I tried leaving this comment at MM, but there was some error. Here's a 1988 version of the Conservatism Scale

Looks like about 5 of the 50 questions have to do with creative areas (the arts & sciences; mostly arts). A lot of this stuff wouldn't have been conservative, and some neither here nor there, even a century ago, let alone farther back. It measures what pops into your mind when you think "conservative" today.

Gauss and Von Neumann were both not just conservative, but zealously so. Euler was a biblical literalist and raked secularists over the coals here and there. Bach was pretty religious. Wagner could go either way depending on how the term is defined.

Beethoven was conservative enough (by modern standards), Stravinsky was borderline fascist. Rachmaninov and Nabokov were royalists and conservative (Nabokov thought Joe McCarthy was right) Elgar too, in fact many composers were conservative in one way or another, at heart it's a conservative medium.

Most of the renaissance giants were pretty conservative, such as it existed. And the western peaks - Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton. Newton was an out and out English patriot. Romanticism was conservative in the sense that it reached back to an imagined past, glorified the simple ways of the peasantry etc.

Religion and nationalism have historically been two great spurs to accomplishment (united in the greatest of all - Michelangelo's David), but the rise of atheism and internationalism has crushed both, leaving 'creativity' in the hands of pseudo-radicals. The leftist bias is a recent phenomenon. When religion does briefly reemerge as a guiding force, the results can be impressive. Frederick Hart's astonishing ex nihilo, easily one of the best works of high art of the last half century, but completely ignored by the critical class, is a good example.

The pre-raphaelites were very conservative.

"Conservative" is a moving target. Milton was a revolutionary in his time -- he was pro-divorce, anti-royalist, and a theological Unitarian. Beethoven was an admirer of Napoleon during until Napoleon turned out to be a imperialist despot. But both presumably had ideas which would be conservative today, since the defining issues have changed. (Much the same can be said of Dante.)

Bear in mind that the "conservative vs. liberal" polarity doesn't even make it across the Atlantic. Over there the "liberal" niche is filled by Social Democrats of one sort or another, while most countries have distinguishable conservative and free-market liberal parties.

The dynamic Razib talks about probably is limited to the last two centuries or so and has lots of exceptions. The last thirty years or so of American conservativism is another special case in itself. Religious fundamentalism is anti-intellectual and not conducive to creativity (fundamentalism is a new American idea, since 1800 -- Dante and Milton weren't fundamentalists). Free-marketers tend to go where the money is, and by and large the arts ain't it.

Science fiction writers often are conservative. Some pop musicians turn out conservative, but successful lead musicians (liberal or conservative) tend to be narcissistic self-centered gut thinkers.

Me and Sailer had a go at this a while back. Here are the lists we came up with for literature. A surprising number of great writers are on the right.

I think there is a tension in the arts, or at least in literature. While artists tend to be very open towards the unconventional, in the end art almost always has to have some relationship to truth, and most truths tend to be rather conservative, broadly considered. So, for example, even a very left-wing guy like critic Harold Bloom suddenly becomes ultra-conservative when defending the Canon.

John - Dante wanted to return to a Constantine-like eternal Christian emperor, no?

Yeah, but Dante was a secularist who resisted the Pope. The Emperors were Christian in some sense but represented worldliness and secularity. I don't know what Dante's relation to the republican ideal was, but the free cities of N. Italy where he lived were "progressive", to the extent that the word had a meaning at that time.

In general though I would say that Razib's model is only usable or arguable at all after about 1750 or 1800, and it's a moving target even then because Enlightenment progressives were pretty conservative on issues like democracy and property rights. The American liberalism of today is less than a century old and specific to America, tracing back no farther than FDR.

i agree that the basal definition has issues.

The rise of The Left coincides rather well with the death of Great Art. Causal?

John, on the continent, a "liberal" is always a right-winger and it's not that unusual to be a liberal and a conservative. The word still means what it originally meant. Also, the Social Democrats are usually economically left but not so social left, the exact opposite of what a "liberal" typically is on the continent. The activist types usually don't care about economics beyond "big corporations are evil" and the Social Democrats aren't really more likely to legalize marijuana or illegalize Big Macs than the big right-wing parties. The Green party is the default for arty lefty types wherever you find a non-marginal Green party.

This is all only confusing to English-speakers with their two-party systems, of course. With proportional representation, the parties profile more obviously. Eg. we have a big right-wing party for successful people and a big right-wing party for hicks, so thinking about this is pointless. Successful people vote for the party of successful people, of course. Unsurprisingly, that is the right-wing party that is more nationalist than Christian, more urban than rural, more economic right than traditionalist right, for free trade rather than protectionism and so on. Smart people are very rarely seen in the ranks of the other big right-wing party, which favours all the opposites.

The rise of The Left coincides rather well with the death of Great Art. Causal?

meh, mass capitalism too, diverts energy to satisfy the base. other factors may be the decline in artisanship, craftsmen etc caused by the assembly line, ie fewer crafts, fewer giants emerge. also people with the Frederick Hart's g probably join google or something.

agnostic, the C-scale has been updated, by the way, and most people who use it (including the study I posted about) use the explicitly political questions.

