A Theory of Comparative Whininess

From an article in the Toronto Post:

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right.

The study seems like the usual crap that passes for in-depth pyschological research Berkely-style so far as I can tell from the article I read. But what would be interesting is a comparison of the whininess exhibited in adulthood by the conservatives in the sample versus the liberals. If the recently reported happiness gap is indicative, it would seem that liberals might be more whiney adults on average, since lack of happiness cannot possibly be their own fault when it says right there in the Declaration of Independence that the Government should provide for their pursuit of happiness.

As far as whiney personalities go, let me play armchair psychologist for a moment, and offer up a theory based upon my admittedly limited parenting experience, and more importantly based upon having avoided any formal training in the psychology of personality development. Do you want a kid who doesn't whine? I'll tell you how you get one. You give the kid everything he demands, and shield him from all the consequences of his own behavior. If he wants candy for breakfast, serve it up. If he wants to stay up until midnight watching TV, make sure you get him HD. If (assuming our subject is in Berkely), he wants a hit from your bong at the tender age of 12, don't be judgmental, and more importantly don't be stingy. You never punish him, criticize him, or express any disappointment.

If you choose the opposite course - to set limits and hold a kid accountable for errant behavior, expect to hear a good deal of whining. Learning that there are certain constraints in the world is a tough lesson, and none of us really want to learn that lesson, but the whiney kid is probably learning it at an earlier age.

My bet is that the self-assured Berkely first grader is shielded from that lesson for a long time, and that it never sinks in. His whining begins when the world, rather than his parents, sets out to teach him. He had no limits in the carefree happy days of childhood - and now all of the consequences he suffers as an adult for irresponsible behavior are not viewed as necessary consequences - instead they are viewed as consequences that stem from the formerly whiny classmates who are now meanly cutting off his welfare. That formerly whiny classmate, in contrast, knows from the get-go that you can't always get what you want, and that fact comes as no surprise to him upon reaching adulthood. So he doesn't wine when life reinforces a lesson he already knows well.

Undoubtedly, most liberals are themselves not the recipients of government largesse, and some would have even been taught life's lessons early by responsible parents. But I would argue that they seem to hold the view that if this lesson somehow escapes others in childhood, it is partially the government's role to make sure they don't have to learn it the hard way, or even any way, in their adulthood. That view is motivated by an implicit assumption that certain people cannot learn to become responsible for themselves, even if faced with some serious consequences. You have to believe something like that to think that a government handout alleviates, rather than prolongs, misery. Liberals of this stripe, for example, would never parent in the same way they would govern.