The Liberal Bubble: ‘They Can’t Fathom That Somebody Disagrees With Them’

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So says a Silicon Valley CEO, describing the liberal echo chamber inside the tech industry that frigthens Republicans into silence:

One startup CEO who has worked in Silicon Valley for more than a decade says that while it’s popular to talk politics in the workplace, the underlying assumption is that everyone has similar views.
The CEO, who generally votes Republican and donates to GOP candidates—he spoke on background to conceal his right-leaning views—said that in 2012, “you wouldn’t want to say you’re voting for Romney in the election.” At the same time, openly expressing one’s support for Obama was “incredibly common.”
His opposition to raising the minimum wage is just one area where he diverges with most of his colleagues. “If you say something like, ‘We need a higher minimum wage,’ you don’t get critiqued,” he said. But he would never reveal his more conservative outlook on the matter.
“They can’t fathom that somebody disagrees with them,” he said. “And I disagree with them. So I’m not going to open up that box.” . . .

You can read the whole thing. How do these bubbles develop? It’s the universities, stupid. Go back and read William F. Buckley Jr.’s God and Man at Yale. In 1951, Buckley described the way liberalism had become an unquestioned belief system inside elite academia. Once liberalism had attained hegemonic authority on university campuses, its intellectual prestige was assured. If it is “smart” to believe in, say, Keynesian economics, then impressionable young people who want to seem smart will parrot the Keynesian orthodoxies. Bad ideas that become fashionable in academia are thus diffused into the larger society, as all the smart young people are herded off to college and indoctrinated in these ideas, before entering careers with other college-educated people.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

What happens is that people who never encounter doubt develop a fanatical certainty in their beliefs, and confuse these mere opinions with moral virtue. Consider again the question of Keynesian economics. I am not a government official and thus have neither influence over nor responsibility for our national economic policy. So my opinions about economics — I happen to be a devotee of the Austrian School — are nothing more than opinions. While I can urge others to read Mises and Hayek, and support politicians whose positions are more consonant with these views, it’s not as if doing this makes me better that other people. One sometimes encounters people who strike a “More Libertarian Than Thou” posture, but advocates of economic freedom tend to be tolerant people generally. By contrast, the advocates of interventionism (Keynesians, Marxists and Welfare State socialists) are invariably bullies possessed by a fanatical certainty in their own moral superiority. They expect to be admired and praised for their liberal zealotry, and are insulted if you fail to genuflect in their presence.

Liberalism is to academia what Islam is to Iran. If your worldview is decisively formed within the insular climate of an elite university, the equation “liberal = smart” is a formula you can never permit yourself to doubt, unless you are willing to admit that you have been hustled, scammed and bamboozled. A fellow with a diploma from Harvard or Stanford cannot confront the possibility that he has been swindled like an ignorant hick playing a carnival game at the country fair. This would inflict an irreparable injury to his self-esteem. He therefore seeks to avoid encounters with people who do not share his child-like faith in the Gospel of Liberalism. Thus, in any environment where liberals obtain power, they use that power to exclude and silence dissent. This is how liberals gained hegemony in our colleges and universities, in journalism and the entertainment industry, and how in the Obama Age they seek to institutionalize a Permanent Liberal Regime in government.

 

133 comments

  2. Which is why we have the current penchant for university “safe spaces,” where students isolate themselves from ideas, beliefs and opinions. It’s amazing to see people proudly, defiantly scream, “I don’t want to learn anything!” all while paying multiple five figures to do so.

  3. Happens to me all the time. Liberals at work will just start chit-chatting with me under the assumption that I also see Bush as a terrorist, gun ownership as a crime, abortion as a form of freedom and Obama as an unquestionable god.

    One co-worker was shocked when I told her I wasn’t a Democrat. She said, how can I be a conservative when Bush is so racist? I spent half an hour trying to pin her down about how Bush is a racist (liberals hate “how do you know? questions.) In the end, unable to prove a lick of that was true, said “Well, I just feel like he’s a racist.” So you believe it because you want to believe it. OK. Sure.

    We see the world as our side/their side, they see it as everyone is a liberal but there are some rare, bad people out there known as conservatives. And you know how THEY are!

  4. The other side of the coin is that if “liberal = smart,” then “not liberal = stupid,” which means that liberals cannot respect either the views of conservatives or their intelligence.

    Further — and we see this most blatantly when it comes to global warming climate change — any evidence that their theories are wrong must be ignored, and bad faith attributed to those who gathered the evidence that their theories are wrong.

  5. Libtards are the most provincial people in the world. They think everyone thinks like them, and they don’t understand how anyone can possibly think differently than them.

  9. They have a serious messenger problem. Al Gore, touted by them as a Smartest Guy in the Room type, is a serial grad school dropout. That undeniable fact does not inure to his credibility on ANY topic.

  12. Yes. And I think that was part of the motivation behind MSNBC’s tag line “lean forward”. It implies any other point of view must therefore be “backward”.

