cognitive dissident

Gerard Alexander asked at WaPo "Why are liberals so condescending?" and suggested that there is a "chorus of intellectual condescension" among liberals:

American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. [...] This condescension is part of a liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today...

True, liberals don't often rhapsodize over how their candidate's flirtatious winking "sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America"--we prefer our politics to be based on policies instead of personalities, empiricism rather than emotion. If you want to prove that we're wrong, you'll have to do better than slinging around your aggrieved feelings: you'll have to support your contentions with a foundation more substantial than "Those horrible liberals are impoverishing American debates by citing facts to back up their positions!"

Over at Hullabaloo, Digby pillories Alexander's "simpering whine" and quotes from a particularly obnoxious National Review piece on John Walker Lindh as a prime example of conservative condescension. NR blamed Lindh's pathology--incomprehensibly, illogically--on California's liberalism rather than the reactionary religion that he embraced. Calling conservatives out for this nonsensical position, Dan Savage criticized their "burning desire to convince us that [John] Walker [Lindh] is some sort of liberal:"

Excuse me, but Walker didn't embrace the Marin County's live-and-let-live liberalism. Walker rejected Marin County's liberal ethos in favor of an intolerant, ranting, raving "faith." What's more, Walker and his co-religionists hate all the same things [Jerry] Falwell hates: liberated women, secular culture, homosexuals, religious freedom."

(Skipping Toward Gomorrah, p. 270)

Is it condescending to point out that intellectual consistency does not appear to be a strength among the wingnut/teabag crowds? Or is it simply a factual observation? In a stance not atypical among liberals, I freely admit that I may be wrong--if you can show that I am in error, please do so; otherwise, your carping about "condescension" sounds as if you're just angry that you've lost another argument.

Alexander was scheduled to give a lecture on the subject of "Do Liberals Know Best? Intellectual Self-Confidence and the Claim to a Monopoly on Knowledge" at AEI last night, but it was postponed. I'll be interested to see whether or not his longer presentation is better supported, or merely a wordier version of the same whine. (On a personal note: I've been accused of condescension, but such accusations are usually conveyed via insults or accusations; conservative condescension seems to be at least as common a phenomenon as that exhibited by liberals.)