on the right, most of the time.

Jim Sande said...

I find the high alert ready to go to the mat rigidity of thought among GOPers to be, truthfully, depressing. Whatever happened to good old open mindedness as a quality which is associated with intelligent behavior and which is something that people aspire to have. Not only is there this particular closed system of thought with GOPers but there's also an extreme defense of it. We see this with Trump for example who levels third grade assaults on the people that mock him or question his validity.