Charles Battig says it more succinctly in Progressivism as a mental illness where he quotes these four statements from Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., to wit:
1. The laws and moral codes--the rules--that properly govern human conduct arise from, and must be compatible with, the biological, psychological and social nature of man.
2. The liberal agenda's Modern Parental State violates all of the rules that make ordered liberty possible.
3. The modern liberal agenda is a transference neurosis of the modern liberal mind, acted out in the world's economic, social and political theaters.
4. The liberal agenda's Modern Permissive Culture corrupts the foundations of civilized freedom and is destroying America's magnificent political achievements.
Numbers 2 and 4 seem almost contradictory. But it does fit when we consider that the cradle to grave regulatory environment where gay marriage is encouraged, but declining to bake the cake is grounds for public ridicule, boycotts, and legal action.
Number 3 left me confused, especially the phrase "transference neurosis." It's defined here as "a phenomenon occurring in most psychoanalyses, in which the patient undergoes, with the analyst as the object, an intense repetition of childhood conflicts, reexperiencing impulses, feelings, and fantasies that originally developed in relation to the parent."
Fitting that into the context must mean that politics is the tool with which the leftist acts out his/her childhood conflicts. Now it all makes sense.
It's probably insulting to progressives to psychoanalyze them like that. But they do it to conservatives all the time with what seems motivated more by a desire to insult than to understand. Therefore, just as they seek condescending explanations for why someone could possibly oppose them, we conservatives seek explanations for why they can't be more accepting of people with whom they disagree.
Finally, my take is that people are motivated by their own self interest, even if it's only the self satisfaction of casting a protest vote. But anyone obsessed with politics above and beyond that is a little bit crazy.
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