Fear and Anxiety Drive Conservatives' Political Attitudes
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Can brain differences explain conservatives' fear-driven political stances?

I was watching a video by Georgia Dow in which she talked about a study showing how fear drives people to be more conservative. What that reminded me of was the rationalization I keep stumbling upon almost every day lately: “the alternative is worse”.

We are mostly not revolutionaries willing to die for a cause. We just want to live our quiet lives, so we pay the thugs that offer us protection from themselves. The alternative is worse.

I can’t criticise people for trying to survive, but I think it’s important to be honest with ourselves. It’s all bad and the good option is really hard and a scary risk with too many sacrifices.

And let me get personal to drive the point home. Anxiety and depression are just my reality. I’m very isolated and avoid interactions as much as I can. I’m in a bad place and would totally tell you with great conviction that out there somewhere is worse. I also believe it could be amazing, but the chances of me suffering, actually, the certainty, makes me think it’s not worth it even trying.

Anyway. Be kind kind to yourselves, be kind to all the others, but be honest.

    • tygerprints@kbin.social
      1·
      5 months ago

      And that’s why I think conservatism is kind of ignorant, because life itself is about change and progress, not about stagnating in one place. I’m very progressive though, so I’m more about taking a risk and seeing what results. To me life is about moving forward and ahead and not going backward into the past.

      • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        Conservatives don’t want to regress, either, and that’s part of the aversion to change. To the conservative mind, most changes will be bad, and result in regression, not progression. So we advance carefully and cautiously, not in great leaps.

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      That’s how they like to see themselves. But in reality it’s just hate and resentment bred by an unwillingness to use one’s brain…

      • Steve@communick.newsEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        That’s your justifcation for dismissing and avoiding them.

        In truth, nothing is just hate.
        Hate and resentment don’t just happen in a vacuum. They come from fear and insecurity.

        But it’s easier to dismiss, than acknowledge their humanity, empathize and work with them on their concerns.

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.orgEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            The fear and insecurity is based on reality, in that it often stems from massive inequalities and injustices. The problem is that it’s directed at the wrong people.

            For example, around where I live, a lot of conservative beliefs are centred around a fear of immigrants, and it’s along the lines of “there’s not enough housing for the people already here, so we should stop letting other people in”. The lack of housing in this area is genuinely at crisis point, and the fear and insecurity arising from that is very much based on something real.

            Where the right and the left differ is on who they blame for this. Those with conservative beliefs blame their non-English neighbours. Those with more progressive beliefs blame government decisions that have resulted in too little house building and too many wealthy people buying houses not to live in, but to visit for two weeks a year or to let out on AirBNB.