I agree, Dean's book provided a framework for understanding Conservatives that has real power: It explains things. That satisfies both my intellectual curiosity, at an abstract level; and also my more emotional need to understand the real people I know who are Conservatives.

For one thing, it helps distinguish different kinds of Conservatives. Not all Conservatives are authoritarian conservatives, and the Classic kind frequently exhibit a streak of antiauthoritarianism. The ideas Dean relates make sense out of the changes I've seen in the political rhetoric and behavior of the Right over the last couple of decades, as the evolution from Classic Conservatism to authoritarian conservativism.

Kind of amusing to think that these ideas are attractive to Liberals in part because they reveal that our opponents are strongly motivated by fear and insecurity, and those things reliably trigger the Liberal heart to start bleeding and try to make the pain go away. Lately when I've been arguing with authoritarian conservatives, I've frequently been moved to try to be reassuring, to put the threats into proper perspective and remind them of America's strengths. I've tried to reassure them that I'm not out to take away their money and harness them to plows on collective farms and take liberties with their wimmin-folk and burn their Bibles, and that nobody I know would ever do those things either.

They're sooooo stubborn about hanging on to their fears, though. Sometimes I despair of ever healing them, but then I'm stubborn in my own perverse way, too. Conservatives are from Mars, Liberals from Venus, and we'll be fighting about it until the end of time. What would we do without each other?