From a recent blog of napqueen's at http://www.napqueenspress.blogspot.com/ under "Are Conservatives Stupid? "Liberals can see the gray areas of an issue while conservatives see only black and white and are too stupid (emphasis mine) to see the gray."
Ah yes! I've been patiently waiting for this moment of ultimate clarity. It's the Peter Principle applied to moral philosophy and the result is moral relativism or agnosticism, a marked inability to come to final moral conclusions about things. We've reached our level of incompetence, our Final Placement, we can' t figure out Right from Wrong and we're never to be promoted...and we're happy about it! It's a Cohiba moment.
Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal
A rather potent force in politics, in Life in general and here's how it works. A typical conservative will say something like liberals are pro-abortion or in favor of destroying the unborn. The lib says "oh no that's not us. We're not really for abortion, in fact nobody is, in what universe?" It also works the other way. A typical liberal will say conservatives don' t care at all about the poor and the poor conservative will reply "yeah but we give more." So criticism, especially political criticism, by its very nature exerts a powerful inward pull towards the direction of the position of the critic. So the law of criticism or negative appraisal is for the target to deny the point and then to move gradually towards the critic's stance so all I have to do is make a critical point and look what power I have! Liberals may be from Mars and conservatives from Venus but we take each other's points personally, to heart. This is why Obama has of late made great strides at least towards the political center in his rhetoric, it's all that name-calling in the past that he's a hardcore lib. Of course the exception to Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal are all the left-wing bloggers out there who live in a universe all their own who can't understand one of their own being subject to the same laws of political gravity as the rest of us.
BTW oh blog-pal of mine if I may give a plug go to your library and check out The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull (copyright 1969), no nuclear war scenario in this one, just light and breezy and full of insight. He made a lifetime of studying hierarchies in business, industry, education, government, you name it and the basic principle goes a competent worker will get promoted and will eventually find his level of incompetence just like everyone else. BTW super-competent people according to him never get promoted because they would upset the hierarchy with their independent and better ways of doing things. Upper levels of management often place a higher value on things like punctuality rather than is your work output really that great and the book also brings out how do you define competence. Outside disinterested observers define it quite differently from your typical hierarchy. For instance they'd rather a worker follow company policy to the letter rather than make sound decisions on their own like the nurse who wakens the patient and says "time to take your sleeping pill." Fascinating read, universally true and timeless and you'll get a few laughs.
ReplyDeleteOf course all those conservative pundits out there who were bashing Obama as a hardcore lib, even a Marxist, in recent memory in fact are now quite pleased with his new-found conservative/center demonstrating that the principle does indeed exist and they are aware of it. You read z's blog and you get the inner dynamics, the psychology behind current events and as one of my major themes has it everything can be psychoanalyzed, it's not just straight politics people. This is why most conservatives today seem to emphasize should Roe vs. Wade be over-turned don't worry people, there will still be plenty of abortions. They are responding to the relentless liberal criticism that they are anti-abortion or anti-choice if you will. Z on the other hand is his own man, just pointing out the principles involved, not being subject to them.
ReplyDeleteThis is genius, Z!
ReplyDeleteAnd I will indeed check the library for that book.
There is no such thing as a "gray" area. Any gray area, upon further inspection, is comprised of nothing more than a series of black and white dots (if you will).
ReplyDeleteWhile an issue may in fact be comprised of many intracacies (smaller issues within a much larger issue) that is not to say that the smaller issues cloud, muddy, or "gray" the underlying issue.
At the end of the day, you either piss or you get off the pot (so to speak). On an issue, and any sub-issues within the larger issue, one must make a decision. You either go right or you go left. You either go up or you go down.
To make the case for the "gray" area is to lack the courage of one's convictions.
I am not afraid to take first steps down new roads with my mind and the decisions which stem from it as my guiding light.
If I should make a wrong decision (which is inevitable), I have the mental clarity to admit it, correct it, and then press on.
O/T: Hey Z...been busy with the whole campaign and SoL thing but just wanted to drop ya hello!
Indeed, we learn from wrong decisions as much as we do from the right ones, Soapie.
ReplyDeleteA gray area upon further inspection being composed of black and white dots, that's brilliant soapie. Whenever I use this analogy in debating the grayers I'm gonna give you proper credit. Beth, you gotta read this book! One of the funniest parts is when Peter talks about what he calls structurophilia, when a business is unproductive and profits are down hell build a brand new and better building, has some sort of cosmetic effect, same workplace situation but in a new setting, funny stuff. The book never loses its timelessness, for an explanation of Katrina look no further than the Peter Principle.
ReplyDeleteI looked online to see if our library carries that book, and it does not.
ReplyDeleteZ's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal, eventually you're gonna wind up with a very funny, rather weird situation indeed. Z's Law, if allowed to continue on its natural and inevitable evolutionary course (which takes time of course), with the cons and the libs reacting to and responding to the other's critical and negative appraisals you're gonna wind up with conservatives who are pro-choice and liberals who are ardently pro-life, conservatives who will give 50% of their salaries away to pure charity and liberals scolding people to get off the dole. Might be a good humor book.
ReplyDeleteI know Beth, not all the libraries have it but I did a little googling and Barnes & Noble and Borders can get used copies for you. Usually though some library in your county should have the book, might have to drive a few more miles is all.
ReplyDeleteI will look to buy it then.
