Two people I respect, each of them coming into the world with very different points of view, have separately turned me on (in various media) to the work of Jonathan Haidt, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. I suppose you could look upon it as a kind of intervention.
Haidt strikes me as one of those cheerful and industrious academic liberals of the very best sort – bright and affable, earnestly trying in his own way to get to the bottom of one of life’s enduring mysteries: Why on earth would anyone vote Republican?
He does so not merely out of academic anthropological interest – though there are, to be sure, charmingly Fossian elements in his “Conservatives in the Mist” narrative – but rather because if we’re ever going to get anything done in this absurdly bifurcated world of ours, we’ll have to understand what motivates the conservative mind. The better, you know: To change it.
Being a psychologist (rather than an economist, say) he uses the closest tools at his disposal:
(We) can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer “moral clarity”—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.
If this seems at a glance more than usually reductive, auto-normative and self-serving – the casual reader is left to wonder what an ordinary fear of uncertainty, change and death is, and where one goes to get calibrated – do not give up hope. It does get better, and Haidt at least never loses his seemingly genuine affection and even sympathy for the objects of his study. Not for him that liberalism that loves humanity, but hates people. (For fellow travelers less generous in spirit, read the comments that follow Haidt’s essay.)
Haidt believes that there are five domains to morality. The first two, upon which everyone seems to agree, revolve around harm/care and fairness/reciprocity. It’s wrong to harm others and good to care for them, while it’s important to be fair in order to reap a reciprocal fairness. Which is fair enough (beg pardon) as far as it goes, but Haidt argues that – where conservatives are concerned at least – it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Added to those first two value sets for the conservative mind are considerations of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. Questions impinging on those domains do not much budge the needle for the progressive mind but do evoke strong reactions in conservatives. When we say that liberals “just don’t get it,” according to Haidt, these are the “its” that they’re not getting. (Follow the link to an online questionnaire that will sort you into your proper, five-axis bin).
Read Haidt’s article – or if you prefer, watch a video of one of his speeches – to understand how he uses these terms. The Reader’s Digest version is that as a conservative constructs the latter three palisades of his value structure alongside the generally agreed upon first two (bearing in mind that it’s not his fault that he’s over-building), he encases himself in a mental prison from whence he cannot escape. Without, you know, the well-meaning assistance of correct-thinking progressives who – and this is key! – understand how he built it. Thus it is that 51% of the country could decide in 2004 that it was better to persevere to victory in a foreign war against a brutal terrorist enemy than vote in their own self-interest. As defined by other people.
It’s always dangerous to peer inside a man’s soul, especially for those of us that haven’t got PhD’s in psychology and aren’t teaching at the University of Virginia. But it seems to me possible – just barely – that the cognitive and ideological lenses Dr. Haidt brings into his study color his perceptions not merely of the data he has gleaned, and the analysis he draws from those data, but of the very questions that he asks when he raises his eyes from the Elysian fields of Charlottesville to study the picaresque rustics down the road in Lynchburg.
It’d be a little too glib to ask Haidt whether there is partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to not make up their minds, while simultaneously making them fond of anarchy and foolishly casual about topics like change, uncertainty and death. I submit that what Haidt misses about the conservative mind is not where it ends up, but rather where it begins: Our fundamental way of framing the universe, our understanding of good and evil. God stuff.
Oh, not necessarily capital “g” god – there are plenty of atheist conservatives – but rather our understanding of The Good (however defined) as contrasted to its opposite. Philosophy, in other words. Some of it explicitly religious – for what is any religion but a philosophy for seeking the good? – but none of it necessarily so.
This is all of it the source of our culture wars; abortion, gay marriage and diversity fetishes vs. God, guns and bitter clinging. E pluribus unum, and so on.
