Reply With QuoteThis is new?
This may turn out to be nothing more than a bunch of modern Kipling, but I find it fascinating:
Doesn't seem at all far-fetched to me. I can definitely identify with being viscerally effected by messaging.We may tell ourselves that we believe welfare is just or that abortion violates the sanctity of life, but we’re really using borrowed language to express much more visceral attitudes, oriented around one of six moral dials—harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, liberty, and sanctity. Much of what passes for the daily scrum of electoral politics, he says, is merely an effort to find language that can help citizens justify these instincts. “Once people join a political team, they get ensnared in its moral matrix,” Haidt writes. “They see confirmation of their grand narrative everywhere.”
But the new science of primal politics goes quite a bit deeper than psychology. Over the past few years, researchers haven’t just tied basic character traits to liberalism and conservatism, they’ve begun to finger specific genes they say hard-wire those ideologies. If that work is to be believed, it would mean that an individual’s path to a political identity starts not with a series of choices but with long-ago genetic mutations, and that our collective experience of politics may be less a battle of ideas than a Darwinian contest in which we are all unwitting participants. After a team of geneticists claimed in a 2005 American Political Science Review article that they had evidence of DNA’s influence on politics, Duke political scientist Evan Charney rebutted that their findings “would require nothing less than a revision of our understanding of all of human history, much—if not most—of political science, sociology, anthropology, and psychology, as well as, perhaps, our understanding of what it means to be human.”
The thing most in need of revising may be our reflex for self-flattery. We revel in the idea that personal politics are perfectly deliberative, never more than in a year when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney—two dispassionate rationalists with great confidence in their skills of persuasion—will cross the country to win over their fellow citizens’ hearts and minds. But the comforting metaphor of a grand national debate to determine where the swing voters will end up has never seemed so out of sync with trending science. After all, what is the point of everything that happens between now and November 6 if our wiring dictates how we vote?
In senatorial and presidential elections, I've only voted for two Republicans my entire life, and in both cases, it had more to do with disliking their opponents than liking them as candidates. Yet, despite what is essentially a hyper-partisan voting record, every time I hear a Democrat speak in a way that is designed to fire up his or her base, I want to flee the scene in nausea, even anger. Sure -- I always dutifully come back in the end to fill in their bubble on the ballot, but it's more an exercise in ritual and necessity than love.
Basically, I consistently vote Democrat, but find Republicans far less annoying when they open their mouths. Even whey they say things I find patently retarded.
Lo and behold, my "moral dials," from highest to lowest would be: fairness, loyalty, authority, liberty, harm, and sanctity. No wonder those speeches, while utterly electrifying to so many of my friends, do nothing but annoy the living shit out of me!
Here's a descriptive rundown of those dials:
1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
3) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor.
4) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."
5) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
6) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
Last edited by Zordar; 04-09-2012 at 04:15 PM.
This is new?
Chachma v'Oz (04-09-2012)
A lot of this stuff has been researched since the late 1960s. However, the idea of intrinsic, hard-wired differences regarding things like morals (and politics) met heavy resistance in academia during the 1980s, and is only now being accepted and reaching the mainstream media.
This article is a rehash, but I still found it interesting -- especially the part about jazz and masturbation, or conservative women being more interested in sex. It was something I suspected, but haven't read before.
Last edited by Zordar; 04-09-2012 at 04:24 PM.
Ah yes. I have to remind myself that not everybody embraces a biological basis for political temperaments, to me it's obvious but it isn't for everyone. Just read the article. It was good. Good to see stuff like this being written about in mainstream media.Originally Posted by Zordar
The stuff about conservative women being more interested in sex doesn't make sense to me unless they're Christian, and then it makes perfect sense. Maybe you can explain that one to me.
Also Zordar, do you really think the Democrat party is really liberal?
This paragraph does a good job of explaining the pathology of the conservative brain:
As if we didn't already know that conservatives focus on the negative and liberals on the positive. Look at all their whining in lieu of constructive input.
It reminds me of another study that showed that homophobic men actually got aroused watching man on man porn.
I'm sure the link between homophobia and latent homosexuality has been established. I've also noticed, while I was in the Republican Party and more so since I've been on this forum, another tendency for those espousing conservative positions to have an aversion to/fear of strong, capable women. Sexual identity and comfort with it seem to be something of concern in those circles.
I wonder if therapy to relieve them of those issues would also allow them to see their other positions more objectively. It would certainly make things quieter and the work that needs to be done that much easier.
