Waldorf and Sauron wrote:vorpal blade wrote:"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." - Sir Winston Churchill
When Churchill says "Conservative," doesn't he mean something completely different than what Americans mean when they say conservative?
I don’t think Winston Churchill used the word “Conservative†in a way markedly different from the way the word is used in America. No doubt there are some differences. But then we have to ask, what do Americans mean when they use the term “conservative� There are various kinds of American conservatives, including social conservatives or values conservatives, fiscal conservatives, institutional conservatives, business conservatives, and sometimes as just another word for right-wingers. Each of these usages of the term “conservative†is very different.
According to this source,
http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclo ... servative/, there are several things conservatives in the United States and Western Europe generally have in common:
In the United States and western Europe, conservatism is generally associated with the following views:
• Personal responsibility
• General opposition to "big government" policies or state economic interventionism
• Support for Judeo-Christian religious and moral values.
• Support for strong law enforcement and strong penalties for crimes.
• Restraint in taxation and regulation of businesses.
• Support for a strong military, and well-defended protected borders with regulated immigration
• Support for drug prohibition.
• Opposition to (or support for lessening) many state-run social programs such as welfare and medical care
• Opposition to policies such as affirmative action and multi-lingual education which can be perceived as un-patriotic or government favoritism of minority groups.
By the way, I don’t necessarily agree with everything this author says.
However….
Your question might be moot, in that there is considerable doubt that Winston Churchill ever made the statement attributed to him. The quote in various forms has been around for centuries. It appears that Dr. Bob Boozer, Professor of Management at Stetson University, was using the supposed Churchill quote to introduce an explanation for the research data that shows that American Republicans and Independents are much more likely to be of the Thinking Type, while American Democrats are more likely to be of the Feelings type. The question is, what is it about American Democrats that makes them more likely to be of the Feelings personality type then the Thinking type?
It might be interesting to quote further from Dr. Boozer’s article.
Rove's comments, of course, represent partisan Republican comments targeted to a Republican audience and thus his statements about liberals is framed for his purposes. However, such framing is not unusal to the world of psychological type and tends to reflect "type bias" or the tendency to characterize the opposite preference in a less than flattering light. Regardless of intention, Rove's comments imply conservatives manifest Thinking characteristics in that they have made the rational, logical, critical ("tough") decision and have "prepared for war." Also by implication, liberals are characterized as providing therapy and understanding--both characteristics arguably being characteristics of a Feeling preference (and thus, stereotypically characterized as "soft").
Beyond type bias, the dynamics of sex-role stereotyping further camouflage the potential Thinking orientation of conservatives and the potential Feeling orientation of liberals. For example, CNBC commentator Chris Matthews' characterization of the Republican Party as the "daddy" party and the Democratic party as the "mommy" party illustrates this point. Along the same lines, University of California, Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff has provided an academic treatment of the topic that frames political ideology within the metaphor of the family. Within Lakoff's model conservatives envision the ideal government as one which is similar to conservative parenting practices referred to by Lakoff as the "strict father" model. In contrast, liberals envision the ideal government as one which is similar to liberal parenting practices termed "nuturing parent" by Lakoff. Recent empirical research provides some support for Lakoff's ideas. For example, the editor of American Journal of Political Science noted about a recent article :
In “Competing Visions of Parental Roles and Ideological Constraint,†David C. Barker and James D. Tinnick III provide an intriguing account of how family values shape political behavior and constrain attitudes across issue areas. Using data from the 2000 American National Election Study, Barker and Tinnick find support for the idea that “nurturant†visions of parental roles engender egalitarian and humanitarian political values, while “disciplinarian†visions of proper parenting are associated with political individualism and traditionalism. Here, then, is a stimulating perspective on the red/blue “culture war†that in recent years has captivated the media and the popular imagination.
Here are some of Lakoff's descriptions of the "strict father model" that suggest a Thinking preference, particularly in terms of the impersonal, and ciritical approach to making judgements:
In addition to support and protection, the father's primary duty is tell his children what is right and wrong, punish them when they do wrong, and to bring them up to be self-disciplined and self-reliant. Through self-denial, the children can build strength against internal evils. In this way, he teaches his children to be self-disciplined, industrious, polite, trustworthy, and respectful of authority.
The strict father is restrained in showing affection and emotion overtly...
Life is seen as fundamentally difficult and the world as fundamentally dangerous.
Compare the above characteristics with Lakoff's description of the "nuturing parent model" that suggest a Feeling preference, particularly in terms of the more personal and sympathetic approach to making decisions:
The primal experience behind this model is one of being cared for and cared about, having one's desires for loving interactions met, living as happily as possible, and deriving meaning from one's community and from caring for and about others.
Children are taught self-discipline in the service of nurturance: to take care of themselves, to deal with existing hardships, to be responsible to others...
Through empathizing and interacting positively with their children, parents develop close bonds with children and teach them empathy and responsibility towards others and toward society.
Clearly the above descriptions imply a "masculine" vs. "feminine" framing. However, the possibility that sex-role stereotypes might obscure a relationship between T-F preferences and political ideology will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the history and construction of the MBTI. In particular, the T-F index on the MBTI is the only index that consistently has been scored using separate scoring weights for Males and Females (although the most recent Form M version does not). As might be expected, males historically have been more likely to indicate a preference for Thinking whereas females have been more likely to indicate a preference for Feeling.
