01-Oct-2006: Conservative Dreams
I read an article in the Ottawa Citizen a few days ago that discussed the findings
of experts regarding the difference in dreams of adherents of the political right wing and those of the left.
Apparently, the right wingers dream of maundane every day experiences. They do not fly or see people rising
from the dead. If they dream of sex, it is only with their real-life partner. Those frisky left-wingers, on the
other hand, do have dreams of flying. Their dreams have fantastically complex story lines and when they dream
of sex, it could be with any manner or number of others.
I am happy to report that I am firmly in the left wing camp when it comes to dreams. Not only do I fly,
but I have a unique way of descending staircases that is akin to surfing. The plots and events in my
dreams are enough to rate as exotic by any standard. And sex? Let's just say it is frequent and rarely
involves the same partner(s) twice. I'll spare you the details of nightmares that cause me to thrash about
the bed, striking out, to awake in a pool of sweat.
I know full-well that most people do not fit clearly
into one camp or the other and that shades of political thinking and differences of dream content are on
a bell-curve, with most people leaning slightly one way or the other.
And, I know the media can find experts to make any claim that reporters figure will sell
newspapers, magazines, and TV newscasts. Objectivity and verifiable facts have no value in the news
entertainment business. In some cases reporters have been caught making up stories with nothing to back
them up. But, setting aside my cynical view of the steady stream of information that we in the
so-called civilized world are subjected to, I find the idea that right-wingers and left-wingers have
different styles of dreaming to be an intriguing one.
Why? Because I am troubled by those who adhere to what I will loosely call right wing values.
I cannot grasp their thinking and how they arrive at the conclusions that they do. Let's take a simple
example: in my life time every conservative or republican party claims to care deeply for the poor, the
elderly, and the sick. But what is the first thing they do when they are elected to office?
They cut funding to the very organizations that are making a difference in the lives of the
poor and needy. And, to add insult to injury, they manipulate the tax system so that those at the top of
the pile get deep cuts in taxes at the expense of those at the lowest end of the scale. Where is the
logic in this?
Another example: republicans frequently accuse democrats of spending taxpayers' money freely and claim
that they will straighten everything out through the use of fiscal prudence. But the biggest deficits
in government spending that I have
seen has been when conservatives are in power. (Look at the tragedy evolving in the USA as their deficit,
as managed by conservative conservatives, has grown high enough to jeopardize the future of the country.
In Canada, Brian Mulroney's Conservatives ran up such a large deficit in the early 1980's to early 1990's,
that it has eaten up the large surpluses that the "free-spending" Liberals had in subsequent years.)
Consider this: conservatives talk a lot about reducing crime. So, what do they do? They cut funding to
the programs and organizations that are actually preventing crime at its source: in the minds and lives of the
desperate and alienated—before any crimes are committed. Republicans call such programs molly-coddling
and ignore any evidence that many of these
programs not only work, but they are a lot cheaper to fund than are the systems that are put into place to
address criminal acts after they have occurred. Even more amazing to me is that they don't seem to
notice that the more prisons they build and the longer and harsher sentences they impose, the higher the crime rate.
Are they blind, stupid, willfully ignorant, or what? What planet do they inhabit where evidence is ignored
and ridiculed?
Crime is caused by desperation, stupidity, passion, or combinations of those elements. In what case is
someone in such a situation going to weigh the consequences before he acts? I better not rob this
grocery store because I will get a longer prison sentence than I would have last month?
Conservatives appear to have the view that crime is caused by bad people who need to be severely
punished so they will stop being bad people. The problem with dividing the world into good people
and bad people is that everyone assumes he is one of the good guys. This is what I sometimes refer
to as "the comic book view." Black and white; good guy always wins. Is there a link between this overly-simpified
way of looking at things and a dull dream-world?
For me, I struggle to understand the contradictions in the thought processes of the right wing and find
myself gasping for breath at the immensity of the difference between how they view the world and how it
works and the way I view it. Their point of view is so alien that my brain—which I assume is
constructed the same way as theirs are—can't grasp it. But then they would probably, when you think
about it, think the same about me and my thought processes. And maybe they regard my dreams as the result
of a degenerate and undisciplined mind. Scary stuff.