Why Young Women Support Obama

Barack Obama is at it again.  Once more he is wooing young women in hopes of drumming up support for ObamaCare.  And why not?  He knows that he probably owes his re-election to having succeeding in attracting their votes last year.

In any event, he is now telling women about all of the “free” stuff they will be getting because of his medical initiative.  Never mind that, as any thinking person should know, the promised benefits are not free.  They will actually be financed by new taxes and increased insurance premiums.

Nevertheless they may appear free because they are not paid for directly.  The same was true of the “free” birth control promised during the campaign.  It too would ultimately come out of the pockets of the recipients.

My question is, therefore, this: Were these promises the real reason so many young women voted for Barack?  In fact, I doubt it.  They may have believed our campaigner-in-chief was more concerned about their welfare than his opponent, but it is unlikely they could have been bought off with a few trinkets.

The central motive why so many women favored Obama is more profound.  It has, I believe, to do with some basic differences between males and females.  Feminists may be appalled by what I am about to write; yet there is good sociological evidence to substantiate it.

First, I see this difference in my KSU classrooms.  By and large female students are more diligent than males.  They are more likely to read the assigned books and to research the assigned papers.  Indeed, on average they get better grades.

Lest it be suspected that this is a local phenomenon, nationwide women are also obtaining better grades and graduating more frequently.  They are simply more respectful of authority than are men; hence they do what is asked.

This disposition can be attributed to a deep-seated difference between the genders.  Roughly a half-century ago social scientists began discovering a significant disparity in how the sexes dealt with the world and with other people.  They concluded that men were likely to be “instrumental,” whereas women were apt to be “expressive.”

What does this mean?  It refers to the fact that men are generally more concerned about getting a job done, while women are more interested in maintaining good social relationships.  Women, in short, tend to be peacemakers, while men are more task-oriented.

And so let us return to Obama.  Because women like peace, they are less inclined to challenge authority.  Obama, as president, is obviously an authority.  Therefore challenging him was apt to feel uncomfortable to many females.  Attacking him plainly rocked the applecart and hence seemed dangerous.

But there was more than this.  Men disliked the fact that the president had not accomplished his mission.  He made many promises that he did not fulfill and consequently was judged incompetent.  Women, on the other hand, liked the tone of his promises.  Thus they wanted to believe him when he spoke of helping the downtrodden.

From the female perspective, Obama and the Democrats were compassionate, whereas Romney and the Republicans were mean-spirited.  Evidently liberals wanted people to get along, while conservatives were nasty, selfish and demanding.

What then can these uncaring Republicans do to attract women voters?  The task is a daunting one, but they can begin by making it clear that failing to keep one’s promises is not compassionate.  Help that is pledged, but not delivered, is not help.  It is manipulation grounded in a perceived vulnerability.

Nor is getting a job done inherently callous.  If that job is getting our economy going again, and/or protecting us from external enemies, then achieving it will bring the peace and prosperity that women too desire.

If this is so, then the challenge is to communicate in ways that are understood by both genders.  Responsibility is not inherently mean, nor are honeyed-words inherently kind.  Consequences matter and must be seen to matter.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Equality versus Universalism

A few weeks ago a liberal colleague of mine at Kennesaw State University e-mailed me a short, short story.  This was Kurt Vonnegutt’s 1961 tale “Harrison Bergeron.”  I had never seen it before—and it was a revelation.

The story begins “The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.  They weren’t only equal before God and the law.  They were equal every which way.”  Apparently this equality had been mandated by two amendments to the Constitution and was enforced by a “Handicapper General.”

Much as horses are handicapped by requiring the most fleet to carry extra pounds on their backs, so people who were smarter than average wore an earpiece that disrupted their thoughts, those who were physically stronger had weights dangling from their muscles, and those who were especially beautiful wore masks to cover their attractiveness.

The reason for this, of course, was that just as some horses are born to be faster than others, some humans are born with superior attributes.  The only way to make them equal in every respect was therefore to reduce the advantages of the lucky ones.