ReplyDeletebtw, you are working late this week, getting some OT?
ReplyDeleteI have a question. Can a boss, while he's on vacation come in and give you a work assignment? I mean can a cop when he's off-duty give you a traffic ticket? If you're off-duty you're off-duty, when it's time to go it's time to go. I have another question, why would a modest library with a very limited budget buy a DVD of Gigli for their movie collection? (that's that turkey with J-Lo and Ben Affleck, remember?)
ReplyDeleteAlmost 10,000th visitor!
ReplyDeleteI dunno the answers to your questions, they probably fall into those gray areas.....
ReplyDeleteI've been working longer hours along with everybody else, 'til 4 in most cases and have been hitting the libraries later than usual. Right now it's exactly 4:50 PM and the library I'm at is closing at 5:30 so I'm speed-blogging right now, lol. Next week might go back to regular hours, we'll see. You know there's still a few school buses around even in July, damn those summer-schoolers.
ReplyDeleteYour later hours don't work as well with my schedule, can you tell your boss that???
ReplyDeleteWell the Gigli thing may well fall into Peter Principle territory. People ain't always rational. For example there are stores that sell DVDs at a way higher price than the average store and yet people will choose to buy from them when they can save a load of dough going somewhere else. I've long been wondering if we are a rational species anymore (if we ever were). So how will that store's prices let's say be forced to come down when consumers are very accomodating to the higher prices? Then again how can a one-term senator now be the frontrunner to be our next leader? Used to be you could predict things through pure logic, not anymore though. Ooops, 5 minutes left so until tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteNext idea is to check the Half Price Books store, otherwise I know I can get it online.
ReplyDeleteAfter you read this little gem you'll at least feel a little better about business or to put it another way everything begins to make sense, they can't help it, any hierarchy operates under the infallible and never-changing Peter Principle. So when you see a company bomb and fail and otherwise make really stupid decisions you'll even begin to think maybe they're deliberately and with full awareness putting the principle into effect like they can't fight it so what's the use? make everyone laugh and scratch their heads no? Now if business is perfectly aware of the Peter Principle as how can they not you then have the possibility of a conspiracy of dumbness like let's just do it for kicks to annoy the better workers, hell anything's possible but I digress. I'm sure one of your county libraries owns a copy and be sure to check those used-book tables too.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more fascinating parts of the book is his idea of creative incompetence, those who mess up on purpose because they fear being offered a promotion they can't fulfill. The only catch here and even Dr. Peter was at a loss is you don't really know if this is their true motivation, whether they are aware of their incompetence or not. You see it happen quite a bit and these workers are a mystery to you, they are so bad you're sure they have a gameplan but then again maybe not but to really screw things up and nobody seems to care really shows that maybe most people there have reached their level of incompetence or what he calls Final Placement. Have you got the book yet?
ReplyDeleteI haven't had the chance to go to the bookstore yet, I'll let you know when I do. btw, what section would the book be in, Business?
ReplyDeleteSeems you'd have to go to a used bookstore or one of the major chains could order it used for you. Don't know what category it would be in though without asking the girl. Figured it'd be easier to go to a library and I had no problem AND you can renew over the phone!
ReplyDelete& of course you see it with Obama. Got so much flack from the Right about cutting and running in Iraq that now not only does he want to invade Pakistan without Musharaff's approval but now wants to get our troops out of Iraq so that they can go into Afghanistan! Z's Law is paramount and pivotal, I said pivotal in understanding modern politics. Some oldies of course, libs were always associated in the Past with heathens and unbelievers that they're more likely to do a Clinton and go "see? the Bible" and Alan Colmes once saying he's really against porn, "as a liberal I know I'm supposed to be for porn, right?" These are dusty though, Obama is in full vortex mode like meeting up with corporate leaders after bashing them and promising to raise rich people's taxes, just criticize the guy a little bit, you get results!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it about people thinking that being moderate is a good thing when really it's like you don't have enough conviction to take your lumps by taking a strong stand for what you believe in?
ReplyDeleteExactly, like conservatives have always been at least mildly anti-gay for ages, I'm not talking about some loco evangelical type who advocates giving 'em hard labor but what's up with they themselves comparing their former position now with things like racism? and I'm not talking about a person's personal views on gay rights here whatever they may be, I'm just observing mind you.
ReplyDeleteNow with Obama the conservatives are now criticizing him on two fronts, well not all of them but many of them. First they criticized his opposition to the Iraq war and since he's become more hawkish in his foreign-policy views now they're bashing him for not having the courage to hold to his original position. I'm sorry but in my book this is your classic mindf**k. You could do a whole month's blog on the mindf~~~kers alone, they know who they are.
ReplyDeleteNapqueen had listed at Daniel's blog an article about how liberals and conservatives brains work differently, and I wouldn't doubt it's true, that's why libs flip-flop and cons can seem pigheaded. I'd like to think we can think outside the box, you and I can, why can't the rest of conservatives do so? But anyway, if this is true then that explains a lot.
ReplyDeleteWell if there's a gay brain then why not? I've thought about this issue of the brain for years now and if it's true that everything including our thoughts and feelings come from a gray mass of cells and neurons then there's no afterlife, no ghost in the machine. What do you think? They still can't explain where dreams come from.
ReplyDeleteThat we realize that there is so much we don't know I think shows that there has to be a greater power.
ReplyDelete