Awkward Teen Years
According to the Pew Center's typology test I'm . . . a liberal. You're shocked, I know. Lets learn more about us:
Basic Description
This group has nearly doubled in proportion since 1999, Liberals now comprise the largest share of Democrats and is the single largest of the nine Typology groups. They are the most opposed to an assertive foreign policy, the most secular, and take the most liberal views on social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and censorship. They differ from other Democratic groups in that they are strongly pro-environment and pro-immigration, issues which are more controversial among Conservative and Disadvantaged Democrats.
Defining Values
Strongest preference for diplomacy over use of military force. Pro-choice, supportive of gay marriage and strongly favor environmental protection. Low participation in religious activities. Most sympathetic of any group to immigrants as well as labor unions, and most opposed to the anti-terrorism Patriot Act.
Who They Are
Most (62%) identify themselves as liberal. Predominantly white (83%), most highly educated group (49% have a college degree or more), and youngest group after Bystanders. Least religious group in typology: 43% report they seldom or never attend religious services; nearly a quarter (22%) are seculars. More than one-third never married (36%). Largest group residing in urban areas (42%) and in the western half the country (34%). Wealthiest Democratic group (41% earn at least $75,000).
Over the long run, the growth in the number of liberals is, I think, a good thing. At the moment, however, it's a bit of a problem as both l'affaire Marcotte and some of Atrios' recent writings on religion indicate. As long as secular people were a profoundly small group of Americans divided fairly arbitrarily between the parties, seculars were happy to stay quiet and accept the very marginal role American politics assigns to the view that there is no God. Once you see us emerge as a large and politically coherent block, however, we want respect, damnit. Nevertheless, America's Christian majority -- including a vast swathe of Democrats -- don't want to hear about how you think their religion is silly.
This, I think, is a lot of the appeal of someone like Barack Obama. He has a lot of the personal and biographical attributes of your typical liberal (in the Pew sense) but he's also black, religious, etc. -- a combo-Democrat.
Comments
Once you see us emerge as a large and politically coherent block, however, we want respect, damnit.
I don't want respect.
Offending my secular sensibilities will NEVER be a reason I refuse to vote for someone.
Seems like a poorly written test in some ways, although I guess the results were accurate in my case. But questions like this drive me nuts:
"Business corporations make too much profit / Most corporations make a fair and reasonable amount of profit"
How to answer that? I do think that MOST corporations make a reasonable profit. Hell, I'd guess that MOST corporations don't make much of a profit at all. But clearly a not-insignificant number of corporations are out of control (looking your way, credit card issuers).
Or this:
"This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment / This country has gone too far in its efforts to protect the environment"
Obviously, I wouldn't say that "the country has gone too far". But I'm not sure that I understand what "whatever it takes to protect the environment" really means - it's way too vague.
Matt,
Good post, but does being secular necessarily imply atheism -- I would argue that in today's context, "secular" entails not so much any specific theological position, though admittedly you're not likely to find too many Opus Dei or mega-church members among self-proclaimed seculars; rather, I think what primarily defines political secularism is a liberal (in the classical sense) willingness to simply put all the metaphysics and theology aside and focus on reality as understood through empirical investigation, and what our proper societal response to that reality ought to be.
"This, I think, is a lot of the appeal of someone like Barack Obama."
I've had several encounters with normally moderate-right people gushing about Barack Obama. I don't know what it is exactly -- it could be his use of Christian metaphors, his avoidance of "harsh" Democratic rhetoric, his self-confidence -- but Obama has it. "It" may even be a construct of the media or of people who are just looking for a new kind of politician, but "it" will help Barack transcend a traditional campaign, because the right will be hard-pressed to attack him without backfiring.
As the right-wing tries attacking Barack, I see the media going with the "Why is the right-wing attacking Obama?" storyline over taking the right-wing at its word and attacking Obama themselves. Case in point: the madrassa story. FOX News tried; it got "fact-checked" by CNN and assailed by much of the media. Some FOX News hosts even apologized! Have you ever seen that happen for any other Dem politician in recent memory?
This is why Barack has more potential than Edwards and Clinton: He's not seen in the same political context as them. Therefore, he can push for things -- health care, smart energy policy, world diplomacy -- without the usual right-wing questions of "What's Hillary's REAL motivation?" or "Why is John Edwards trying to shore up his liberal base?"
Here's the rest of the description:
That last one is very interesting....
I too am a Liberal, but when I gave all the same answers except changed my party ID from strong Dem to strong Rep, I became a "Pro-Government Conservative," known for my "strong religious faith." This despite my atheist answers staying the same in the survey.
Respect, and to sneer at the ignorance and backwardness of others, of course. If atheists ever actually become the large majority, they'll be heartbroken; how will they get the same sense of smug satisfaction without someone to sneer down at?
(Alliteration!)
Like almost all such tests, it's pretty stupid. I entered random answers on 6 different patterns, and got 4 "disaffected" and 2 "upbeat". Perhaps those are the stupid-people categories. (I think that what decided between them was the personal-optimism questions).
