It woz the Conservatives/the rich wot done it!

[Freddie]

I thought I'd try and save us a few pages of individual threads and amalgamate the sentiments of a number of forum regulars into a poll.

All in good fun, mind, not to be taken too seriously .

[Psamathe]

Done what?

Ian

[Cyril Haearn]

Nothing
Someone explained the origin of the word
Con is the trick they performed to get elected again and again
Serve is the self-servingness that is the essence of toryism
Vat is the tax they more than doubled
Ive is 'I have' (you have not)
..
Alternative facts welcome

[Tangled Metal]

We're a selfish species. If anyone does anything negative through their position you can bet others will do as bad if they get into a position to do it.

It is partly about self interest but it is partly about point of view. If you're politically from one pursuasion you view some things acceptable that other political pursuasions don't. Within that the extremes of all pursuasions make it all easier to spot.

I'm a cynic as far as politics goes.

[Freddie]

It is partly about self interest but it is partly about point of view. If you're politically from one pursuasion you view some things acceptable that other political pursuasions don't. Within that the extremes of all pursuasions make it all easier to spot.

This a very interesting point. To get serious for a moment, I've read that views (conservative/left-leaning) are largely to do with temperament and they are, beyond the excitement/folly of youth, largely baked into the cake, so to speak.

What happens is that left leaning and right leaning (somewhat poor definitions, but I think people will catch the drift) are more so psychological dispositions than they are political viewpoints chosen at will by individuals. Apparently, people of the left and right conceive of things in different ways, so much so that they will spend most of their time talking past one another.

They are, metaphorically speaking, different languages and modes of thinking. Interesting stuff, no?

[rjb]

I'm waiting for "Brenda from Bristol" to throw her penny's worth into the ring before I respond.

https://youtu.be/d3PKE8uTSp8

[PH]

The Monetarists did it. Some right wing and some supposed left, they think the economy can be treated like a household budget, or at least they say they do though they didn't follow through on their ideology and let the banks fail.

[Tangled Metal]

Ruled by traditional economists when perhaps behavioural economists might have been better.

[Cugel]

It is partly about self interest but it is partly about point of view. If you're politically from one pursuasion you view some things acceptable that other political pursuasions don't. Within that the extremes of all pursuasions make it all easier to spot.

This a very interesting point. To get serious for a moment, I've read that views (conservative/left-leaning) are largely to do with temperament and they are, beyond the excitement/folly of youth, largely baked into the cake, so to speak.

What happens is that left leaning and right leaning (somewhat poor definitions, but I think people will catch the drift) are more so psychological dispositions than they are political viewpoints chosen at will by individuals. Apparently, people of the left and right conceive of things in different ways, so much so that they will spend most of their time talking past one another.

They are, metaphorically speaking, different languages and modes of thinking. Interesting stuff, no?

It's nice & easy to reduce every subject matter to a binary "It's this or that" answer. But the world, including the world of human ideas and behaviours, is far more complex - a series of analogue scales with many intersecting dimensions. "Left & right" as labels of political persuasion, for example, are just local simplifications reflecting the seating arrangements of the original British Parliament. Human political beliefs and practices encompass a far wider gamut than that.

Various sociologists, anthropologists and neuroscientists are also rather prone to reducing everything they study to fit their traditional schemas, definitions and metaphysics. They too enjoy reductionism of the kind that simplifies complex things into simple classifications and their differentiations, often of a binary kind. In reality, they're largely making stuff up. If not, where is the successful social or cultural engineering and technologies? The closest we come to those are the dark arts of spin doctors, propagandists and media barons. Their "techniques" tend to have a thousand unintended consequences besides that of persuading their human guinea pigs to vote for this monster or that. Dark arts, not social science or engineering.

********
History demonstrates (both in it's happenings and in the differing descriptions made of those happenings by historians) that human nature is a wildy variegated phenomenon, not some simple two-types arrangement. Where there appears to be but two types (of voter, say) this is entirely an artificial arrangement imposed by an often transient cultural twitch.

