My mind keeps thinking back to a brief exchange I had with my mother about a year ago. It was sometime in the late fall/early winter of 2020 and my mom was watching some local news channel that was showing a segment on the state of pre trial detention in the U.S., and my mom turned to me and said something along the lines of "That's terrible! Did you know that some people are spending over a year in jails just waiting for their trial?"
(I don't remember the exact words said in this exchange but I remember the jist of it)
"Mom, you know I spent the entire summer yelling at cops. What makes you think that I didn't know about the terrible things they do?"
"Well, this doesn't have to do with cops because this is just the justice system not taking care of these people's cases fast enough"
Now normally I try and educate my mother about the bullshit in the world but that answer was so blatantly intentionally ignorant that I was just fucking speechless. It took me a couple seconds of complete bewilderment before I could ask the very, very obvious follow up question of "WHO DO YOU THINK PUTS PEOPLE IN JAIL???"
At that point my mom just threw up her hands and just gave up. I'm pretty sure she even realized that what she said was completely absurd. But I keep going back to this exchange in my head because it's such an eye opening view into the liberal mind
Anyone else have any good stories like that?
I think realising my brother that I idolised as a kid, was a self-serving lib that is ideologically only out for himself was a pretty watershed moment for me. Despite having a PhD in physics and being incredibly intelligent in a conventional sense, his inconsistency and inherent Thatcherism is just mind blowing.
For instance: he has a degree and PhD in physics, from a time when university was not only free in the U.K., but he received grants for doing so. He now works as a software engineer. He is against tuition free university, as he sees fees as a forcing function to prevent “useless degrees” that don’t contribute to the economy.
He attended state schools prior to university, but has no sympathy for pay levels for pubic school teachers in the Bay Area as, and I quote - “it is a desirable place to live”.
He despises the welfare state, citing the winter of discontent and although he says he doesn’t like Thatcher or Tories, contends that the post-Thatcher destruction of the welfare state that gave him his PMC life is utterly necessary and good.
He thought I was an immature idiot for volunteering for Bernie when I was in my 30s. Naturally if he was coming at me from a left perspective, I would agree with him, but that’s a different kettle of fish!
Like 50% of Physics PhDs are essentially fascist in their uncritical reduction of the social to the quantifiable. They imagine themselves versed in all subjects, and are often enthusiastic about capitalist economics or "the market" even while verbally recognizing the ills of capitalism. Most of them are the children of the wealthy or white collar professionals like engineers. They do not have a proletarian consciousness. Those that do tend to be very alienated. Some are based. But in short, most of them are greedy bastards who want their treats and don't care about the human cost.
I think there is a sense among a lot of engineers that conventional economics are as rigorously researched and tested as for example physics. This oddly only applies to economics though, social sciences are seen as hogwash.
Being on the successful side of the current economic order is probably why. If the current order is benefiting you it surely has to be just.
That's true for many physicists too. They get caught up in the model, but can't actually envision an accurate portrait of real society.
Universities balance their books on the backs of humanities students; the prevalenceof 'useless degrees' is entirely the result of market forces!
If it weren't for government subsidy their would be no physics courses; my university shuttered its physics department after fees were brought in, as it wasn't profitable even with government grants.
I'm sure you know this but it gets me every time this asinine talking point is brought up.