Left-wing men tend to be physically weaker than right-wing men

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by tali89, Jan 31, 2016.

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  1. tali89 Registered Senior Member

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    My recent ex-boyfriend used to point out to me how the vocal left-wing men we knew were often physically weaker than vocal right-wingers, and were the last people you would want to have your back in a fight. While I found his observation rather humorous, I always thought it was just a coincidence that the lefties I knew were frail. However, a study by researchers in Denmark found that "... men with higher upper-body strength were less likely to support left-wing policies on the redistribution of wealth. Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state"

    This caused me to ponder the association between liberal ideology and physical fragility. From what I have observed, liberals have a tendency to regard themselves as victims rather than victors. They usually have a more passive mindset, and expect society to accommodate their (often numerous) failings. I suspect if you got some of these weak liberals into a gym, they would expect their personal trainer to help them lift the weights, rather than actually pump the iron themselves. Due to this weakness they live vicariously through proxies such as the State, who they then use to remedy perceived inequities.

    Conversely, most of the right-wingers I associate with are strong believers in self-sufficiency, self-improvement, and personal responsibility. They regard a person's health, welfare and appearance as that individual's responsibility, rather than a nebulous 'other-man'.

    What's really interesting is that the study in question found no association between political ideology and physical strength in regards to women. However, given what I hypothesized above, I'd predict that right-wing women are less likely than left-wing women to be slovenly and obese. Although I haven't yet found any studies that show this, merely looking at the appearance of prominent feminists provides us with some pretty strong suggestive evidence.
     
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  3. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Oh look, more anti-liberal trolling from our resident anti-liberal troll.
     
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  5. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    How cute. Welcome back tali89...
     
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  7. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I don't see any corroborating evidence (or any evidence at all) to support these ridiculous claims...

    I wonder if Tali is somehow related to Trump... both like dangerous and bigoted rhetoric, both enjoy accusing anyone unlike themselves of the countries problems... and both have a dangerously faulty grasp of socio-economics.

    Daecon, origin, my personal vote is to just leave him/her be... let them rant to themselves

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    However... I am curious:

    So, did these "right wingers" go off grid, build their own homes on land they cleared with their own two hands, grow their own food, and otherwise live self-sufficiently? Or do they still rely on "the nebulous other man" to pave roads, generate electricity, produce their food and clothing, build their cars, etc? Do they fetch their own water from a well they dug (or local stream) and purify it themselves, or do they rely on city water? Do they have a septic system they installed and maintain themselves, or do they rely on city sewage?

    Many of the extreme right wingers who preach self sufficiency... well, simply put, they aren't. Nobody in the US is truly "self sufficient" - even the "self made millionaires" have built their fortunes on the backs of others... after all, laborers and patent lawyers and infrastructure...
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    What's leftwing/rightwing in Denmark would not align with your use of the terms here, so you would need to check on whether the pattern would hold in your special little world.

    But it matches my experience as well. The ignorant and authoritarian tend to be working physical jobs, joining the military, proud of their ability to fight in bars, etc. They also tend to be obese, which adds to upper body strength more or less automatically. The worksites with cement work and block laying and lumbering and so forth I've seen are dominated by Fox and Rush and their imitators - radios going, TVs in the break rooms.

    Nope. Unless you regard lack of makeup as slovenly in itself, anyway. To correct your misperception, shop at Walmart, or visit your local trailer court.
     
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  9. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    An interesting contention, certainly (he says, speaking as one who voted Conservative at the last UK election

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    )

    But, on the flip side, there does also seem to be evidence that right-wing men tend to be less intelligent - that is to say, more stupid - than left-wing men: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html

    So, which would one rather be: a weakling, or thick as pigshit? Tricky, eh?
     
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  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    I have watched a few of these reality shows about folks who have chosen to live "off grid" and what strikes me most about these folks is their reliance on those who live "on the grid". It usually doesn't take long for these "off griders" to pull out their power tools or their guns. They didn't make those tools. They didn't drill the oil well, pump the oil out and refine it in order to get the fuel which powers their snow mobiles, cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, radio's, cell phones, and power tools.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  11. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Yup yup
     
  12. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    No and they don't take out their own appendices either.
     