Liberals, I believe, tend to think that good and evil are internal perceptions, personal and relative. Conservatives on the other hand tend to believe in a Platonic form of good and evil that exists separately and apart from our perception of it, immutable and unchanging. “If it feels good, do it” vs. “seek the good and do it.” In time Haidt gets around to an academic appreciation of religion – or philosophy, if you prefer - even if only as a fascinating detour around the main body of his work. Conservatives start there.
Thus, those things that Haidt imputes upon conservatives; a certain rigidity of thought, the appreciation of order drawn from chaos, our several inordinate fears, might be viewed through a different set of cognitive lenses as a philosophical underpinning to our moral understanding of the universe. Critics will call such a thing “ideological” as though 1) an examined ideology is inherently evil, or 2) any substitute put forward is not intrinsically ideological in its own right – the substitution of one value set for another.
Conservatives know that however deeply you analyze an issue eventually you will have to either make a choice based on imperfect understanding of the facts or else resign yourself to inactivity. When forced to make that leap of faith – to finally choose, to commit to that choice – it helps to have a road map that makes a distinction between good choices and bad, along with the will to actually make those distinctions. Anarchy only sounds like fun until you’ve spent some time living it. The only people truly unafraid of death are psychotics, those who’ve never brushed up against it and/or are too shallow to have really considered the implications of it all and the deeply religious.
Which one is not like the others?
When it comes to religion, I have to admit that I share a common understanding with Haidt: Fundamentally (and leaving aside the self-actualization benefits: religious people tend to be much happier than the secular among us) it serves the necessary minimum purpose of enforcing social order. If there exists a separate Good and Evil outside our perception of it it, a moral person, family, clan, tribe, city, county, state, world ought to seek out the Good in a collective way. If there is not, if morality is contingent upon the best good for the individual (and is enforceable only when he is concerned he that might get caught), there are nearly no limits as to what can be rationalized. We see the consequences of this every day from sociopaths, hedge fund managers and other disaffecteds because there simply aren’t enough policemen in the world, and the rest of us wouldn’t like it so much if there were.
So it comes down to this: A guarded acceptance of the inherent limitations of the human animal – his imperfectability, if you will – on the one hand against a precious (if historically freighted) notion that if a smart and well-intentioned group of elites really applied themselves to the world’s problems (always defined by their own value set) society would progress. Unintended consequences are a regrettable part of the overhead. Previous, hideously failed experiments to reshape man’s nature were well-intentioned but imperfectly calibrated. Just let the new gang hammer away at it for a while.
Well, good luck with building that thing up another level. Knock yourselves out. Wonder what it’s going to look like when you’re done. Wonder what it’s going to cost. And don’t send me the bill.
I’m sticking with what works.
Update: Words that have never before been uttered in the same breath: Read Whittle – he’s shorter.
Conservatives seem to genetically understand that civilization is like a house. To be strong and resolute, it requires a solid foundation, one that digs down to bedrock for a firm surface and builds up from there. That way, when bad things happen, the structure can still be easily rebuilt where it had stood.
Liberals? Not so much. They tend to build fancy complex houses up on the bench of the hillside, where the view is better and folks can admire their good taste and avante-gard choices. That their house is built on shale, detritus from erosion, or shifting sand is of no concern. When the house collapses, it’s a long and arduous search for a new location, a new design, and “who is to blame for letting us build here, anyway?” rather than a quick rebuild and let’s get on with life.
Just sayin’…..
The road to wisdom starts with acknowledgement that there is such a thing as absolute evil in the world and it does exist, and that it will always exist.
If you refuse to recognize that, and insist that everything is relative, well then, you’ll never find your way.
There are other accoutrements such as the tragic fallibility of man along the road but the bed rock is to know that some things are not only wrong, they are absolutely evil. I’d put Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Lucifer/Satan in that category–and if you give me a few minutes I can think of some more with my rigid mind. Maybe the good professor from Charlottesville can come fix me.
Absent an immutable standard, no one gets to call anything “good” (They can, but there is no rational means of defending the position.)
