Think Progress tells us it's something called "system justification":[P]eople are “motivated to defend, bolster, and rationalize the social systems that affect them — to see the status quo as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable,” because it serves their own internal needs and desires as humans. It helps them “manage uncertainty and threat and smooth out social relationships,” and “enables people to cope with and feel better about the societal status quo and their place in it” ....
[T]here’s a powerful need in our own lives to reduce difficult feelings and anxieties when confronting the limitations of our social and economic order.
It's true that people seek meaning in whatever exists.
Everything happens for a reason. God has a plan. It's for the best. We want to like what we must deal with. It's a life skill. People who lack it are depressed. But we should also develop our critical thinking. That doesn't mean that if only we could think critically we'd get fired up about wealth inequality. Just because we're motivated to believe that the status quo is good doesn't mean the status quo
isn't good. The fact that something currently exists is some evidence that it works better than untried, untested alternatives.
[C]hronically high system-justifiers, such as political conservatives, are happier (as measured in terms of subjective well-being) than are chronically low system-justifiers, such as liberals, leftists, and others who are more troubled by the degree of social and economic inequality in our society.
Given that the left position is inherently depressive, it's interesting that showbiz folk have succeeded in making it feel
good to be left-wing.
No comments:
Post a Comment