  14. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    No they don't. And ironically, they don't pay for the medical extractions or the medical procedures either because they don't have the money. They don't have much in the way of income. In many, if not most cases, they are dependent upon state subsidies for their income. They are dependent upon the state to give them land, money, and to pay their medical bills.
     
  15. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    On a site who's politics is dominated by anti-republican trolling, a little bit of the opposing view every now and then is a breath of fresh air.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    While this is a popular meme in right wing circles, I have yet to see a single shred of evidence to support it. So where is the evidence to support your assertion? I wouldn't call the last two national "conservative" leaders as in any way bastions of physical or intellectual strength. Baby Bush is supposed to be 5'11". Obama is 6'5". What is known, is that Republicans are more gullible and more easily subject to manipulation than Democrats. What is known is there are at least 7 academic studies which prove Republicans (i.e. conservatives) are less well informed than Democrats and even folks who consume no news at all.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/gallup-poll-shows-republi_b_3355985.html

    When I hear folks like you repeat this Republican meme, I can't help but remind folks like you that the neanderthals went extinct thousands of years ago and there was a reason for their extinction. They were stronger than their homo sapiens rivals, but they lacked the intellect necessary to survive. So if people want to become the modern day version of the neanderthal, and it appears you do, good luck with that.

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    That strategy really worked so well for the original neanderthals.

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  17. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Well, the OP is hardly an "opposing view".

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    It's more like trash talk or trolling. I don't think the "opposing view" has idealized some macho view of left wingers or even hinted there was a physical difference between conservatives and liberals. It's actually quite silly and something that would appeal to the dimmer bulbs.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  18. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    I love that the source for this claim is the Daily Mail!

    I also love that the original paper is an evo psych article. Sigh.

    The authors want to link bicep size to attitudes, but they actually don't do this. There is a relationship between socio-economic status and attitude that has a slight change, in men, that correlates with bicep size. In this one study of theirs.

    There is no sign in the paper that the authors realize that there could be factors in attitude that influence whether or not someone is interested in pursuing physical fitness. It could very well be that in the societies investigated, there happen to be more people of certain attitudes that go to gyms or that engage in sports than those with other attitudes. Or it could be that people who get involved in certain political activities tend to devote more time to those causes than to fitness.

    There are a whole host of confounding social factors that the authors---like most publishing in evo psych---just seem to be ignorant of.
     
  19. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I confess I was rather tweaking the tail of our friend tali here. I just felt one silly assertion required another equally silly one in reply.

    I do assure you I am not generally in the habit of citing the Daily Mail when I am being entirely serious.

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  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting. Perhaps related to their relative intelligence. Right wingers, who are often described as less intelligent than left wingers, must often rely on physical intimidation rather than the strength of their argument. In addition, since liberalism is (evolutionarily speaking) more recent than conservatism, concepts like protecting the weaker members of society, extending rights to minorities and solving problems with new technologies rather than old social-control methods would tend to not appeal to the less-evolved members of the species. From Psychology Today:

    ===================
    Even though past studies show that women are more liberal than men, and blacks are more liberal than whites, the effect of childhood intelligence on adult political ideology is twice as large as the effect of either sex or race. So it appears that, as the Hypothesis predicts, more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse the value of liberalism than less intelligent individuals, possibly because liberalism is evolutionarily novel and conservatism is evolutionarily familiar.
    ==================
     
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  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Not trolling. That's not what trolling is.

    And hardly dominated - try a post count, see what you get.

    But identifying that kind of post as "the opposing view"? Give you that - nailed it.
     
  22. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    That could be true if the OP made everything up, but if the mentioned study exists, then it is legitimate information of a type not normally shared here: an opposing view.
     
  23. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    I was referring to the OP. Also a Daily Mail source.
     
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