Furthermore, because it was impossible to improve the abilities of the less fortunate to such a degree that they matched their betters, all had to be diminished to the lowest common denominator.  Even mediocrity would be too exalted if everyone was to be completely equal.

If this sounds absurd, please understand that many liberals desire not an equality of opportunity, or an equality before the law, but an equality of results.  This is why they would confiscate the resources of the rich and transfer them to the poor.  It is why they institute programs to “empower” the less affluent.

Were this just a left liberal penchant, this proclivity might simply be amusing.  Unfortunately, these radicals have been able to convince a sufficient number of voters that this sort of social engineering is essential to create “social justice.”  They even claim that it is built into the Declaration of Independence.

Needless to say, this is a canard.  Jefferson told us that we were endowed with equal rights, not that we were, or ever could become, completely equal.  Indeed, in his other writings he advocated an “aristocracy of merit.”

So what I propose is that in order to reduce this confusion we start talking about “universality” rather than equality.  Universality means that all rules are applied equally to everyone irrespective of social status.  No one gets an authorized advantage because of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, or sexual orientation.

Were this standard respected, no individuals would get admitted to college with lesser credentials because of skin color, no woman would be hired for a job because there was a quota for females, and no rich person would have to pay more for the same services as a poor one.

This may sound like a peculiar way to do business, but my students at KSU understand it very well.  Were I to award a higher grade to someone just because she was my cousin, they would be outraged.  If her work were not up to snuff, they would expect me to grade her accordingly.

Moreover, this seems to me to be the essence of democracy.  Democracy is not just “one person, one vote,” but a parity in social standards.  We do not bow down before aristocrats; we do not kiss the rings of the rich.  Even Alexis de Tocqueville, a century and a half ago, noted that Americans did not treat anyone as deserving special advantages because of his/her social position.

This was something to be proud of then; it is something to be proud of now.  The United States has assimilated people from around the world—and should continue to do so.  But it should do so on the basis of universalism, not an equality of results.  Indeed, it is only by being honestly universal that we will induct them into being honestly democratic.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Obamaspeak Made Easy

When I was in high school, one of our required readings was George Orwell’s novel “1984.”  This was so long ago that back then I thought of this year as in the distant future.  Now, of course, many of my students at Kennesaw State University regard it as the distant past.

At the time, my peers and I worried about whether Orwell’s dystopian predictions would come true.  Happily most did not.  The United States has not developed into a totalitarian state—at least not yet.  But one thing has come to pass.  Our current leaders have so distorted the language that it bears only a faint resemblance to its former self.

In his book, Orwell introduced us to Newspeak, a variant of English used by dictators to control their subjects.  Today, we are being bombarded by Obamaspeak, which is a dialect of Newspeak.  It too is designed to close down thought and prevent people from seeing reality.

It should be noted that Obamaspeak is not only spoken by our president, but by most members of his administration.  It has also become the lingua franca among liberal democrats.  So fluent are they in it that many have completely lost touch with the real world.

Anyway, let’s examine some Obamaspeak favorites.  We can begin with “truth.”  In this new language, truth means, “whatever we can get people to believe.”  What is described as true may thus have nothing to do with actual events.  In fact, it may be the opposite.  All such “fictions” must achieve is to seem plausible.  Then, if they are repeated often enough, they will appear factual.

On the other side of the coin is the word “misleading.”  It translates into “whatever conservatives and Republicans say that contradicts what liberal democrats claim.”  This especially applies if what these critics articulate describes the world as it actually is.

The word “lie,” on the other hand, is reserved for particularly attractive versions of what the opposition contends.  It is the heavy artillery dragged out to vilify old-fashioned versions of the truth.  Generally uttered with suitable disdain, the implication is that ordinary people should shun those who defend what liberals abhor.

Given its flexibility, this sort of language was aggressively used to support ObamaCare and to defame its detractors.  Thus, when Republicans predicted that Americans would lose their doctors under this program, the public was told that they were being misled—or, more emphatically, that Republicans were lying.

The official title of ObamaCare, of course, is the “Affordable Care Act”—itself a prime example of Obamaspeak.  The idea was to convince voters that this initiative would cover the previously uninsured, and do so at lower costs.  Ergo, to assert that this is fiscally impossible was clearly “misleading.”

