Charles M. Blow: Conservatism & Racism

Charles M. Blow of The New York Times often has interesting things to say about conservatism and racism, separately and as they relate to each other.

http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/red-light-states/

A study by Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, titled “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?” and published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that subscriptions to online pornography sites are “more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality.”

No surprise there.  It’s actually rather predictable.  It’s just human nature that what is forbidden becomes more tempting.  It’s the reason why conservative states have the highest divorce rates.  It’s why some studies have shown that abstinence education might actually increase sexual activity.  I suppose it’s even related to why the war on drugs is a complete failure considering the majority of the US population will use illegal drugs in their life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/opinion/09blow.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Simply put, it’s about fear-fueled anger. But anger is not an idea. It’s not a plan. And it’s not a vision for the future. It is, however, the second stage of grief, right after denial and before bargaining.

The right is on the wrong side of history. The demographics of the country are rapidly changing, young people are becoming increasingly liberal on social issues, and rigid, dogmatic religious stricture is loosening its grip on the throat of our culture.

The right has seen the enemy, and he is the future.

Yeah.  That has been my assessment for quite a while now.  Demographics are destiny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04blow.html?_r=2

Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.

Many have already noted the every increasing outrage on the right. 

It is disconcerting that Christian fundamentalists and other rightwing extremists have been behind more terrorist incidents in the US than Muslims.  But what bothers me even more is that all of this anger is so unfocused or somehow unclear.  It doesn’t seem like many rightwingers are all that clear what they’re angry about and their anger too often seems misdirected.  They have reason to be angry, but I’d prefer they quit attacking doctors, police officers, gays, and people attending churches.

http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/not-yet-human/

Those following the New York Post cartoon flap might find this interesting.

Six studies under the title “Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization, and Contemporary Consequences” were published in last February’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Among the relevant findings:

Historical representations explicitly depicting Blacks as apelike have largely disappeared in the United States, yet a mental association between Blacks and apes remains. Here, the authors demonstrate that U.S. citizens implicitly associate Blacks and apes.

And …

After having established that individuals mentally associate Blacks and apes, Study 4 demonstrated that this implicit association is not due to personalized, implicit attitudes and can operate beneath conscious awareness. In Study 5, we demonstrated that, even controlling for implicit anti-Black prejudice, the implicit association between Blacks and apes can lead to greater endorsement of violence against a Black suspect than against a White suspect. Finally, in Study 6, we demonstrated that subtle media representations of Blacks as apelike are associated with jury decisions to execute Black defendants.

This may provide some context for considering the motives of the cartoonist and his editors, and for understanding the strong public reaction.

I don’t have much to say about this other than pointing out that this is more evidence of the subtlety and pervasiveness of racism.

Religious Syncretism, Paranormal Experience, and Democrats

I think I posted something about this poll recently, but I noticed something interesting in this article. 

The article is Paranormal Flexibility by Charles M. Blow.  I’m not surprised by the results because I’ve been following various poll and demographic data in recent years.  I noticed alternative beliefs slipping into mainstream religion such as with New Thought Christianity being included (under different names such as Prosperity Gospel) in the messages of some tv preachers. 

Like cultures and races in general, religions are getting all mixed together.  People are believing in whatever makes sense to them no matter what is stated in the official dogma of their religion.  Heck, even the gays are starting to be accepted by mainstream religion. 

I find it rather humorous and it just makes me happy.

Anyways, here is the bit that caught my attention:

For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,” was greater than those who said that they had not.

[ . . . ]

Since 1996, the percentage of Americans who said that they have been in the presence of a ghost has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent, and the percentage who said that they were in touch with someone who was dead has increased by about a third, rising from 18 percent to 29 percent.

For those keeping political score, Democrats were almost twice as likely to believe in ghosts and to consult fortune-tellers than were Republicans, and the Democrats were 71 percent more likely to believe that they were in touch with the dead. Please hold the Barack-Obama-as-the-ghost-of-Jimmy-Carter jokes. Heard them all.

The report is further evidence that Americans continue to cobble together Mr. Potato Head-like spiritual identities from a hodgepodge of beliefs — bending dogmas to suit them instead of bending themselves to fit a dogma. And this appears to be leading to more spirituality, not less.

The main thing that interested me was the last sentence.  Moving away from unquestioned religious dogma actually increases religious experience. 

Along with this, Democrats specifically have the highest rates of religious experience.  Does this mean that the Democrats are the Chosen People?  That part wasn’t surprising either.  Liberals tend towards the personality trait that Ernest Hartmann labels as thin boundaries.  Liberals are just more open to new experiences and less fearful of the unfamiliar.  The research shows that thin boundary types not only are more likely to believe in the paranormal but also are more likely to experience it.

Racism in US

Here We Go Again by Charles M. Blow (The New York Times)

Here is an example of an article that demonstrates the type of reporting that impresses me.  It’s the occasional insightful article such as this that makes me feel that the mainstream media is still worthy of trust… to an extent (with some reservation and constant wariness).  This isn’t a complex article, but it’s evenhanded and informs me of data I didn’t previously know of.

But that’s where we are with race in this country: exaggerations and blanket denials. Race has become a vicious game of bludgeons and crutches, where acerbic accusers run roughshod over earnest egalitarians and political gain is sought even at the expense of enlightenment.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Most Americans know that racism is an issue in this country. The question is how much (that’s where the arguments start) and if — and to what degree — that racism animates critics of the president.

I appreciated that he cited several souces to support his analysis.  My only complaint is that he only linked to one of these.  For me to do my own analysis with the data, it would take a fair amount of effort to track down these other sources.

I also like this article for the simple reason that it substantiates my own intuitive sense of racism in the US.  Both those constantly using the race card and those constantly denying racism are clueless.  I can only hope that knowledge eventually wins out over ideology.  I just hope the ideologues don’t have as much influence as their loudly and often voiced opinions would suggest.