A Book to Help Liberals Understand Conservatives

If you're reading this blog, then you are probably a secular liberal like me (and you're most definitely WEIRD like me: Western and educated, from an industrialized, rich, democratic nation) and you probably need to read Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion . . . I've written about Haidt's basic ideas here in previous posts, but his book goes into much greater detail and also describes the experiments and readings that helped him to understand the different moral matrices that liberals and conservatives use to understand the world; essentially, conservatives care about more stuff than liberals-- while liberals tend to base their morality on the principles of fairness and harm, conservatives-- who do care about those values-- are also concerned with authority, purity and loyalty . . . so conservatives tend to understand how liberals view things better than liberals understand how conservatives view things; most of these moral characteristics are due to deep-seated personality traits, which are mainly genetic-- things like being open to new experiences and agreeable and neurotic, so there seem to be differences in liberals and conservatives at the most basic level; the book really enlightened me about the benefits of religion-- I wish I were religious, but like a typical liberal, I consider it a bunch of supernatural mumbo-jumbo that wastes your time and money-- but while religion may have started because we have a natural proclivity to see agency everywhere, whether it's a face in the tree or gods behind the thunder-- it has become a valuable asset for members, who experience happiness and social capital, give more to charity, belong to an in group, and have costly rules of purity and sanctity which bond them to other members of the group . . . while it will never work for me, I can see how groups of humans that had religion could have outcompeted groups that did not have religion (and Haidt presents an argument against the principles of the Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins new-atheist crowd, who see religion as a parasite that takes over human brain and eventually leads to things like suicide bombers-- Haidt makes a compelling argument that suicide bombers, who might need insipration from an in-group, are historically only in response to boots on the ground appression and more of a military tactic from a tribe than a radical response based on belief) anyway, the WEIRDER you are the more you see the world as individual objects and not groups until you might eventually try to boil everything down to one set of utilitarian rules, as Jeremy Bentham did . . . Haidt speculates that Bentham might have been autistic, a high-functioning systemizer with very little empathy that made morality into a formulaic algorithm which computes the greater good but does not think about the individual moral emotions within the context of the decision-- while this method might be a decent way to formulate policy, it's often political suicide (economists know that immigrants lead to a net gain in the economy, but apparently many conservatives don't care-- they are more considered with the rule of law and the sanctity of our borders) and it took a long trip to India for Haidt to recognize that other people and cultures place a much greater value on group morality, while everyone cares about liberty/oppression and fairness/cheating and care/harm, only conservatives truly care about loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation . . . and these are all more important to the group . . . at first, Haidt had a typical WEIRD view of India-- it had rigid social classes and gender roles, it was a sexist society that had limited mobility and a lot of unnecessary rules about eating and prayer, but then he saw that though things weren't as fair as in the West, the connections and order between groups was strong and that was what was valued . . . it's really hard, as a liberal, to put yourself into a conservative's shoes . . . it's hard to feel sanctity towards a religious text or a symbol or an institution that you think is silly, it's hard to find a love for authority when your deepest desire is to see authority subverted, and it's hard to value loyalty when you think it leads to racism and oppression, but if the liberals in our country don't come to understand this, then they are going to destroy their chances of making utilitarian policy changes that can lead to the greater good and instead will remain mired in partisan ugliness . . . Trump is easily explained in this context-- he wants to make America pure and great again, and return us to rule of law, he's an authoritarian figure, totally loyal to our country and nothing else . . . Haidt gives liberals a tool to understand that conservatives are not all insane racist lunatics, and are quite sincere in the things that they care about, things which often do increase social capital, especially in groups . . . it's not my cup of tea, but at least I understand things a bit more after reading this book and can empathize with the conservative point of view . . . and I can see the roots of my genetics in my children, who are open to experience and care about fairness and harm, but couldn't give two shits about loyalty, sanctity, and authority . . . even though my wife and I sort of try to value these virtues, as most parents do, even at the basic level of don't cheat, respect your teachers, and stop picking your nose . . . but none of it is working with them and they're going to end up as WEIRD secular liberals just like their mom and dad.

10 comments:

  1. I don’t consider myself a secular liberal.

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  2. I feel like I've read this sentence before, although it's too long to really qualify as a sentence.

    I went to what is likely the most conservative law school in the country, immediately after completing one of the most liberal degree programs, and I used to think I understood how both groups think. But trumpism threw all that law and economics stuff out the window and much like Jon Snow I now know nothing, at least with respect to political analysis.

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  3. al, you are the outlier.

    and haidt has a section on how libertarians are fairly similar to liberals in many ways, especially in regards to liberty and oppression-- libertarians don't care much about loyalty and sanctity and authority, just like liberals-- but libertarians also don't register high on the care/harm scale and liberals do-- they want the government to look out for people. i don't think trump appealed to these libertarians all that much (although he did promise to get rid of all regulations). i think trump appealed to loyal, America first, our borders and country are sacred, we need someone authoritative to take over and show the world who we are republicans.

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  4. thus the really stupid tariffs and potential trade war. all rational people know this is economic suicide (smoot hawley . . . anyone? bueller?) but if you're into those conservative morals then it's not, then it's establishing america as a separate and strong entity, despite economic repercussions.

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  5. Count me out of the secular liberal crowd as well.

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  6. I think it’s an interesting discussion. I have not read Haidt, but based on this “sentence” it feels like he falls into the trap of viewing the people’s political viewpoints from a binary perspective of liberal or conservative. To me, it’s the same trap that leads to polarized discourse in the media that plays into our sound bite world. In reality, the political views of most people is likely a lot more nuanced based on our genetic soup, socioeconomic position, and life experience.

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  7. I'm not a secular liberal either. But calling me "religious" feels funny too - at least out loud. And I know that may sound weird considering what I do for a vocation/living. I'm a good, strong Calvinist that way - strongly theo-centric, not very Jesus-y, a liberal, progressive Protestant, and while I haven't read this guy, I take issue with some of his claims....loyalty is definitely important to "social Gospel" types at least - in fact, they'd claim community and the need for one another is intrinsic to how we're all created. That's Bonhoeffer and Martin Buber and others' thinking and the idea that conservatives only cling to such is wrongheaded indeed. Plus, the political landscape seems so upside down now because the working class supposedly has latched onto Trump and his ideas, but the numbers reveal it is as much, if not more, those who are well-to-do who want the tax breaks he's providing with the roll-break of regs, and his rhetoric is just riling up small pockets of the population who are particular about specific things they fear like having guns taken and people who they're unfamiliar with (people of color, etc).. But I don't know much. I agree with Marls, this binary perspective is too simplistic.

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  8. you should read the book-- he goes into the simplicity of the binary perspective and his thesis is that it's a lot more complicated than that, but our political system breaks down into two categories and these categories roughly correspond to two sides of the psychological spectrum, when it comes to OCEAN, which are certainly well documented as the base genetic psychological traits. conservatives tend to be a lot more complicated morally than liberals and you guys who are pleading the "i'm more complicated" case seem to be more conservative.

    as a total liberal (in regards to haidt) i can't tell you how many things i don't care about that other people care about, and most of my good friends are very similar in this regard . . .

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  9. Interesting...maybe I’ll read it. Funny you said those pleading “it’s more complicated are more conservative”....I wouldn’t bet on it!! 😀

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  10. i probably should speculate about this stuff, it's always trouble . . .

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