Damn, you're an ignorant man. Liberals believe that no one can manage his own life without their help. That's not only negative, it's extremely arrogant. Liberal policies are candy-coated rat poison that may appear appealing at first, but ultimately do a lot of damage to everyone impacted by them. That’s what happens when you back political policies based on how they make you feel about yourself.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
An truly ignorant man would call me liberal.
No, that's what YOU think liberals believe, but there's a huge difference between what you think liberals believe and what they really do believe. Trust me, you haven't got a clue.
Chachma v'Oz (04-09-2012), Malcolm Wright (04-10-2012)
I'll believe liberals have a clue when they start cutting social programs.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
That political identity thing is so retarded, I must respond! First of all none of the terms are defined! But let's take a crack at it!
They suggest "liberals" can feel yer payen! R U FLUCKING KIDDEN MEH! And "liberals" are therefore virtuous and kind and even want to feed me? ...As they take my money through taxation? Cognitive dissonance alert!Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
Another "evolutionary process."2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]A "liberal" wants all outcomes to be the same, therefore cheating is necessity. It is okay though, because it is for a good cause, everyone being the same. Fluck you "liberals!"
That is why freedom loving people dislike "liberals" because "liberals" are hellbent on inflicting THEIR ELITIST WORLDVIEW on EVERYONE! Fluck those conformist, flucktarded, megalomaniacal nutcases!3) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor.
Isn't interesting that "liberals" are the MOST tribal creatures! Fluck inbred, insecure gayness!4) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."
Respect for traditions? WTF? Who wrote this shit, Gangafreebird?5) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
Isn't funny, the retarded fluck who wrote this claims the society oriented characteristics are biological and the biological oriented characteristics are religious? Crazy.6) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
Last edited by Šñøü†ê®; 04-10-2012 at 07:11 AM.
Ignoring those who have dragged this down into the usual liberal/conservative pissing contest... yes I'm open to these sorts of conclusions. I don't find them disturbing at all. I believe our ultimate freedom is how we react to already established situations: the state of play of the planet during our existence here, and our genetic make-up is part of that established situation. I believe we have a duty to observe ourselves, our reactions - to temper those ingrained aspects of ourselves that harm the clarity of our perceptions from moment to moment, and to encourage those ingrained aspects of ourselves that enhance said perceptions. In a nutshell - we have a duty to not be reactionary whenever we can afford ourselves the leisure of not being so.
M
Corrigan (04-19-2012)
Well, that was nice and fluffy.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
Fluffy like the clouds that soar above your head? Apt description my man. Couldn't have said it better.
Look, I get it, you're pissy because you were caught trying to one-up the liberals again, in a thread that really ought to be above that. Up your game instead of blaming others - or stick to the threads that are actually just pissing matches, like that everyone's happy? Unless of course you're only happy looking for trouble?
M
It's totally contextual.Also Zordar, do you really think the Democrat party is really liberal?
Where I live, in the Portland metropolitan area, there is a distinct far-left, European flavor to most of our Democrats. Downtown Portland was remodeled in the 1970s after European models, in fact. I'd definitely consider "my people" to be liberals.
But if we're talking Deep South Democrat? Nah. they're merely less freakishly conservative than their Republican counterparts. Similarly, if we were to compare Democrats nationally to European standards, they'd be centrist to moderately left on social issues, and moderately right to solidly right on economic issues, depending on the country being compared -- not very liberal at all, really. But of course, they'd be pervert Bacchanalians compared to your average Bahraini liberal!
The only area in which American Democrats are solidly and consistently liberal in is their use of persuasive language. Analyze virtually any major Democratic speech, and you'll find them hitting the harm and liberty buttons over and over again -- and it often works, as their liberal-wired audience has a Pavlovian response to it. The only living exceptions to this that I can think of are Bill Clinton (who has always liked riding both sides of the fence), and the 2004-08 version of Obama. I don't think it's a coincidence that these bi-lingual speakers became presidents.
Snouter, you completely missed the point so badly that it's embarrassing.
GanjaFreebird (05-10-2012)
You live in a tiny world.
GanjaFreebird (05-10-2012)
No. Fluffy like a dead cat. I never have any trouble one upping liberals. The only problem I have with you is that you write copious amounts, yet say very little. I don't consider that upping ones game. Give us a little brevity, something succinct and worth reading.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
I live in the same world you do. Start acting like it.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
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