Dog people and cat people don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but the one thing they can agree on is there’s nobody weirder than bird people.
- Comedian Rogin Kim
Back in January, Time magazine’s online component used a quiz on its site, created using research on liberal and conservative identification, to determine partisan leanings.
Did it ask who you voted for or who you admired in the political world? Naw … that would be far too easy. Instead, it asked seemingly innocuous questions about whether you like cats, fusion cuisine and preferential treatment for citizens.
Time said the findings, published on the site last month, confirmed previous research that found differences between liberals and conservatives on things unrelated to politics. The big headline: “It’s true: Liberals like cats more than conservatives do.”
Well … that will come as a shock to my Republican friends with cats. I’m sure they had no idea they were traitors to the cause.
And wait a minute … cats are independent, aloof and fastidious. Shouldn’t conservatives prefer them? And dogs are more dependent, easily distracted (Squirrel!) and hopelessly devoted to their people, so shouldn’t that be like catnip to liberals?
What’s the point here? It’s that all these assumptions are based on stereotypes, and most people (or animals, for that matter) don’t fit neatly into such boxes. Besides, the 12 questions in the quiz aren’t quite extensive enough to accurately gauge partisanship; they provide at best an indicator of leanings in broad strokes.
Regular readers of my blog, Serenity is a fuzzy belly, know that my cat tends to see himself more as a dog sometimes, and quite often co-opts “dog” behavior. So what does that make him (besides weird)-or me? I also have a friend with a Shih Tzu that acts more like a cat than a dog most days. What about him?
I’m reminded of this every time I see letters that paint all conservatives and all liberals with the same brushes, such as Democrats can’t be Christians, Republicans care only about business, etc. I think anyone who’s paid much attention to the world knows that stereotypes, while sometimes useful, especially when it comes to political rhetoric, aren’t necessarily reality.
For instance, I grew up in a supposedly “Republican” county. However, that really applied mostly to the northern, urban part of the county. Southward, however, elections tended to fall more moderate-to-liberal, with Republican primaries very sparsely attended. That hasn’t really changed much over the years. But wait … aren’t Republicans supposed to do better in rural settings and Democrats in urban areas? Well, darn it.
Political stereotypes simply sort everyone into little boxes rather than considering the wide array of individuals in the world, and yes, I’ve been guilty of it as well.
Can a Republican believe that legal abortion is sometimes a necessary evil (such as in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening conditions)? Yes, and Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois has faced backlash from his party and others for his pro-choice leanings.
Can a Democrat be against same sex marriage? Certainly, and our own Mark Pryor is one of them.
The point is that while stereotypes may be convenient, they don’t necessarily apply to all the members of a specific group, and failing to acknowledge that leaves us poorer. The person, not the party, is who we should be electing. If that person turns out to not follow the stereotypical behavior assigned to him, we have no one to blame but ourselves if it bothers us.
Now excuse me while I move the dozing cat off the warm keyboard and toss him a catnip mouse. Such a stereotypical cat!
Philip Warner of Garfield, whose letter appears today, brings up a valid point related to my column last week and my comment that, among other things, we simply don’t have the space available to print every letter received. His solution is for me not to write a column, theorizing that the 26 inches he counted in that column could provide more space for letters.
True. Of course, that would only add four to six letters one day a week.
Let’s look at the page, which is about 100 column inches total. Subtracting seven inches for the policy box that appears every day leaves us with 93 inches. Our longest letters are about 6.5 inches, which means about 14 would fit on the page if we ran nothing but letters (no columns or editorial cartoon at all), or 15 if we also ditched the policy box. Considering we usually get at least 20 emailed letters plus several snail-mail letters every day (the majority 200 words or more), we’d still not be able to print them all.
But thanks so much for the suggestion, as it’s from our critics that we learn the most. However, since many readers have responded positively to my ramblings both here and at my blog (which preceded the column by about six months), I’ll keep it up. I’m kinda stubborn that way.
Philip may notice, though, that his final paragraph with a quite clever quip on numbers of words is not printed. Since I do fact-check and blooper0223 has never been the name of my blog (username and part of URL, yes; name, no), I had to edit that part out. Sorry.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 03/12/2014