The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

[astonas]

In the spirit of seeking a better understanding of where everyone's coming from, this TED talk points to some fundamental differences in perspective.

I suspect that when these are more broadly and fully understood, partisanship may not be as insurmountable as it appears today:

Jonathon Haidt: the moral roots of liberals and conservatives

I'm curious to see what here people think.

[Woodsman]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

I'm curious to see what here people think.

I think it is bullsh!t of the self-serving right-wing variety. If the intent is to find someone relatively neutral, why then hitch your wagon to a Wall Street "business ethicist" who clearly self-identifies as a conservative.

Haidt admits his loyalties in the book that informs this TED talk, The Righteous Mind. In it he details his transformation from a liberal to a conservative following 9/11 when “the attacks turned me into a team player, with a powerful and unexpected urge to display my team’s flag and then do things to support the team, such as giving blood, donating money, and yes, supporting the leader.”

Here Haidt typifies the fear driven conservative and nationalist, quick to embrace the hive mind, the irrational, the immoral and whatever else is required to assuage fear. If Haidt acknowledged that it was fear that turned him into a member of an unthinking, frightened herd, we might learn something new. Instead, he holds up his experience as some form of enlightenment. Truly bizarre.

The moral life requires a radical individualism combined with altruism. For Haidt the highest value is conformity with the hive, yet history is replete with individuals held up as moral exemplars who stood in defiant opposition to the mores and values of the crowd. Christ was crucified by the authorities for standing apart, not conforming. The Disciples were tormented and killed because they called for a radical departure from existing morality. And in our own time, our martyrs are put to death because of their threat to the status quo. But to Haidt and the people who pay him to develop this high-falutin' cant, morality is the domain of the crowds.

This is no neutral attempt to rationally discern the source of ideology, but yet another ploy by ideologues on the right to convince you that the piss they pour on your shoes is really rain.

[jmdpet]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

Didn't watch the video but I have read Haidt's book. I thought it presented a useful model for the moral foundations underneath political leaning. I'm not what you'd call a conservative but I didn't feel there was a lack of balance.

[astonas]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

Thanks, Woodsman and jmdpet, for your input.

I haven't read anything by Haidt before, and didn't know anything about his background, so I'm glad to learn a little more about it. The fact that his work is being funded by, and used to support, activities that all sides of the political spectrum on iTulip appear to decry as obviously wrong should certainly be taken into account.

Just from his talk alone, however, I didn't come away seeing particularly unbalanced advocacy. The tragedy of the commons, for example, is a legitimate concern in structuring a government. The linking of rights with responsibilities is a similarly valid point to make, for both sides of the political spectrum. And he does end by pointing out that he doesn't want to stop people from struggling to improve the lot of the disadvantaged, but rather to provide a way to do so from a place of humility, rather than self-righteousness. It isn't obvious to me that this is bad advice, for anyone trying to be effective in changing other people's minds.

My own opinion has long been that people in general value the same basic set of things, but their prioritization and emphasis of each does vary, and accounts for much of the (often amplified) differences between them. For this reason, Haidt's approach did resonate with me.

However, I would also agree with Woodsman that the work has its flaws. One I noticed was that he proposes a breakdown into five independent categories, when the data seems to support only two major trends, eg. two flavors of "fairness" and three of "social conformity" with subdivisions that may be intuitive, but remained numerically unsupported.

I nonetheless thought it interesting that one of the main distinctions between liberals and conservatives is openness to experience, and one of the outcomes of the differences is manifested in a willingness to trade individuality for a shared social identity.

I wrote the OP mostly because I was wondering if some of the conservatives on this site agree, whether they have noticed that they are more willing to adopt a shared identity than their more liberal and centrist counterparts. And similarly, whether the liberals found they embraced their individuality more than centrists and conservatives.

The question of whether that is a good thing for society is a separate question, which I expect will be more controversial (and thus perhaps less illuminating) but it can certainly be addressed as well. Woodsman has already provided a passionate summary of the case for individuality as a force for good. Do any of the similarly passionate conservatives here have a defense for the prioritization of the group over the individual? I'm not looking for a conflict per se, but am genuinely interested in seeing the case made, and have every intent to treat it with respect.

