goy and tanstaafl: Excellent comments!
tanstaafl wrote:
I would surmise that cichawoda has been taught (and integrated) a complete body of assumptions about modern conservatism (classical liberalism, whatever)which allows him to rest comfortably in notions of an old, stolid, backward crowd standing boringly in juxtaposition to fearless and brave “progressives”.
Exactly so. cichawoda is a person of shallow mind and thought and as such, does not dream of “questioning authority” – not when the authorities are left-wing professors, media, government officials and so on.
Let’s face it, the left-wing version of history and current events is a romantic one – the brave progressives vs. the old, fearful and selfish ones – and that is why it appeals so much to young people. Not many of them realize they are every bit as conformist as any 1950′s man in a gray flannel suit. It’s immensely self-flattering to think of yourself as one of the courageous enlightened ones (never mind that being left-wing on a college campus requires no courage whatsoever)and it makes life easy and simple. You simply agree with what Marxist prof X says, echo it back to him and viola! you’re teacher’s pet.
I was a lib in college and it took 10 years of soul searching and reading texts that I had never heard of in college (Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, and Hayek to name a few) to make me change my mind. Rethinking ones basic, easy assumptions about the world, history, and human nature is a painful task, and yes, there is the danger of losing friends along the way. Some of my former friends no longer speak to me, not because I cut them off, but because I stopped being politically correct.
So I don’t expect liberal trolls to suddenly have a “I coulda had a V8!” moment because some PJM commenter or article turned them around. In my case, it wasn’t any one thing, it was the cognitive dissonce that developed when I could no longer avoid the fact that reality did not conform to the neat political categories I had in my head.