Obama also insisted that his overhaul of the health care system would not cost average Americans “a single dime.”  As a result, this phrase too deserves to be translated.  Roughly speaking it means “less than a trillion dollars.”

Actually on second thought, this is not correct.  The real meaning is “less than ten trillion dollars”—or whatever figure the program finally winds up costing.

A more recent Obamaism is “red line.”  Analogous to a line in the sand that is not supposed to be crossed, it is even less firm.  Thus, lines in the sand may blow away; whereas an Obamaspeak red line vanishes the more closely one approaches to it.

Some true believing liberals are not aware of this, but you may be sure that Bashar Assad is.  The Syrian strongman knows President Obama will always find ways to deny that a red line has been crossed and therefore that the United States will not honor his promise to act.

All-in-all, Obamaspeak is a magical political tool.  It allows its users to sound strong and/or compassionate, without having to be either.  Perfectly designed for people who habitually talk out of both sides of the mouth, it has achieved many of its intended goals.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Liberal Democrat's Dictionary

Just a bit over a century ago Ambrose Bierce published The Devil’s Dictionary.  A humorist by trade, Bierce intended this as wry commentary on the passing scene.  Often more cynical than amusing, its definitions are still frequently on target.

For instance, Bierce defines “optimism” as “the doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.”  This gives the flavor of how he turns meanings on their head, while providing insights into human nature.

Among his other definitions is “politics,” which he describes as “a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.  The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”  Similarly he defines “twice” as “once too often” and “truthful” as “dumb and illiterate.”

Nowadays we are being treated to an analogous reworking of the English language.  This one is being perpetrated at the hands of liberal Democrats and is not intended to entertain, but to persuade.  In short, familiar words are being given new definitions in order to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.

Typically crafted by being tested in focus groups, these definitions are more about connotation than denotation, more about atmospherics than substance.  They are linguistic gymnastics that advertise, not inform.  They are the equivalent of Madison Avenue’s use of “new and improved” to mean “a smaller quantity at a higher price.”

So let us start with a sample of familiar definitions.  One of the more common involves the word “balanced.”  Whenever a liberal Democrat utters this word it basically means “unbalanced.”  It is tantamount to saying “the other side should do it our way.”

The recent usage has entailed depicting hugely increased taxes as exactly matching invisible spending cuts.  Listeners can identify this sort of legerdemain whenever they encounter every Democrat who pops up on television spouting precisely the same language.

Incidentally, this mindless repetition is usually described as “remaining on message.”  Moreover, politicians are proud of it.  The more discipline they show, the more professional they apparently feel.  This is probably because they understand that the endless duplication of misinformation transforms dross into gold, i.e., into a facsimile of truth.

Anyway, this process of turning the language inside out is proceeding at a breakneck pace.  So for exhibit number two I present “bipartisan.”  Once upon a time bipartisan meant that two parties worked together to produce a compromise satisfactory to both.  Now it means they may not even be talking to one another.

Thus, when liberal Democrats assert that they are being bipartisan, they mean that Republicans “should do it the Democrat’s way.”  As with “balanced,” the word always tilts to their side of the ledger.  Evidently what Republicans want is partisan because they want it, whereas what Democrats want is not because it is in the interests of the public and therefore neutral.

Another word that has been twisted totally out of shape is “transparent.”  Once upon a time transparent meant that you could see through something.  With respect to politics, it implied that ordinary people would be allowed to witness government decision making first hand.

In fact, Barack Obama told voters they would be allowed into the room when important choices were being discussed.  This, of course, became non-operative during the political machinations that led up to ObamaCare.  The resultant horse-trading was too disreputable to open the doors for anyone.

What then is the liberal definition of transparent?  Essentially, “we will let you see what we want you to see and not what we don’t want you to see.”  Moreover, we liberals will certainly not provide accurate information about the Benghazi cover-up.  That might make us look bad and so we won’t even permit you to talk with the survivors.

And so the melody plays on.  It’s the same old music, but with freshly mangled lyrics.  Stay tuned—there is more to come.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University