What makes a liberal? Why are people conservative?

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers a fascinating look into how our moral psychology shapes us into who we are. Worth a look for anyone who has ever wondered, "How can they possibly think that way?" during a political discussion with someone of a differing belief system:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind...

Maybe if we started trying to understand where other people were coming from, we could stop having pointless pissing contests that go nowhere and actually all learn something from each other and our differences.

Or we can all just go back to being enormous cock-holes to each other. Just a thought.

Edit:

Here's a link to an article on the same subject, from which Charles Lane copy/pasted giant blocks of text a couple posts down.

Tags: cock-holes, conservative, liberal, moral, politics, psychology

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Permalink Reply by GodHatesTrash on July 27, 2010 at 3:28am

Headed to Montreal in French Canada next Monday to spend the day walking by the river, visiting the cathedrals, eating great food.

I used to live 30 miles from the border of Tennessee. Now I live 30 miles from the border of Quebec.

I prefer here. It's a different culture, for sure, not surprised that Goatboy doesn't like it.

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Permalink Reply by Van on July 27, 2010 at 5:44am

Really I don't have anything against the French. But they can be a little snooty at times. In the 80s when I was traveling through and camping in Quebec province a lot of people wouldn't speak to me because I didn't speak French. It may have had something to do with the English speaking residents of New Brunswick some of whom were quite obnoxious (Canadian rednecks).

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Permalink Reply by GodHatesTrash on July 27, 2010 at 7:27am

The English-French thing has a long history, including economic and religious repression on the part of the English. I know there was a movement at the time not to speak English, although in the countryside, many people never learn it.

I visited Montreal in 1973 and 1974. All the signs were in English, with smaller French translations on the bottom.

In 1976, Parti Quebecois won the provincial elections. Many English moved out. The PQ made French the primary language of Quebec.

Now you go to Montreal, and all the signs are in French. English signs are there, too, smaller and under the French ones. The restauranteurs are very happy to speak English to you, if they can. There are large immigrant populations from the former French empire - Haitians, West Africans, Lebanese, Vietnamese, etc.

Beats the crap out of Knoxville.

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Permalink Reply by Van on July 27, 2010 at 8:39am

Actually, I found the Quebec Province very beautiful. We stayed a few days in La Mauricie National Park. Visited Quebec City. Unfortunately at the time(1982) I believe there was a lot of tension between Quebec and English speaking Canada. I'm pretty sure most of the people I encountered could speak at least some English. It was more a point of pride not to. I took Spanish in high school and college, so it wan't much help. We did get a shout out on the street when someone saw our Virginia license plates. Had a breif chat in English, in which the person confirmed most people were able to speak English. But you know what? I didn't let it bother me. My nephew now goes to McGill University in Montreal.

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Permalink Reply by GodHatesTrash on July 27, 2010 at 10:12am

Quebec City is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been in. I went there for the second time last August. It is one of the few European-style walled cities in the Americas - Champlain began the construction of an old fortress that contains the old part of the city, and Quebec City sits looking down at the Gulf of St. Lawrence - the fortress is so high up you could practically throw cannon balls down on English ships.

Tourism is big there, and you won't find a waiter or waitress that can't speak English, and they will indulge your rudimentary French.

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Permalink Reply by Van on July 27, 2010 at 10:51am

I agree with you, it's a very beautiful city. Hope to go back there again someday.

Permalink Reply by Mary Chestnut on July 29, 2010 at 5:59am

I like that one very much. I'm one hundred percent behind it (and a first generation american of Dutch heritage.)

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Permalink Reply by Action Jeans on July 27, 2010 at 4:11am

I thought I would go ahead and provide a link to the article that Charles Lane copy/pasted from earlier:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/morals-authority-3775/

One thing that stood out to me from that article was this:

Conservatives understood them (liberals) a lot better than they understood conservatives.

On one level this makes perfect sense to me. Lakoff even gets a laugh in that video I linked when he recalls watching a speech by Dan Quayle and wondering why, as a professor of linguistics, he somehow couldn't understand what Quayle was saying.

In another way it's surprising to me, simply because that line brought to mind something else that seems to show that the opposite is true. I recently watched a documentary, Lord, Save Us From Your Followers (Which is actually really good. Everyone should watch it.) with a Family Feud-like game show that is arranged for the sake of the movie called "Culture Wars". It pit conservatives against liberals in an attempt to see which side understood the other better.

Now, I realize this isn't the most scientific demonstration (or the biggest of samples), but the Conservative teams got trounced.

So what do you guys think? Are you being understood by the people you disagree with? Are you having trouble understanding them?

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Permalink Reply by Charles Lane on July 27, 2010 at 6:20pm

No I understand you. You think it is easier to sell something for nothing than it is to sell hard work and personal responsibility.

It's the American left that thinks we got what we deserved on 9/11. It's the American left that wants the mosque at Ground Zero. No one can be pro-women's rights and remain silent about the metastasizing cancer that Sharia law is on women's rights. They say Conservatives are anti-equal rights for the races. I'm accused of racism every day of the week by the left on this site, yet what do we see out of the NAACP? We have videos at official NAACP functions that are racist, that are divisive, filled with rage and anger. We have the New Black Panthers. We have "La Raza," The Race.

We have heartfelt eulogies for Klan members like Robert "Sheets" Byrd from Bill Clinton. "Yeah, he came from the hills and the hollers of West Virginia. He did some things he regretted later in life. He made amends for them but he had to do what he had to do because he had to get elected...for you!" So they excuse a Klansman. He had to get elected. Who applauds organizations that divide us by race? It's not I. It's not I that divide people into groups. It's not I that sees, "Ah, there's a black! Ah, there's a black woman! There's a Hispanic woman! There's a Hispanic!" I don't see people that way; liberals do.

