to think right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers?

[migratingsouth]

The authors of a study which looked at data from 15,000 people think so.

Here's the link - (with delicious irony it's from the Daily Mail )

It says their analysis found that:

• Children with low intelligence grow up to be prejudiced
• Right-wing views make the less intelligent feel 'safe'

"Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views...

"Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others"

Am I / are they BU?

I think this feels true at a collective level, at least for the US, where I'm from.

If you look at the states that consistently vote the most right-wing, they also have the worst education levels, score the worst on standardized tests. They also tend to have much worse records on racism, homophobia, religious tolerance.

I don't know about the causality but the correlation does seem to be there.

Obviously not saying all right-wingers are racist or stupid.

I do think fear drives people to the right. I've known a number of lefties who went hard right after getting mugged, or after 9/11.

The old saying " If a man is not a socialist at 20 he has no heart. If he is still a socialist at 30 he has no brain"

"I do think fear drives people to the right. I've known a number of lefties who went hard right after getting mugged, or after 9/11."

Interesting dreamingbohemian.

The main issue with that article is that less intelligent people are more likely to be right wingers does NOT mean right-wingers are less intelligent than left-wingers. But what can you expect from a right wing newspaper?

Yes, for example one friend of mine was mugged at gunpoint, he was walking down the street and these guys stuck a gun in his face. Obviously terrifying but after that he became super right-wing largely because he became opposed to gun control laws. He was convinced that if he had had a gun he wouldn't have been mugged. It was no use pointing out to him that even if he had had a gun, he likely wouldn't have pulled it out if he already had a gun in his face, and if he had he would be dead now.

It was not really a rational conversion. Same with people who wanted to invade Iraq after 9/11 even though the two were not connected at all.

IMO anyone who relies on an "ism" or "olog" to do their thinking has a problem, right, left or otherwise.

I think anybody who is at the extremes is probably less intelligent because, as others have said, they don't have the ability to understand nuances - anybody who accepts wholeheartedly the policies and ideas of any party whilst emphatically rejecting all the policies of their opposition just aren't thinking things through properly. Neither party has it all right.

I would even go as far as to argue the floating voter is the most intelligent for not getting tied up in one party's political ideology so much that they can't think through things for themselves without a politcal ideology to tell them what to think. The floater actually has to make an effort to evaluate ideas every time they want to vote.

Crap, that last paragraph was not very well put. Hope you get what I mean. Floating voters have to think is basically what I am getting at. They don't just put the tick in the box because that is what they have always done.

I'd agree with dreamingbohemian about fear. A lot of the rhetoric around our various current predicaments is fear based and very right wing IMHO.

IME right wing politics provides easy answers to complex questions more readily than left wing and therefore is easier to understand for those unwilling or unable to think about various issues, particularly from the viewpoint of others.

I agree handbag

You see this especially in the US where a lot of right-wingers think the Bible is the answer to everything.

Right wing people ARE less intelligent. One just need to examine their position on the issues.

Longer prison sentences will deter drug dealers

Getting shot by a rival dealer doesn't so why do the right think that more jail time will.

Bring back capital punishment. That will deter criminals

Many criminals are stupid. Why else would they stab a rival in a
high street covered by cctv not to mention loadsa witnesses.

Parents that are married provide the best environment for raising children :) :) I don't think I need to comment on that :)

Having said that, left wingers are so caught up in being clever that they ignore the fact their ideas are not practical

I really struggle with this concept of left and right wing. It seems so simplistic.
For example, I am socially liberal e.g. pro-choice, pro welfare protection for those in difficulty, pro NHS and so on... yet economically right of centre because I believe it has a better chance of producing the where-with-all to achieve the wealth to meet social aims.

In fact, if we are talking far left/far right I would say there is precious little difference in that both tend to be authoritarian, anti the individual and in favour of control. Hitler or Stalin? You choose. I see the political spectrum as as a circle where extremes meet rather than a horizontal line.

Actually sports, you can't be right of centre economically if you are pro NHS and pro welfare protection :)

Its like saying that you are pro environmental protection but pro business (i.e. less government interference)

I studied Politics a long time ago and at a tutorial the lecturer asked us to say whether we considered ourselves Labour, Lib SDP or Tory. He then asked us for our position on the list of issues that he read out. What emerged was that many of those who considered themselves Labour had more in common with Tory policy than Labour and vice versa. The only people that were consistent were the Lib SDPs.

So people who think the whole thing is simplistic are probably being a bit simplistic themselves :o

That's nonsense. Thinking there are or should be limits to the remit of government doesn't equate to wanting the NHS and welfare state abolished. It just isn't that black and white. I'm not at all surprised at hostility to right-wing thought if someone has been putting about the idea that it is.

" Thinking there are or should be limits to the remit of government doesn't equate to wanting the NHS and welfare state abolished. ... I'm not at all surprised at hostility to right-wing thought if someone has been putting about the idea that it is."

See the current government. They certainly give me that idea.

Also, if one was to tune into US politics one would see the deep hatred the Right has for what they call European socialist medicine.

For all the Left's much vaunted claims of having a better grasp of nuance and diversity than the Right, this does not seem apparent to me in any left-wing acknowledgement that there could be nuance or diversity within right-wing politics. Just saying

Message to Bonsoir ... "Au Revoir!!" Regards Gooshka (MSc Society & Social Structures, BSc First Class Hons Psychology) and positively left wing!

I've always thought this too OP. I'm sure it's true!