How
in the world can anyone explain the hysterical
anger that Lefties have
toward Sarah Palin, the “Rightwing” and have in the

past had for George
Bush and Dick Cheney. I refuse to demonstrate the intense level of this
Lefty hatred and the nearly complete absence of such venom in the rest
of our society. It is either self-evident or you are never going to
accept it.
I offer a simple suggestion to explain the
hysterical anger. My suggestion has two parts: (1) ideology and (2)
worldview.
As the father of Social Sorting, I call on
my own discovery about human self categorization as part one of this
suggestion.
People who are attracted to a highly structured life, with
little ambiguity and much stability find the world of political ideology
a comforting home. These are generally, but not always, attracted to
life in the ideological Left. (Patrick Buchanan and Lyndon LaRoche offer
similar homes though very tiny.) It is a comforting world. Everyone
around you agrees on nearly every subject from, movies, food, and
lifestyle to daily talking points that are read in Doonesbury or the
Huffington Post.
So suggestion (1) is that the
hysterical anger we see around us is a socially occasioned behavioral
style that is worn by people who self-select into the ideological Left. They need and have chosen a highly structured world.
Suggestion
(2) is that the Left has a great deal to lose if any part of the Lefty
worldview is challenged. That near catastrophic risk of loss is the
basis for gut wrenching intense hysterical anger.
The
Left, more than any other component of society, has a highly structured,
fragile and deeply intertwined view of the world. This world view is
taught every hour of the day by 92.3% of academia, 97.7% of mainstream
media, 91.3% of Hollywood movies and in 98.9% of all conversations among
Lefties. Such coherence of attitudes are not found elsewhere in our
society; the Left has coherent attitudes toward global warming, using
alternative energy, eating organic local foods, how horrible big
corporations are, the evil of Wal Mart, unfairness of rich people and on
and on and on.
Summary: people who want a comfortable
well structured life select the political ideology of the Left. Once
inside this political cohort they happily find a finely tuned, deeply
intertwined, and very fragile world view. When this volatile, daily
reinforced, hourly lived worldview is threatened, the only recourse is
hysterical rage and vitriolic anger.
What is one of
the things that can generate such anger? A beautiful, athletic, happily
married, mother, who was elected governor, loves hunting, is wildly
popular throughout the country, able to win TV debates, graduate of a
lowly state college, former cheer leader, and holds non-Lefty views.
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