Social liberals have two basic approaches to social conservatism: mystification and triumphalism. Both reflect a failure of understanding--but more than that, an incapacity to understand, a will to ignorance that is best understood as a psychological defense.

For an example of mystification, let's look at a recent column by former Enron adviser Paul Krugman. He ponders the question of why Republican states tend to have higher levels of government dependency--as measured by the percentage of aggregate personal income that comes...