The differences in the mental gymnastics that go on inside the minds of liberals and conservatives when they are presented with new information can be quite startling. As I have previously stated in my series on \u201cThe Republican Brain,\u201d it is important to be cautious in drawing hard and fast lines between what liberals and conservatives think and how they behave. Regarding how conservatives and liberals receive new information, we will draw stark contrasts to be illustrative; then we will qualify these positions in order to place them more into a realm of current reality.<\/p>\n
One of the key differences is in the way\u00a0 liberals and conservatives respond when they are presented with new information is how they process the introduction of new facts. It goes somewhat like this:<\/p>\n
As Charles Mooney says in his book, The Republican Brain<\/a>:<\/p>\n To see how it plays out in practice, consider a conservative Christian who has just heard about a new scientific discovery\u2014a new hominid finding, say, confirming our evolutionary origins\u2014that deeply challenges something he or she believes (\u201chuman beings were created by God\u201d; \u201cthe book of Genesis is literally true\u201d). What happens next, explains Stony Brook University political scientist Charles Taber, is a subconscious negative (or \u201caffective\u201d) response to the threatening new information\u2014and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations that are called into the conscious mind based on a network of emotionally laden associations and concepts. \u201cThey retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs,\u201d says Taber, \u201cand that will lead them to construct or build an argument and challenge to what they are hearing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Examples of Republicans essentially ignoring facts and context would be Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz regarding the regrettable incident in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Where liberals saw it as an unfortunate occurrence which taught us the necessity of providing better funding and resources for our foreign embassies and consulates, Republicans viewed it as a way to resurrect the old saw that \u201cliberals are soft on foreign aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n As humorist Andy Borowitz recently said,<\/p>\n