No offense to any stupid disaffected or upbeat people here.
Excerpted from the survey section on "Enterprisers" and noted without comment:
MEDIA USE: Enterprisers follow news about government and politics more closely than any other group, and exhibit the most knowledge about world affairs. The Fox News Channel is their primary source of news (46% cite it as a main source)
Alas that your phrasing stumbled at the finish line, Freddie. A snappy shave-and-a-hair-cut marred by the clang of a terminal preposition.
And I wouldn't worry about the plight of Atheists in a post religious world. Because there's always some other kind of Atheist to pass judgement on. This sort of thing kept Christians satisfied for centuries.
Ha, hoisted by my own petard. Make that "... some other kind of Atheist on which to pass judgement". ;)
Haha! The god of grammar giveth and he taketh away!
Obama's current appeal boils down to three things, probably in that order:
1) His Biography
2) His Message
3) His Charisma
Anyways, according to the Pew test I am a "Conservative Democrat." Their description is pretty inaccurate though. One can support government assistance to the poor AND still believe in personal responsibility, you know. Ah well.
Obama's not religious. He belongs to some church that is out of mainstream and his father was muslim. and he was schooled in a madrassa.
Dont think for a second that he is any more marketable for the religious question. His faith will be torn to shreds as Kerry's was.
Word to Korha, I had the same issue with some of my answers. I still made the "Liberal" cut, even when I cut my self identity down to (Moderate Independent/Lean Dem) from (Liberal/Democrat) so I'm happy.
Since they didn't have any questions about whether agrarian worker's consciousness should be raised before or after the revolution; or whether Rosa Luxemberg was more right than Lenin, I didn't figure I would fit on the scale.
I am faintly surprised that freddie manages to keep up his faith in the moral inferiority of seculars in the fact of Amanda's pile of shocking hate mail.
But I suppose 'faith in things unseen' is the cornerstone of his worldview.
Since they didn't have any questions about whether agrarian worker's consciousness should be raised before or after the revolution; or whether Rosa Luxemberg was more right than Lenin, I didn't figure I would fit on the scale.
I'm not religious in any way, although I'm also not an atheist. I certainly prefer the politics of atheists to that of the theocracy-inclined. I never argued about the moral standing of atheists in relation to the religious at all. (Frankly, I find the use of the term "moral" in this context weird.) What I do think is that most public figure atheists are absolutely insufferable. I can't imagine a bigger prick than Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennet is a collossal jerk. There is a fundamental tenor to the arguments of atheists in the public sphere, and that's contempt for people with perspectives different than their own. And that's lame, regardless of my opinion of their worldview itself or how closesly it tacks to my own. Penn and Teller and people like them are terrible advocates for their own beliefs.
And I have to point out that it is an act of enormous intellectual dishonesty to use the people who responded to Amanda as indicative of religious people as a whole. I could just as easily point to 17-year-olds who adopt atheism to piss off their parents as demonstrating the moral and philosophical seriousness of atheism as a whole.
(No faith in things unseen, by the way. Faith only in human failure.)
Us seklur hume-nists are still a very small minority and the quieter we keep during election time the better. The last two Democrats to occupy the White House knew how to holler Jesus with the best of them.
America's Christian majority -- including a vast swathe of Democrats -- don't want to hear about how you think their religion is silly. (Matt)
If it's any consolation, the other religions are equally silly.
A) The government should do more to protect morality in society
B)I worry the government is getting too involved in the issue of morality
They left out C) The government should stop being so immoral.
In some ways the immigration-related questions are a UsefulIdiot test. It's obvious to those who've been following along that the "growing number of newcomers from other countries" (question #3) are mostly from one country, and, while most are nice people, as a bloc they tend to give political power inside the U.S. to both the government of Mexico and to our own homegrown RacialDemagogues, such as AntonioVillaraigosa, GilCedillo, LuisGutierrez, and the rest. And, there are seemingly minor matters, such as the NFL refusing to run an ad for the BorderPatrol for fear of offending unknown parties.
Tests like this always should have a neutral / don't know choice, along with a "it depends" choice. One of the similar tests out there asks if one thinks countries should adopt a more free-trade position with regard to tariffs and subsidies. Personally, I think it answering that has a lot to do with things like the size of the domestic market, the median income level, the depth and breadth of industrialization, etc. It feels like someone on the Washington Post op-ed page makes these tests with their cookie-cutter positions as the only possible choices.
I can't imagine a bigger prick than Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennet is a collossal jerk.
It really is sad to see the way Dawkins has debased himself in recent years. The God Delusion is so ludicrously far beneath The Selfish Gene and many of his other writings. That man is brilliant and inspiring, and it's a great shame to see him waste his time picking pointless fights with theists like a blogger or something.