Shoulds and should nots can always be reduced to “says who?”, and if it is simply consensus, then the answer to that is “so what”. At that point, the warm fuzzies go out the window and all shoulds/should nots can then only be accomplished by force. The old joke is when someone says that everything is relative, knock them down. When they complain, ask then if it was wrong to do so. Repeat as needed.
Liberals/leftists/statists are not fundamentally against authority, just authority in any hands but their own.
Since I have too much to do today to work on my ‘cognitive inflexibility”, I guess I’ll limit my comments to saying
(1) BS,
(2) Dems use of ‘reason’ is hilarious if that’s the excuse they use for voting for the “more experienced” guy (Obama) and support him by trashing “Bushhitler” (now THERE is “reason” for you!) who isn’t even running, and
(3) what a crock that it’s conservatives who are “cognitively inflexible” . . . it seems to me from readily observable behaviors that it’s the Lefties that have moved much further left over the years while the right has, for the most part, moved closer to the positions that were liberal, i.e., JFK positions; racial equality being another good example. But the Lefties cannot stand to be near any conservative so they knee-jerk off the far left just so as to be opposed to anything the right agrees with. Seems to me that any cognitive problems are the good liberal, I mean, “progressive”, professor’s in that he can’t see the forest for his bias. But then, I”m not a professor at a big name college. (But my college football team did for sure well and truly kick butt on his school’s team.
)
To paraphrase Christopher Buckley, can you imagine a world repopulated by liberal progressives? The living would envy the dead. Of course that’s how it worked out in every socialist workers paradise in the last century.
Ages ago, whilst working on my Master’s using Cognitive Psychology modes and models to explain how 3rd Generation software can get so damned complicated (a Bad Thing), I read several tracts explaining why conservative minded people seem so inflexible. I came to realize the authors, to an individual or team, do not count what Orthodox Christian theology has taught for 2,000 years: Man has a soul and Spirit and, therefore, we are not animals. Psychologists deny Man’s unique relationship with his Creator; to them we are mere upright animals.
Using the psychologist’s models against them, it would follow that, if we are mere animals, the Left’s desire for ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!’ should be reduced to the bare essence. They’re litter runts trying to get whatever else their litter-mates get. Since they can’t, they whine, cry and sulk in a corner.
Conflating morality, religion, and politics usually leads to trouble… including divisive stances of one’s self-absorbed moral superiority, and to class warfare.
However, Liberals and Conservatives are indeed hardwired differently – especially in their respective responses to fear.
[Unfortunatley, my link won't work -- but see Timesonline 9/19 article - "How scary is this spider? That may depend on your politics"]
Oh, come on fliterman: Let’s have a serious discussion. God knows I’ve left enough dangling there to seize upon. And in any case, how on earth is a person of faith to avoid conflating religion and morality? Having done so, how can s/he not let it influence his or her politics?
BTW, Haidt’s article seemed to suggest that conservatives are more morally nuanced than liberals – wouldn’t you agree? Three more axes and all. While class warfare is a leftish boogeyman – over on this side we don’t give it much thought.
OK, I admit that wasn’t particularly serious. But I do find the “aren’t they curious, these conservatives?” brand of academic sophistry a little off-putting, all the more so for its apparent self-seriousness.
I’ve read your study, and from my own perspective it’s non-dispositive on its own merits. Perhaps conservatives are a bunch of scared-of-their-shadows willy-weenies. Or perhaps they are merely more perceptive about the nature of a threat.
Just a quick perusal of the above leaves me with the same impression of leftist condescension to those who disagree with their world views, more specifically, attaching a genetic “defect” label to it in order to further marginalize those who see the world differently. And to continue to feel that they know best. At some point, they may even try to identify said gene in order to abort any child with potentially conservative tendencies. It is the next step.
#8 lex – Oh, come on fliterman: Let’s have a serious discussion. God knows I’ve left enough dangling there to seize upon. “
Yes you certainly did. But it was a little overwhelming today (see # 7 below), so I only made a fleeting pass-through.
