The brain activity of self-identified liberals demonstrates that they are more open to new experiences and that they tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives.
Conservatives have long complained about certain sectors (academia, science, media, the arts) being dominated by progressives. This study confirms the basic arguments that many liberals have been making in response: It’s really hard to do well in any of those disciplines if your world view is steeped in obedience to authority, hostility to change, and inability to accept ambiguity. Of course, there are certainly people who vote Republican or who identify as conservative that aren’t any of these things, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Republican party and conservatism in general is based on hierarchy, tradition, and a black-and-white bullheadedness.
The “liberal media” is long-time right-wing target, and they’ve given us Fox News in response. But check out the quality of reporting between Fox and, say, the BBC. Or right-wing radio and NPR. Or the New York Post and the New York Times. It’s not a coincidence that media organizations run by conservatives are a joke, and are insulting to the industry — good reporting requires a curiosity about other people and places, an openness to ideas that challenge your own, and an understanding that life is complex and multi-faceted, and what you find when you bother to look may not fit neatly into your own narrative.
I don’t accept the argument that the mainstream media has a liberal bent. But I do think it’s probably true that there are more progressive and left-leaning people working in the mainstream media than right-leaning people, precisely because progressive, open-minded and intellectually curious people are going to be drawn to jobs like Reporter in the first place. On the other hand, people who are raised with a need for right-or-wrong morality, unquestioning allegiance to authority figures, and tradition for tradition’s sake are going to be drawn to establishments like the military and conservative religious sects. I also think that left-leaning reporters and editors have been bullied by conservatives, to the point where they overcompensate by adopting right-wing narratives, attacking progressive politicians and ideas, and hesitating to call Republicans out on their bullshit (see: The Iraq War). So while our more credible media establishments may employ more liberals than conservatives, the lack of single-mindedness that draws progressives into journalism in the first place ends up damaging their ability to do their jobs well when conservatives go on the offensive against them. When liberals call out Fox News and other politicized Murdoch enterprises that are an embarrassment to journalism,* they respond with, “Fuck you, we’re right.” When conservatives bleat about the “liberal media,” the liberals who work in that media listen, assume it’s a criticism made in good faith, and shift. Unfortunately, they long failed to realize that conservatives don’t want them to do their jobs well; conservatives want them to be conservative political shills.
It gets even more complicated now with the advent of the blogosphere, and the growing left-wing criticism of journalists. Many of those same journalists who were long under right-wing fire shifted their reporting strategies, editors shifted their editorial strategies, the quality of our media took a nosedive, and we’re all suffering for it. Now when progressives criticize the media, media elite hear a left-wing version of what the right has been saying: We want you to be more liberal. In fact, most progressives don’t want the media to repeat liberal talking points (Lord knows we attack the liberal talking points enough). We want them to do their jobs and do them well, politics aside.
It’s really hard to be a good journalist if your journalism amounts to, “George W. Bush is totally badass and war is teh awesome, here are some Iraqis with flowers. Look, flags!” It’s really hard to be a good scientist if you don’t believe in evolution. It’s really hard to do well in academia if you think it’s nearly blasphemous to challenge established norms and you refuse to accept that morality is complex and life comes in lots of shades of gray. It’s hard to be a great artist if you hate change.
Obviously these aren’t blanket characteristics. I’ve met plenty of authority-worshiping, fall-in-line liberals in my day, and plenty of (ok, well, a few) open-minded, flexible conservatives. But as a general rule, this study seems to illustrate what most of us already know through our God-given common sense.
*Really. If you’re hired by a Murdoch enterprise, good luck getting a job anywhere else in journalism. Many a journalism professor warned us about this — you pick up such bad journalistic and ethical habits working at a place like the New York Post that most credible institutions won’t touch you with a 10-foot pole afterwards.