Now, conservatism (as measured by conservatism scales, and correlating with both economic and social conservative political beliefs) in both Europe and the United States tends to have three components: fear of uncertainty, high authoritarianism, and tolerance of inequality. The third one is somewhat disputed in the literature, and the first two admit of individual differences, of course (conservatism scale scores correlate with authoritarianism scores around .6). Presumably, these personality traits are not recent, and while the terminology ("conservative" and "liberal") are pretty culturally and historically, there's little reason to think that the personality components are.

Also, the rise of liberalism did put an end to "high art," because it gave rise to consumerism, which is definitely the arch-enemy of high art. But it also gave rise to the industrial and technological revolutions, within which creativity was and continues to be celebrated.

within which creativity was and continues to be celebrated.

You can often tell a person's thinking is utterly contaminated by catchphrases when they use the word 'celebrated' to mean 'valued and respected'. I've never come across a person using the term in that way that hadn't abandoned clear thought for ideological posturing.

Caledonian, nice argument. I'm going to make up an analogous one on the spot, too. I've never come across a person using the phrase "ideological posturing" who hadn't abandoned all evidentiary reasoning for baseless generalization.

The difference is that you're making that up on the spot, while my statement is based off of experience.

It doesn't help that your behavior is entirely consistent with the correlation I mentioned, either.

As ScienceBlogs go, you're about the equal of The Frontal Cortex.

As per the scientific method of inquiry, I think we need to precisely define our terms in a way that meaningfully relates to general usage AND permits us to operationalize them. Until that's done, we can do all the studies we wish and not learn anything useful.

I see little indication that this study's definition of 'conservative' matches any of the current useful meanings attached to that term, except possibly the most superficial political one.

Wouldn't it be more useful to establish a clear, nonpolitical, and operationalized definition of 'conservative' first, and then see how well it predicts opinions on hot political topics?

Caledonian, if we were actually engaging in the scientific method here, we wouldn't be engaging in worthless generalizations and invectives. Maybe one of the earlier commenters who was actually interested in discussion will come back, but until then, I figure you're not worth the time.

Whenever a study that uses shoddy techniques and standards is given publicity because of its excitingly controversial "findings", the credibility of science as a whole suffers.

When the study seems to have been designed to lend credence to political positions, even more so.

And actively seeking to give such studies publicity... well.

John, on the continent, a "liberal" is always a right-winger and it's not that unusual to be a liberal and a conservative.

This is simply untrue. Depending on the country, each have a different view of what a liberal is. Liberal Democrats, for example, are commonly called "liberals," yet in many cases they are heavily social democratic, sometimes more so than the dominant labor or social democratic party.

Eg. we have a big right-wing party for successful people and a big right-wing party for hicks, so thinking about this is pointless.

This is a ridiculous viewpoint and says more about the ultra-leftist tendencies of the author more than anything else.

Chris - I think you make an excellent point that while conservatism moves, it always maintains a certain position relative to society. This pretty much invalidates arguments that being conservative is a moving target, and therefore is not a useful measure.

I have also noticed that conservatives tend to think more logically, and liberals more emotionally. I think that creativity often comes from deep emotions, so this may also be a factor.

However, if conservatives have not always been less creative than liberals, that would lend credence to the argument that people adop other peoples views, and if most creative people are currently liberal, people who spend time in creative fields will become liberal.

Grey Swan

This is simply untrue. Depending on the country, each have a different view of what a liberal is. Liberal Democrats, for example,

Uh, I said "on the continent". (Well, Russia does have a "Liberal Democratic" party, but that's just Russia. (It's an ultranationalist populist party whose main agenda seems to be screaming about various fantastical foreign/Zionist plots against Russia and starting fist-fights in the parliament.))

This is a ridiculous viewpoint and says more about the ultra-leftist tendencies of the author more than anything else.

Huh? I'm so solidly liberal that I wouldn't even dream of voting for a left-wing party unless Hitler himself returned from the dead to run against them.

I assure you that any educated person from my country, of any political persuasion, will know which parties you're talking about if you ask them about "the big right-wing party for successful people" and "the big right-wing party for hicks". Those are really common local stereotypes - and very much true. In a proportional election system these patterns become so obvious that discussions like this seem pretty silly. For one thing, high IQ people tend to be more successful and more successful people tend to be economically right for obvious reasons. High-IQ people tend to be in jobs that don't face obvious competition from lower wage countries, like low-skilled workers do, so they tend to feel more positive about free trade. And so on. There are lots of obvious reasons for high-IQ people to be economically in the right. Since there aren't any equally obvious factors linking IQ and orientation in social issues, whatever connection there is likely to end up overridden by the economic orientation.

In countries with a two-party system people may wonder whether it also means that high IQ people tend to be more social conservative, but the rest of us don't. Over here, both the left and the right divide into lots of parties and it's pretty goddamn obvious that stupidity and social conservativism are somehow linked. It's true both on the left and the right. It's most obvious on the tails - whenever smart people are seen flocking into a particular party, it's ABSOLUTELY NEVER a very social conservative party, even though it may be economically anything from center-left (like the Greens) to classical liberal (like, well, liberal parties).

I think creativity is maybe not the right word to use here. It seems like there's a focus on the arts although creativity is hardly confined to that realm.

Would people correlate liberalism with creativity if the creative activities were not writing poetry, painting, or crafts, but mathematical problem solving, computer program design, or materials engineering?