Weekly Blog 1

The article I read was "Psychological Motives and Political Orientation- The Left, the Right, and the Rigid: Comment on Jost et al." by Jeff Greenberg and Eva Jones.

The main argument is that many of the general impressions of liberals and conservatives are untrue. Negative characteristics commonly attributed to political conservatives can also be applied to people on the far left. Instead of associating rigidity and closed-mindedness with the right-wing and tolerance with the left-wing, people should view rigid and intolerant ideologies and open and tolerant ideologies as completely separate from political ideologies.

The authors backed up their argument by rebutting an opposing article that said that conservatives are resistant to change, favorable to inequality, and driven by fear. The authors provided examples of how leftists can exhibit these same behaviors. They explained how China and Cuba have very repressive and unchanging governments. They also argued that liberals are affected by fear because they do not trust people to take care of themselves. They backed this point up by listing issues that liberals generally support, like anti-smoking laws. They argued that many liberals support inequality because programs like affirmative action supposedly favor some groups of people over others.

They also provided examples of how conservatives can show opposite and more positive characteristics. They argued their point that the right-wing is in favor of change by explaining how republican Ronald Reagan changed many things when he was president. However, they did not say what changes he made.

The authors understand that not everyone will agree with them. They spend the entire article refuting the opposing argument that political conservatives are rigid in their beliefs and are resistant to change and in favor of inequalities. They do a good job and effectively get their point across.

The authors use argument by example.

I think that the authors do a good job proving their ideas. I agree that not everyone who shares the same political beliefs is the same. I agree that it is unwise to equate political conservatism with rigid intolerance and liberalism with openness. My problem with the article is that sometimes it seems as though the authors are trying to prove that liberals should be associated with only negative characteristics. They showed how conservatives can be open and favorable to change but did not do the same with liberals. Also, some of their arguments were weak. Affirmative action was a poor example of liberals supporting inequalities because the whole point of affirmative action was to reduce inequalities.

I could use this article to argue that generalizations of political parties are untrue by using the evidence that conservatives can be open to change. I would also use the evidence showing that the left-wing can be resistant to change and affected by fear and the need to resolve uncertainties. I could also argue that far left governments are not perfect and can be oppressive. I would use the examples of China and Cuba and the Soviet Union.