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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 5/15/15

Conservatism as Top-Down Culture That Leads to Parasites and Psychopathologies

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First to be clear, I am not suggesting that all conservatives are psychopaths or even mentally ill. I AM saying conservatism is built upon top-down values that can lead to psychological disorders and pathologies. This article started out on a different path-- trying to understand why conservatives oppose trains. But that took me to this bigger picture thinking.

Conservatism is built around some core values. An article by Morton C. Blackwell of the Leadership institute suggests the primary "principles" conservatives are devoted to are: limited government, free enterprise, strong national defense, and traditional values. He also says that liberals or progressives-- and he denigrates both terms-- represent "someone committed to, among other priorities, greater concentration of power in government, more government spending, and active opposition to traditional values."

What are "traditional values?" The conservative Rational Wiki offers this list of commonly spoken of traditional values:

  • Prayer in schools,
  • Creationism as science in schools,
  • Abstinence only education in schools
  • Outlawing abortion,
  • Outlawing homosexual acts,
  • Encouraging women to be skivvies
  • To be fair, Rational Wiki also offers "skeletons in the closet." Here's a partial list:

    The Traditional Values Coalition characterizes traditional values as "... based upon biblical foundations and upon the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, the writings of the Founding Fathers, and upon the writings of great political and religious thinkers throughout the ages." Their list includes:

  • Right To Life,
  • Fidelity In Marriage And Abstinence Before Marriage,
  • opposition to Homosexuality, Bi-Sexuality, Transgenderism, And Other Deviant Sexual Behaviors, opposition to pornography,
  • Patriotism, Loyalty To Country, And Political Involvement--support our Armed Forces, law enforcement officials, Religious Freedom and opposing any restrictions,
  • opposed to addictive behaviors such as gambling, alcohol, smoking, pornography, or the use of drugs.
  • discriminate against those behaviors which are dangerous to individuals and to society, like sodomy
  • I don't have a problem with their traditional values as long as they keep them to themselves. I have a huge problem when they decide that they have the right to subject others to them. That is malignant top-down, authoritarian thinking-- that they have the right and the righteousness to force other people to live by their values. This is a form of narcissism-- believing that what is good for you and what you need is all that matters and what others should be concerned about.

    I wanted to cover conservatism from conservatives' point of view, but I also want to get into conservatism through a top-down lens. Here's my take.

    Authoritarianism: Value and respect hierarchy and authority. It also means reject government. For most conservatives that means being passive, accepting authoritarian figures and the dogmas and rules they set out. It means participating in hierarchical, patriarchal religions, like ones that decree that the man shall dominate and the "flock" of (sheep?) shall be obedient. This sets up most of the population-- the 99%-- to be submissive, to accept and embrace oppression. In terms of

    This also sets people up to be abused. In fact, it is estimated that over 30 percent of the population is exposed to abuse as children. Abused children often become abusers or enter into relationships with abusers. Children of narcissists (all sociopaths and psychopaths are also narcissists) very often either become narcissists or they put themselves into abusive relationships with narcissists (though some can escape from the vicious cycle.)

    Maybe it's no coincidence that there is a reliable 26-28% of the population who poll very conservative. They're accustomed to abusing and being abused.

    George Lakoff has described how authoritarian people tend to have family values that demand independence.That means they object to liberal ideas like the community supporting the needy, or building big projects that support many many people. That's part of the psychology that leads to conservatives opposing big government and big projects like funding railroads-- which primarily serve city dwellers.

    How does this tie into rejecting government? Government takes (or, it should, if it's run justly and with true democracy, which, unfortunately, is often not the case) power away from the old guard-- away from the wealthy, away from the landed gentry. Government gives power to the 99%. An administrator of an agency has tremendous power and that power has not been awarded to him by the free market.

    Hypocritically, conservatives love big government, as long as it involves police, controlling others who have lifestyles they disapprove of, or if it involves military power-- power to force others to do things, one of the most violent manifestations of authoritarianism.

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    Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

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    Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
     

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