I think pretty much everyone views their political ideology as “the one that stands for freedom”, and it just comes down to what it means to be “free”, and the follow up of free from what.
I feel like libertarians would love the concept of FOSS and decentralization, and I don’t think anyone would argue they skew left.
So, I disagree that FOSS is inherently left wing. I think it’s attractive to the left wing for many good reasons. I think people project their own politics onto whatever they love, and things can be loved by very different groups for different reasons.
Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I would say that FOSS typically draws a more educated crowd, and right wing rhetoric and propaganda typically target those of lesser education and lower cognitive ability, simply because those people are the most likely hosts for rightoid brain worms. Why do colleges skew heavily left, gee it must be brainwashing /s
chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Eh, there’s plenty of educated right wingers. Not fascists as much, but the kind of fiscally conservative economists who preach austerity are often as not highly educated, just lacking in empathy.
Stiffneckedppl@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are definitely plenty of well educated, intelligent fascists as well. It’s pretty dangerous to start thinking that what separates two ideological groups is intelligence.
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I believe what they were separating was Fascist leaders versus fascist followers.
tate@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
You’re speaking of pundits and politicians whose opinions are public and widespread. There is little reason to believe that those folks are sincere in their public statements. They are motivated by greed to lie in an effort to sway the opinions of uneducated people.
Among the general public, those that sincerely hold conservative political views are cognitively impaired. Source: they vote for things that are objectively against their own prosperity.
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
The educated and the well-travelled may have a broader set of view points to see how many different ideas and values work (or don’t work) in practice.
I don’t disagree on some just lacking empathy. But I also think not all education creates exposure to a wide range of ideas and values that stick (or the education is just too narrow), so you’ll still find plenty of people who are educated on paper, but not cognizant of a broad set of world views. I also think we are too quick to label foreign ideas==bad ourselves. Empathy is a two way street. The key in navigating this may be in identifying when an idea comes in good faith or if it is hostile.