Tuesday, February 10, 2009

You Are What You Watch

I've got a theory that you can tell whether someone's a conservative or a liberal based on their views about two issues, sex and violence. Specifically, which they see as the bigger threat to society:
  • Liberals see violence (war, guns, etc.) as the great threat to society. They have a more laissez faire view of sex. What's the big deal with sex anyway? It's a natural part of life.

  • Conservatives on the other hand see sex (and possibly also the associated drugs and rock 'n' roll) as the great threat. They have far fewer issues with violence and have a much easier time justifying war. After all, we live in a violent world.

How this manifests itself is interesting. Liberals are ready, willing and able to legislate guns and such, but keep government out of the bedroom. Conservatives support so-called morality laws, but don't take my guns.

Check out the movies they watch, or the ones they let their kids watch. Liberals are OK with bedroom scenes or nudity, but if there's shooting, forget it. Conservatives allow movies with all kinds of violence, but if there's a sexual situation, click.

Am I generalizing? Sure, but I think this generally plays out.

How about those who are OK with violence and sex? Libertarians.

And those who are staunchly against both? I dunno. Amish? :-)

2 comments:

Katharine said...

Interesting post. I don't watch many movies, but I had never thought of myself as anything like Amish!

Dave Barnes said...

Katharine, I'm sure you're not :-). This post definitely has some generalizations and should be taken with many grains of salt!