Many generalisations, stereotypes and other simplifications seem attractive in this sea of human complexity, full of political tidal rips, storms and hidden rocks. Wouldn't it be easy if it was all a matter of just A or B - especially if one of them was "certainly right" and the other "certainly wrong"?

The notion that "all humans are selfish" is one such simplification. Humans can be anything on a wide spectrum between "utterly selfish" and "extremely altruistic". A singular human can be act in accordance with many points on this spectrum, at the same time concerning different aspects of life impinging at that time. It's easily possible to be very selfish about one thing whilst being very altruistic about another, all at once. For details, examine your own behavior; or that of those around you.

Of course, you must avoid the trap of stereotyping yourself or others as a (wholly right or wrong) [label].

****
This complexity is part of why we humans often act and think "irrationally". Often the irrationality consists of the broth of several beliefs, traditions and imposed-by-others behaviours all occurring at once. We are all cognitively dissonant.

Cugel

[Freddie]

Well, yes and no. I understand what you are saying, bur trends and patterns exist. Everyone would enjoy thinking we're all very complex and individual, but I imagine most people are far more predictable than they'd wish to believe.

I had predicted, for example, that if you responded you would respond with something along the lines that you did ('we can't account for every variable, therefore the data is null'), perhaps you have predicted my response to your response somewhat too. See what I mean...

I don't think it is reduction to binary, so much as observing trends. No dataset can account for every individual, that is why we look for averages or typical behaviour. If you had to account for every outlier you could never profess to know anything.

[Cugel]

Well, yes and no. I understand what you are saying, bur trends and patterns exist. Everyone would enjoy thinking we're all very complex and individual, but I imagine most people are far more predictable than they'd wish to believe.

I had predicted, for example, that if you responded you would respond with something along the lines that you did ('we can't account for every variable, therefore the data is null'), perhaps you have predicted my response to your response somewhat too. See what I mean...

I don't think it is reduction to binary, so much as observing trends. No dataset can account for every individual, that is why we look for averages or typical behaviour. If you had to account for every outlier you could never profess to know anything.

If there's one instant improvement that any human can make to their character and consequent behaviours, it's the admission that "I know very little indeed". In particular. we often fail to understand the breadth of human beliefs and behaviours - the wide range of things that affect or determine what we think, say and do. Even more so with the wide range of things that affect or determine what others think, say or do.

Failing to take account of "outliers" is often indicative of failing to take account of anything much at all apart from the single point on the possible-belief/behaviour graph other than the point one prefers or is situated at oneself. So many people who are "certain" about so many things! All of them in some degree wrong (as in: reality fails to agree as it unfolds the future).

Cugel

[Vorpal]

Rich people and poor people are much the same, except that rich people are in a better position to take advantage of others.

[Cugel]

Rich people and poor people are much the same, except that rich people are in a better position to take advantage of others.

Perhaps. But those simplifying sociologists have a current theory that the poorer one is, the more likely one is to act in altruistic ways, whereas the richer one is, the more likely one is to be a self-centred little skin bag. The theory opines that the poor best survive via mutual aid and sharing of scarce resources, whereas the rich become isolated from others via their means to buy themselves out of any difficulty with no help from others (and a corresponding inability to see the need to help others).

Well ... I did say this sociological proposition was simplistic.

In fact, one may find plenty of very poor yet very selfish people, as well as many rich folk who are rather generous.

In fact, one may find variations of all sorts throughout all socioeconomic classes. But this makes sociological theory-making rather difficult so is not something the rascals like to admit. Much better to have an "If this then that" theory. Of course, such theories are hopeless as the basis of social or economic engineering. If not, why are we not all gambolling about the sunlit uplands with unicorns, whilst eating delicious ice cream cornets with spangly bits on, eh, eh?

Cugel

[gaz]

She was poor but she was honest, at least that's how I heard it.

[Mike Sales]

She was poor but she was honest, at least that's how I heard it.

It's the same the whole world over
Its the poor that get the blame,
It's the rich that get the pleasure
Ain't it all a bleeding shame

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Its_the_Same_the_Whole_World_Over_(3).htm