But here’s some added comments……
1. Not all societies conflate morality and religion. The ancient Greeks kept their religious beliefs of their gods totally separate from their discourse of morality and “natural shame.” Buddhism explicitly teaches an entire independence of moral code from any belief in God. Many primitive societies have strict social and moral codes that have no relation to their superstitions or religion. Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative was disassociated from religion.
While a religion often influences a society’s moral code, and vice versa, there is no essential need to do so.
2. While I admit many do allow their religious beliefs to greatly influence their political beliefs, I personally do not. I suppose it’s a Liberal thing, eh? Nonetheless, I do seriously allow my views on morality and ethics (which are not synonymous) to influence my politics.
3. I will have to read Haidt’s article again, but I saw nothing to support that Conservatives are more “nuanced” than liberals. It has certainly been my experience that Conservatives mostly see things in a black-and-white, right-or-wrong, binary, two-positioned-switch world as opposed to Liberals who run the gamut in their worldview.
4. While I also would be mildly perturbed if the Right said of me, “aren’t those liberals curious,” trust me, it is far better than being called a lefty, pinko, commie, moonbat, etc. But still of little concern.
5. “Perception” is in the eye of the beholder.
6. I enjoyed your since-corrected typo of Haidt’s name. I didn’t know if it was a Freudian slip, or intentional, as in that old and failed monument to ’60’s liberalism – Haight-Ashbury.
7. For some reason, I can no longer post links here – either by URL or Html link – it seems to send it to your spam-locker. Ideas?
8. Our more-liberal-than-me, daughter is taking my wife and I out for dinner tonight. It’s my birthday. And we’ll talk many other things than politics. So if I need to add another reply here, it won’t be for some time.
V/R
It’s actually quite simple. Let me try some of his own “analysis.” Liberals are drawn to non-scientific fields and assume that what they are doing is scientific. They often in fact, self-assumedly, say they are being scientific. When in fact they are not.
Thus, when their non-science produces a result that is not in line with their “theory” there must be a flaw in the subjects of study.
A case in point: political science.
Happy Birthday Fliterman
Many Happy Returns Flit. All the best!
Happy Birthday Fliterman. Many happy returns.
And indeed, while I got excellent grades in Psych in college, I found it to be the most useless, least rigorous courses I took.
We are seeing conservative thought go from a mental illness, to a moral defect, to a genetic defect. Why is that? Because the the presumption that drives these “studies” is that there is something wrong with conservatives, let’s find out what it is.
Allen,
You speak better than you know. So many of the PlSci and Econ textbooks I read started out with stated assumptions; the first usually saying, “Assume all states to be rational actors.” This is fine for advancing theories that don’t work in the real world but less helpful when trying to change the lug nuts at the policy implementation level where one finds very very few rational actors.
I see Karl Rove is now a pundit at FOX and I enjoy his insights into the political race. He appears to be a man who really grasps the underlying threads that motivate an entire population and he never has, that I’ve seen, dismissed as erroneous or stupid or idiotic those notions that drive the democrats. He understands them better probably then he understands republicans. He probably uses statistics though so I’ll never read anything about the process he uses.
I have now reached the point where I associate liberals with progressives with socialists with communists. Each appear to want the government to own the means of production and distribute from each according to his ability to each according to his need. Naturally, they get to determine the neediness of the needy and the extent to which those with ability must contribute and despite endless evidence that this does not work, are committed to trying it again and again and again.
Builders and levelers. Near the end of the last millennium an anarchist (a liberal) killed a conservative and tossed the whole western world into war that destroyed much and placed much of what remained in the hands of serial reformers who followed some very liberal policies: national socialism, fascism, and communism. Liberals elect to find a difference between them but none of them was democratic and none of them tolerated the slightest disagreement. never mind, our host is going to tell me to get my own blog….:)
Happy Bday, Fliterman.
