*DAMN R6 Forum

This is hilarious. ;D



Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve  
 Julian Borger in Washington
 
 Wednesday August 13, 2003
 The Guardian
 
 A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".  
 
 As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.  
 
 All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".  
 
 Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.  
 
 The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.  
 
 "This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.  
 
 One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.  
 
 The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".  
 
 Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."  
 
 But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses."

Perhaps the study results were too ambiguous for the conservatives sending hate mail to tolerate?  ;D

 
So conservatives are dumb, what else is new
 
Yes it does, don't beat around the bush.

Whoa there tasty.  Am I missing something here, because that post didn't sound like the you I remember from posting a few months ago. . .

In fact, it sounded more like something Bucc would have said.  I don't mean that as an insult - just the posting style is very similar, and not very tastyesque.

But the article was a satire - what are you trying to say in your post??

OK, you caught me. Bucc and I are the same person, a schizophrenic sociopath who has nothing to do but post on internet message boards as opposing personalities. Also, whoever that chum was that said I was Grifter too, good job. You are right.

j/k

Nah I've seen the article before. I wasn't really being serious, mostly just trying to be a dick. I wanted to liven things up since this board has been dead almost all summer. Also, the article isn't really a satire - this is a real study, believe it or not.

Yes indeed it is a real article from the Guardian, just search for it on www.guardian.co.uk if you're interested. I wouldn't have found it hilarious unless it was dead serious.