  13. I like to point out that most people getting sick to their stomach are generally leaning forward.

  14. When you deal with people in this industry — those that actually made it in Silicon Valley and the wannabes working elsewhere, you find that they are truly unlikeable as a whole — arrogant, smug, etc. like most leftists but with a disgusting amorality and lack of principles that whatever you say about other leftists they don’t have to the same degree. They are incredibly obnoxious and truly believe they are smarter than everyone else when it is often clear they are not evidenced by their limited knowledge and understanding in areas outside of their career and pop culture. And hard as it is to believe their smug attitude may be more off-putting than the stereotypical PNW hipster. Basically, there’s nothing to recommend them.

  16. When confronted with an undeniable failure of liberalism, I like to rub leftists’ noses in it. These attacks are usually framed in the manner of questioning the liberals’ intellect. I would guess they are devastating because they directly question the “superiority” of the target.
    By the same token, I love pointing out when leftists lose political power, since that’s the thing they crave most highly.
    …oh, I guess I also like pointing out when the rest of the country disagrees with them on a matter, since it attacks the notion of their popularity.
    I really hate leftists.

  17. This is the most common trope I see on forums: some variation of “we’re smart, and conservatives are dumb.” (no evidence is forthcoming, just the assertion)
    I’ve even seen a few question the intelligence/character of people because they eat at Olive Garden.

  18. Omar Bradley talking about the nuclear age talked about the danger of men who were technological giants and moral dwarves” Hello Silicon Valley.

  22. While all people have biases, intelleigent people admit it and allow for it. Libtards are too arrogant to admit to anything except high intelligence and possession of all the answers. They are the worst of the worst.

  24. For many years now, one of my personal Recreational Impossibilities has been to get the DC Beltway renumbered to I-666.

  25. The first attack on any Republican candidate is that he or she is “dumb.”

    Pick some slip-up and drive it into the ground, laughing and chuckling all the way.

    If any Republican had said “57 states,” we never would have heard the end of it.

  27. The leftist takeover of TV, theater, pop music… well, ALL the arts, actually, journalism, environmental science, teaching, etc. – this has all been bad. But their takeover of the tech industry is the most dangerous of all.

    They are the ones giving computerized super powers to government.

    They want the old East Germany back, but with the ability to have eyes on everyone at all times.

  29. Takeover? That implies that conservatives were previously in control of the arts. They never were. Artists always have left leaning and liberal tendencies no matter the era.

  32. I’ve had dishes at Olive Garden indistinguishable from ones I’ve eaten at small cafes in Rome. They’re not the finest in the world, but they’re surprisingly good at what their job.

  35. Heh! Don’t be a libtard and it won’t bother you. You can always come into the real world with us sane people.

  36. There’s another explanation. Have you ever wondered why the American flag on the right shoulder of ACUs has the blue field on the right? It’s because the Army s always moving forward, and the flag flies that direction n the breeze; were the blue field on the left shoulder, it would signal retreat.

  37. I actually saw one combitching that Rand Paul does not have a baccalaureate degree, which is true, but that’s because he was accepted to medical school, and started there without finishing his BS.

  38. Because most of them are not successful and need the nanny state to provide for them so they can continue to chase “their dream”…….

    I’ve got no gripe with their chasing their dream……I’m just sick to death of paying for it.

    I wanted to get an education and become an engineer……I wish they had sent me a check when I was working three jobs and maintaining full time units.

  40. See, this is why liberals really hate conservatives: every impulse is pure malice. I just don’t understand all the whining here, either. Sure, you’ve lost on the social issues, but conservatives are victorious on the main issue of economics and it’s that one that keeps the system you want in place.

  41. No. It’s fine with me if you hate liberals, there’s just no reason to demean mentally challenged people on top of it.

  42. “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
    -William F. Buckley, Jr.

  43. No, that means the successful ones, too. The artistic psyche is a liberal one.

    Only a conservative could turn this into a rant about welfare,(and yes all artists are on the dole so hence love the state! lol!) and how hard he works. No need to be so defensive.

  44. Universities ? Pshaw.

    My kids elementary school (yes a public one) was plastered with “Yes We Can” and portraits of Obama in 2008 and 2009.

  46. Semi-OT: The Atlantic has doubled down on the SJW narrative about the Hugo Awards, giving a byline to one of the beneficiaries of the political-correctness stranglehold that the Sad Puppies are trying to break, and highlighting her deceitful rant on the front page of their website.

    The fool is even trying to drag #GamerGate into this, apparently trying to tap into SJW threat narratives about that group and spread the threat around. However, Sad Puppies 4 will be run by Kate “The Impaler” Paulk. If they thought this year was bad, just wait until they kick over that hornet’s nest, and announce to a bunch of anti-SJW gamers — many of whom also happen to be sci-fi/fantasy readers — that they’re not wanted.

  47. I agree! We shouldn’t insult people with real disabilities by lumping them in with the adult children who’ve trained themselves into mental incompetence.

  48. Libtards hate Conservatives because hate is the core of your being. You never grew up and anyone that dares say “No!” to your stupidity is someone to hate.

    That’s all it’s about and all it will ever be about.

    If you think Conservatives have been victorious on economics, then you have a truly strange definition of victory.

  49. When HuffPo and dKos stop being hate-filled, you might have a point. I expect monkeys to fly out of my fourth point of contact first, however.

  50. If that’s what the kind of stupidity you truly believe then there is no use arguing with you. What kind of imbecile thinks civil rights, or fair treatment is immaturity? Pathetic.

    You’ve won on the economic issue. Wealth has skyrocketed for some.

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