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@roka @shpuld @eal It's a major tell for leftists. Ask someone why they think people dislike gays, muslims, people from other nations, etc. Leftists usually use the terms homophobia, islamophobia, xenophobia. It's always "fear of the unknown" or "closed-mindedness."

But are people actually afraid of gays, of muslims, of people from other nations? Maybe, if only for their actions. But what's the best indicator for generally conservative thought? According to multiply-repeated studies using the Big Five personality traits, the most reliable indicator of conservatism is actually conscientiousness, while the most reliable indicator of liberalism is neuroticism. Openness is nearly independent of political views.

But one of the most reliable indicators of conservatism and those doubleplusungood -phobia terms is actually disgust sensitivity. People aren't afraid of homosexuals, they're disgusted by them. People aren't afraid of muslims, they're disgusted by them. People aren't afraid of foreign nationals, they're disgusted by them. Disgusted by their actions, or by their lack of trait conscientiousness. Just read Mein Kampf or speeches by Hitler or Goebbels. Did they say that people should be afraid of the Jews and therefore should hate them? No, they couched everything in terms of disgust and orderliness, in terms of the health of the nation. Note the vocabulary. The Jews are a parasite upon a nation, they are a bacillus, an infection upon the national body, they must be expunged, cured, removed in order to encourage the health of the nation and the people.

It's right there, right there in plain sight as to the motivations of all these so-called "homophobes" and "islamophobes" and "xenophobes." In writing! Repeatedly! But it's ignored because the leftist worldview insists upon a certain lens, a lens which always demands the projection of motivations and beliefs onto others. In their view, they're always right, everyone is always fundamentally motivated by the same things (because everyone is always the same, save for muh societal conditioning), and therefore any personal experiences the left possesses must hold true for anyone with a different political opinion.

So when you hear someone say that conservatives or right-leaning types are actually afraid of change, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the other, they're wrong. They're just projecting their own motivations (neuroticism, nervousness, fear) onto people they fundamentally misunderstand, who are actually motivated by conscientiousness and disgust. It's a fascinating topic, and it's getting to the point where some of the only consistently repeatable social studies are those that indicate high correlation between fundamental personality and political leanings, including the disparity in motivating factors between people with different political beliefs.

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