Or do those on the right here lean more libertarian than classically conservative, and thus fundamentally disagree with the need to support an existing social structure, be it right or wrong? In that case, maybe there isn't really a disagreement to be found here at all.

[astonas]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

For Haidt the highest value is conformity with the hive, yet history is replete with individuals held up as moral exemplars who stood in defiant opposition to the mores and values of the crowd.

I hadn't noticed that he was placing this above all others, only that he was listing it as one of five attributes.

Is his book more explicit about this? If it is, then perhaps this work does need to be regarded more critically. Conformity over all else is a pretty hard case to make, and should indeed call into question the author's sensibility.

[Rajiv]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

Astonas --- the "Tragedy of the Commons" was an hypothesis and model put forward by Garrett Hardin. It turns out that there is no historical basis to this hypothesis, but rather only a biologist's belief that all living beings only act for selfish purposes. Hardin's stance has been very well debunked by historical facts. See - The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons, The Fallacy of the Tragedy of the Commons, "The Tragedy of Common Sense, Part One: The Power of Myth" (A Critique of Garrett Hardin) and "The Tragedy of Common Sense, Part Two: From Ideology to Historical Reality" (A Critique of Garrett Hardin)

[LorenS]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

I watched the video. It was pretty clear to me that he was trying to convince a room full of liberals that conservatives were not evil idiots.


I didn't read his book, so I can't comment on any deeper agenda on his part.


9/11 turned me into less of a nationalist. I was disgusted when 70% of our population wanted to bomb someone, anyone, just because they were angry. I still don't see anything "conservative" about bombing a country just because you're angry. I wanted to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Most of my fellow citizens just wanted a good, made-for-TV, war.

[vt]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

No one wanted to bomb a country, total BS.

The U.S. enlisted the Northern alliance, a group of anti Taliban tribes, to defeat the Taliban for a time early in the war.


['After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Taliban were overthrown by the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. Later it regrouped as an insurgency movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).^[44] The Taliban have been accused of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals.^[45][46] According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 75% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.^{[47][48][49]"}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Alliance

Americans wanted to go after and defeat Al Qaeda, not "a country"

[LorenS]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

No one wanted to bomb a country, total BS.

The U.S. enlisted the Northern alliance, a group of anti Taliban tribes, to defeat the Taliban for a time early in the war.


['After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Taliban were overthrown by the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. Later it regrouped as an insurgency movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).^[44] The Taliban have been accused of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals.^[45][46] According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 75% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.^{[47][48][49]"}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Alliance

Americans wanted to go after and defeat Al Qaeda, not "a country"

I was referring to Iraq. I was agnostic on Afghanistan, I felt it was borderline justified and likely to fail.

[vt]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

Loren,

I fully agree on Iraq. As seen from the vote on the war, both sides of the political fence were hell bent to go in.

I regret the confusion on what you were referring to.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

The U.S. enlisted the Northern alliance, a group of anti Taliban tribes, to defeat the Taliban for a time early in the war.

Hah the Taliban! Yes, the Taliban who only care about Afghanistan, keeping their religious and cultural identity forged over 2500 years of invaders to their land (which yes the Aryan tribes settled in 1500-500 bc) and not outwardly attacking other nations were trying to wage war against the largest military power in the world.

The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11, IMO.

The Afghani's havent had their land truly conquered since Alexander the Great in 330BC which that took a marriage between Alexander and the daughter of the King of Bactria, Roshanak to incorporate their land into Alexanders empire. And even then I wouldnt call that being conquered.

Fun tidbit for iTulip, the name Roshanak made its way into the English language as the name Roxanne.

[lektrode]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

Loren,

I fully agree on Iraq. As seen from the vote on the war, both sides of the political fence were hell bent to go in.

I regret the confusion on what you were referring to.

