August 7, 2008
IF YOU'LL PARDON THE POP PSYCHOLOGY...:
Profanity greater on liberal blogs (Matthew Sheffield, August 7, 2008, Washington Times)
[W]hat may be surprising, however, is to what degree profanity seems to be a feature more common on one side of the political blogosphere than the other.Which side is that? For answers, I turned to the search engine Google to see how common swearing is in the right and left blog universes by looking up the late stand-up comic George Carlin's "seven dirty words" in the most popular blog communities.
The results showed that online liberals tend to use profanity a lot more than online conservatives.
(Before I get further into the results, let me say that I am deliberately making a distinction between blogs that do not usually allow readers to make comments and those that do. This means that some sites, such as the popular Instapundit or Newsmax, were not included.)
Searching for Mr. Carlin's seven words and some popular variants at the top 10 conservative Web communities yields about 70,000 results. That is dwarfed in comparison to the 1.9 million instances of profanity on liberal sites.
...it's easy enough to imagine that the profanity is just tied to the Left's hostility towards manners and morals, but much of the Right blogosphere is libertarians, who are little different in that regard. One wonders if it isn't instead a matter of the female party trying to seem masculine and tough? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 7, 2008 8:22 AM
Perhaps Libertarians aren't "little different" in regard to morals and manners.
Posted by: Brandon at August 7, 2008 10:38 AMThe right-libertarians talk a hard line at times, but I think most of them know instinctively what they may or may not admit formally; that certain cultural norms are a critical component of a free society. (They disagree with conservatives about the sources and supports of those norms, of course.)
Posted by: Mike Earl at August 7, 2008 10:43 AMI'd ask what those 7 words are but don't want to help bridge the dichotomy.
Posted by: curt at August 7, 2008 11:32 AMPeople align themselves politically based on psychological makeup - liberals driven by emotion, conservatives by reason (I once had a JW explain to me in exquisite detail why God exists).
Liberals feel, Leftists revolt and they swear to make sure you are feeling what they feel and also because they would have little to say if they didn't cuss.
Any good conservative knows fact and figures make the argument and showing emotion particularly by something as common as a vulgarity is for losers.
Libertarians recognize politics is about who gets screwed without them much knowing it and liberal emotion and conservative delusion really don't matter, so swearing doesn't help. But in the few instances when it does, a big F*%# YOU is not a problem.
I would guess that most conservatives get all of their swearing done on the golf course.
Posted by: EPT at August 7, 2008 12:52 PMAnd then there's Ace of Spades HQ.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 7, 2008 1:13 PMThe libertarian discussions I see online rarely have profanity.
As for the left, remember that they are Saving The World and so of course they get righteous and frustrated when anyone contradicts them or stands in their way.
Posted by: PapayaSF at August 7, 2008 1:31 PMThose sites that attract younger commenters tend to have more profanity, older commenters not so much. Fortunately young people don't vote, they just vent.
Posted by: h-man at August 7, 2008 2:02 PM
Or just pure bat-guano crazy rage at how things have turned out politically.
George W. Bush got into power serving two terms, and he won't give in to them, the Democratic controlled Congress can't give them what they want, the Hillary-Obama fight did severe damage, and McCain won't quit either!
The frustration has them foaming at the mouth.
Posted by: Mikey at August 7, 2008 10:24 AM