I've found some of Dennett's arguments annoying, but I've never seen evidence that he's a jerk of any sort. Really, if a man doesn't even believe in subjective qualia, you can't expect him to believe in religion. I believe in qualia, but I still find some of his attacks on qualia to be very enlightening. If you're going to believe something, you might as well see exactly how absurd it is--even if, in the end, you decide to believe that it's absence would be even more absurd.
There is a fundamental tenor to the arguments of atheists in the public sphere, and that's contempt for people with perspectives different than their own.
If you want to say that some atheists act like jerks, that's obviously true. But if you want to condemn the whole project of applying reason and analysis to our beliefs--not necessarily taking them as the final word as some atheists might, but at least listening to what reason and analysis have to say--that's going too far.
Ultimately, if you have some irrefutable subjective intuition that God exists, you've gotta go with that. But such a subjective intuition wouldn't be harmed in the slightest by observing the apparent truth (as our best guess at a possible world) that if God did not exist, humans would have invented him.
Indeed, that would greatly help you should you decide to proselytize, as Christians are told to do. Your recruitment efforts should focus on leading a good example and introspection rather than on the circular logic of human and scriptural authority. (Atheists, too, could stand to learn a few things about teaching by example and negative attention.)
Richard Dawkins is the international spokesman for atheism BECAUSE he's a prick. This is true of many spokesmen for many other things as well. It's a cultural symptom of our time. The age of civility and respectful discourse is over; nowdays its all about who make the most outlandish claims about who. There are lots of atheists/agnostics out there who don't subscribe to Dawkins' brand of militant atheism. They just don't get any attention. If Dawkins wrote a book called "The God Question," it wouldn't sell one tenth as well. The man goes out of his way to offend people.
The contrast with the previous generation of atheists/agnostics (Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, etc.) couldn't be clearer.
The political reality is the Democratic Party needs the 4% of the American population "seculars" represent as much as they need the libertarians. Are you all really going to stay home on election day if we don't respect you. Once the party sees you emerge as a large and politically coherent block then they will throw someone else under the bus in your stead. I am thinking Quakers.
(I believe "seculars" are generally overrepresented in terms of delegates so at least you have that)
If you want to say that some atheists act like jerks, that's obviously true. But if you want to condemn the whole project of applying reason and analysis to our beliefs--not necessarily taking them as the final word as some atheists might, but at least listening to what reason and analysis have to say--that's going too far.
You're right, it is going too far. I guess the thing to say is just that the public face of the atheist movement is often so abrasive that it's difficult to support them in any sense, for me. I do philosophically disagree with atheism, even though I'm not religious in any thought-out sense. But my personal dislike for some of atheism's advocates can't help but inform how I think about the movement itself.
"But my personal dislike for some of atheism's advocates can't help but inform how I think about the movement itself."
God forbid you actually try to be mature enough to judge their position on its intellectual validity.
(Well, not "God forbid," actually. But you know what I mean.)
I think almost by definition anybody who aligns with an atheist "movement" has got to be pretty in-your-face about it. I'm an atheist and I'm baffled by the desire of some of us to turn it into some kind of movement. There are all kinds of things I *don't* believe in and I don't want to start a movement around any of them.
If there must be an atheist "movement" it should be limited to protecting the secularism of public life and beating back the Christianist hordes at the gates.
The most interesting part of the "Liberal" stat is not that 43% report seldom or never attending religious services --- it's that even among the "Liberal" set, 57% DO (sometimes or often) attend religious services. Now THAT's an interesting commentary on the ubiquity of religion in America.
Also: doing "whatever it takes to protect the environment"? I mean, NOBODY believes that. Okay, a few really crazy fringe folks do. I mean, "whatever it takes"? No new development, no new home-building, zero negative human impact on the environment?
It's a cultural symptom of our time. The age of civility and respectful discourse is over; nowdays its all about who make the most outlandish claims about who.
So true. I wonder if it will always be that way, or if civility and respect could return somehow?
I guess the thing to say is just that the public face of the atheist movement is often so abrasive that it's difficult to support them in any sense, for me.
That's fair.
"Once you see us emerge as a large and politically coherent block, however, we want respect, damnit."
That's not really the case. What most of us seculars want is for religious politicians to just shut up about religion and morality and work on the issues that are important to everybody like Iraq, the budget deficit, jobs, poverty, and health care instead of pandering to wingnuts on insignificant side issues such as gay marriage or prayer in public schools. That's something that even many religious but "libertarian" people can agree with.
God forbid you actually try to be mature enough to judge their position on its intellectual validity.
Context matters. Delivery matters. Is Ann Coulter judged solely on her intellectual validity? Should she be? No. Do you judge a conservative Christian who throws around the term "fag" and talks about wicked Jews solely on his intellectual validity? No. And you shouldn't. Civility and a basic assumption of good faith are ends to themselves, and I absolutely reject the notion that I have to abandon judging an argument based on anything other than rhetorical content.
I'm pretty new to reading this blog, and I can't help but notice how different every single comment is to what I've read the last few days at places like Pandagon. How does Matt see this blog in relation to blogs like Kos, MyDD, Atrios, etc?
Any thoughts?
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