IMH (and uneducated) opinion...

looking at the sitch 13 years out, its real easy to monday morning quarterback on EVERYTHING thats happened since that fateful day in september 2001

which CHANGED EVERYTHING in terms of the various 'chess games' that have been played since saddam attacked iran, attacked kuwait, gassed the kurds etc - and THEN flatly refused to simply back off from the brink that HE AND HE ALONE brought the mid east up to - after telling the UN security council to take a hike, not once, but numerous times over the prev, what - decade+ ? - and then somewhat comically (tragically) misjudged geedubya/rumsfeld&co's (and dont forget BOTH houses of congress + the 'coalition' ) determination to shut him down - IN THE AFTERMATH OF 11sep2001 ?

and had the clinton admin NOT considered the actions of osama&co - along with first bombing of the WTC/NYC - in the mistaken and outright FALSE context of a 'law enforcement' issue instead of what it actually and truly was -
as an ACT OF WAR?

things would MOST CERTAINLY have turned out differently since (and we wont even get into what occurred in 1999)

and after the abandonment of iraq, i'm still looking for any rationale to STILL be in the afghan quagmire

bottom line question, IMHO ?

does anybody in the current regime have ANY CLUE WHAT TO DO NEXT - about ANYTHING?

''liberals" or "conservatives" both seem hellbent on following their same twisted logic paths

we need an ENERGY GAMECHANGER - and we need it NOW
(and more trillions in deficits - that serve mostly to fatten the profit margins of 'the bookies' - to subsidize incremental 'improvements' in 'alternatives' that have got us all the way upto single-digit %'s of demand over the past 20years aint NEVER gonna get it PERIOD, never mind 'soon enough')

[lektrode]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

....
Fun tidbit for iTulip, the name Roshanak made its way into the English language as the name Roxanne.

[yernamehear]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

This video was as I feared; the presenter is deeply into modern "concepts" (which are not very well tested), and shows no sign of really understanding the issues. I am pretty familiar with the "conservative" side (as it is called nowadays), and somewhat similarly with the so-called "liberal" side.

You can't even have this conversation without examining Adam Smith's ideas, which by the way are about 250 years old now (at least his version(s)). The tendency towards empathy, sympathy, local control, etc., have been well examined...especially back then, by Smith. Some of the newer psych studies are interesting, but are very narrow in their application. This guy is typical- thinks history started the day he was born.

Most people don't even know that Smith, the father of free market theory (along with some other contemporaries), was really a moral philosopher and derived his economic theories largely based on his interpretation of moral philosophy. If you really want to know the "roots", I suggest you look there.

[astonas]

Re: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

This video was as I feared; the presenter is deeply into modern "concepts" (which are not very well tested), and shows no sign of really understanding the issues. I am pretty familiar with the "conservative" side (as it is called nowadays), and somewhat similarly with the so-called "liberal" side.

You can't even have this conversation without examining Adam Smith's ideas, which by the way are about 250 years old now (at least his version(s)). The tendency towards empathy, sympathy, local control, etc., have been well examined...especially back then, by Smith. Some of the newer psych studies are interesting, but are very narrow in their application. This guy is typical- thinks history started the day he was born.

Most people don't even know that Smith, the father of free market theory (along with some other contemporaries), was really a moral philosopher and derived his economic theories largely based on his interpretation of moral philosophy. If you really want to know the "roots", I suggest you look there.

Fair point. Pretty much everyone seems down on this guy anyway, so maybe it was a poor example to kick the discussion off with. Whatever benefits are derived from its accessibility are more than made up for by its dramatic oversimplification of the problem, and the author's questionable motives.

And I certainly must agree that the giants of history seem to be more worthwhile than a lot of contemporary writings.

For example, it's still hard to find a more rigorous ethical construction than Spinoza's (1677). That one has stood the test of time as well (at least until Hawking removed the theoretical need for a "cause" of the universe in 1975, obliterating all prior theologies and philosophies which treated such a requirement as axiomatic, Spinoza's included).

I suppose that if recent advances in theory of mind have invalidated parts of Smith's moral philosophy, that will be similarly apparent on reading?

In any event, thanks for the recommendation. I haven't really taken this one on yet, but I guess I now have little choice.