BTW, your comment reminds me … Scott, apropo that FineFettle thread, I do believe I have heard the term ‘moonbats’ used a fair bit around here to describe those on the left. Admittedly, including times when some on the left have been acting as loony as said moonbats.
Okay, okay, I happen to agree with you all on occasion. So shoot me.
This is all way too deep for me to delve into-except for that last part-about sending Lex the bill. That is a philosophy I can subscibe to. Want to pay by check or credit card?
I’ve seen it alleged before that so-called “conservatives” are more rigid and inflexible than so-called “liberals”. I don’t buy it for one second. I was in academia for 12 years (undergrad and grad school), and I will tell you now that, while just about every academic I knew would have called themselves a “liberal” and would have supported all the standard boilerplate liberal issues (pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, vehemently anti-Bush), they were also some of the most rigid, inflexible, dogmatic and intolerant people I’ve ever met in my life. (Also among the most hierarchical.) Simply the fact that they pulled the lever marked “D” every election instead of that marked “R” did not change that.
I have seen more diversity of opinion and more openness to changing one’s mind on the blogosphere and on a few boards I hang out with than I ever did in academia.
Lex,
Elysian Fields is a street in New Orleans, you mean there are other places? (It leads straight from the French Quarter out to the lake-front campus of the Univ. of New Orleans, so I’m guessing academic types like Haidt
would believe that such a street is aptly named as long as it’s terminus is a university campus. Of course, looked at another way the road leads directly to that ultimate loci of sin and perdition nested in the heart of New Orleans, so it might be a bit iffy for academic types from old Virginny.)
I read the Haidt article a few days ago from a link someone provided during a discussion over at Crooked Timber. My only addition to Lex’s thoughts is to suggest Haidt read himself some of the philosopher Eric Voegelin, who, in his study of the Gnostics and Gnosticism and those who believe themselves to be holders of ultimate truth or “the word” (or as Thomas Sowell says, “The Vision of the Anointed”) from the time of the birth of Christ to the present concludes by stating that: “The end result of ‘progressive’ politics and social action is totalitarianism.” One doesn’t have to listen very long to the plans that the left
purpose for us in the name of “the public safety” to find it within one’s self to agree.
Happy B-day, Fliterman!
Colagirl,
I hear you 5X5. I nearly walked away from college before finishing. I was so frustrated by the lock-step political crap, and the intrusiveness of it all into the classroom.
In one history class, there was literally a row of empty chairs down the middle of the class which divided the left from the right. On the left were those who were 22 or so and younger. On the right were those who were late twenties and older. The difference in attitudes was striking based upon those who had been in school all their lives, and those who had been out in the real world.
One of the most telling examples I have witnessed regrading how clueless many students are was when the GBLT cult was going from class to class passing out pink triangles to show support for a “GBLT Studies” program and major they wanted to have started up.
Just to pique my interest, I asked the GBLT crew, and those on the left of the class where the idea for the pink triangles came from. Not a one of them, as God is my witness, could answer the question. I was floored.
To my own mind, the real worth of our college and university degrees is best summed up by two automobiles and their drivers. My doctor, who is an excellent one, drives a Ford Taurus. My Plumber, who is also top notch, drives a new Lexus. I can usually get an appointment with my doctor when I need one. My plumber? Not so much…..
Just sayin’
More on the Pink Triangle here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle
Well, happy birthday fliterman. Hope you and the clan had a good meal. We’ll wait for you of course.
Not going anywhere.
And don’t take it personally on the spam filter – it’s been acting up. If you’ve had a problem, PM me and I’ll haul it out of the moderation queue. In time, the system might even learn to trust you
Ya knocked that one out of the park, Lex, and by the time it went out of sight there was a red glow and smoke trail behind it, like one of those old Sprint missiles.
Excellent work, Dr. Lex. Now if I could only get my own brother to read and understand, then my vote would actually count instead of merely neutralize.