Who divides this nation into tribes? Who divides this nation into Jews, Indians, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, male ancestors of slave owners? Who is it that says a black is not "authentic" if there's no "slave blood" in the genealogy? It's not I. It's the left. Who is it that writes columns saying there's not enough real, genuine blackness in the Obama White House? It's not I. It's Maureen Dowd. Who's looking at the Obama White House and saying, "It's not black enough"? It's not I. It's Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Who wrote a column called "Obama the 'Magic Negro'" saying he's only going to get the support of whites 'cause they're guilty and they think they're going to assuage their guilt by voting for a black guy they don't even know?

It wasn't I. It was a leftist black guy named David Ehrenstein from the Los Angeles Times. It wasn't I. No big tent from these people. There are lots of little tents to accommodate all the tribes, but you gotta stay in your tent. "You Hispanics, you gotta stay there. We'll keep you, but you've gotta stay there. You can't join us in the ruling class." The left is there to keep them all angry, to make sure that they all have common enemies, and to sell 'em snake oil to make it all better. It's not I. And they say of all us conservatives, "You're just a bunch of Nazis. Bush is Hitler!" Well, who is the Nazi? Wouldn't that be a person who was a Nationalist Socialist and anti-Israel? Well, I'm not a socialist, and I'm certainly not anti-Israel. How in the world can I be a Nazi?

The left is closer to the politics of Nazis than I will ever be. The person who was a National Socialist and anti-Israel would be anti-capitalist; pro-nationalization of health care, banks, education, car companies; pro-Central Planning; and try to force Israel (against its will and history) to divide its capital, Jerusalem, and to cave in to all of its enemies. None of that describes me. It describes the left. Here is a leftist statist liberal, a person who believes that people should be treated differently according to their gender, the color of their skin, and their religion. Such as: Let's use NASA to help Muslims feel better about themselves in math and science, and let Muslims build Sharia law shrines anywhere they want and pretend that we don't know what that means.

Eric Holder believes, "Go ahead and build a mosque. Not only build a mosque, build a Sharia mosque -- and not only that, let's give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a trial in New York City to spew his hatred for this country for years, and let's spend a couple hundred million dollars a year on security to make it happen." Uh, that's a leftist. That's not me. The NAACP believes in using NASA to reach out to Muslims.

The NAACP has no problem with a mosque at Ground Zero. Their leader, Barack Obama, believes all that they believe. Barack Obama and his right-hand man, Eric Holder, believe that the New Black Panthers should not be prosecuted for violating the voting Civil Rights Act of white people, but white people should be prosecuted for violating the civil rights of blacks. I don't think that. Liberals do. Obama wants Jerusalem cut up by Israel's factions and given to the Muslims, and he has no problem with the mosque at Ground Zero or mosques that preach the virtues of Sharia law. In fact, we have to "reach out" to them. We have to show 'em that we mean 'em no harm. That's why.

Race, religion, gender, dividing us into tribes, preventing the United States from becoming a true melting pot. With the left as the chef here, we're just a bunch of different ingredients, never meant to blend together into the same recipe to become one fantastic dish. It's an incredible backwards, non-progressive, destructive way to view and manipulate people. Either we are equal under the law or we are not. Either character is more important than skin color or it isn't. Either women have "come a long way, baby," or they haven't, but that's who the left is. Their policies, their organizations, their behavior all define them, and all defy their self-descriptions. That's why if I was the person you say I am, I would be a liberal. Liberals are the ones who divide. They're the racists. They're the bigots. They're the sexists.

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Permalink Reply by Action Jeans on July 27, 2010 at 7:05pm

I think you might be missing the point of my question. Of this thread actually.

This isn't the "Let's take a laundry list of issues that you have an axe to grind over and just get super pissed like every other thread" thread.

This is the one where we try to understand each other as we would want to be understood.

Clearly you want to be understood, right? Or you wouldn't start so many threads and make so many long posts, correct? By whom do you wish to be understood, though? Knowing the answer to that would really help this conversation move forward.

Do you want to simply preach to the choir? To rally support around you from the like-minded, to reassure you of what you already believe? Do you wish to appeal to those that disagree, in hopes of turning them around to your way of thinking? Do you simply want to let people know that you're mad as hell and you aren't going to take it anymore? Is this just a way for you to vent and let off steam?

Are you ever unsure of what you believe? Are you ever ambivalent?

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Permalink Reply by GodHatesTrash on July 27, 2010 at 8:36pm

Now now, Action. Goatboy is never ambivalent.

He is too stupid to be ambivalent.

Confused, always. Ambivalent, never.

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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on July 27, 2010 at 9:22pm

I think he understands the point of this thread very well, better than you do. You want to start the discussion after you define two groups. Others take issue with the discussion where it starts, the premise that there must be groups.

It's the Left that wants to classify us. I believe it was you with which I had that amazingly fun argument over how one should define "black". The thread ended up with the statement that blacks are those that identify themselves as black. On that basis I am still classifying myself as Hawaiian because when my people declare their independence, I'm declaring my own state around my house. Governor Hillbilly. I like the sound of that.

When was the last time you directly criticized an individual you generally agree with for their language or tone? Not made some vague Obamaesque academic general statement but took issue with a particular person. I think that would go a long way.