September 09, 2008
WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?
Jonathan Haidt at Edge:
Turiel's description of morality as being about justice, rights, and human welfare worked perfectly for the college students I interviewed at Penn, but it simply did not capture the moral concerns of the less elite groups—the working-class people in both countries who were more likely to justify their judgments with talk about respect, duty, and family roles. ("Your dog is family, and you just don't eat family.") From this study I concluded that the anthropologist Richard Shweder was probably right in a 1987 critique of Turiel in which he claimed that the moral domain (not just specific rules) varies by culture. Drawing on Shweder's ideas, I would say that the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.
When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to see—let alone respect—a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?
More here. [Thanks to Pablo Policzer.]
Posted by Abbas Raza at 01:58 PM | Permalink
Comments
The symbolism of the date is rather perfect, isn't it? I think I'll frame this one.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 4:29:10 PM
Of course, health care is free in Sweden and Denmark - no one has to pay for anything, doctors and nurses contribute their time gratis, the pharmaceutical companies and health care equipment manufacturers give away their stuff. Typical leftist economic ignorance - try Googling 'free lunch'.
Record numbers of people are losing their jobs - do you even know what that means? Do you understand that our 'high' jobless rate of 6.1% is several per-centage points better than social democratic Europe? More ignorance...
Stagnation of wages is directly related to increasing amounts of our income being spent on healthcare, which is not paid in wages. More ignorance...
Do you think it is because of conservatives that we are behind some other countries in 8 year old reading? If so, what is your support? And, if we are so stupid as a country (which many hand-wringers on the right and left like to believe), then why are our workers the most productive in the world? Why do all of the world's major innovations come from the U.S.? Why do we have all the Nobel prize winners?
And finally, if you don't think we are prosperous in this country, then you are even more ignorant than I can possibly imagine.
Posted by: Dumb Republican | Sep 11, 2008 4:30:21 PM
Ok, do you all really want to know why people vote Republican? It's simple - they grow up. According to the latest WSJ/NBC News poll, 18-34 year olds by a vast majority vote Democratic, while 35-49 year olds by an almost equally impressive majority vote Republican.
65+ year olds slant Democratic. This is easy to explain. The old coggers don't want the Republicans to allow the hard working 35-49 year olds with families to raise to keep more of their own money and decide how they should spend and save it, thus (in their minds) jeopardizing their cushy Social Security benefits.
(Btw, 50-64 year olds are pretty evenly split. My guess is that this is due to the presence of grown-ups competing with the older folks that are more worried about those SS checks.)
Posted by: Dumb Republican | Sep 11, 2008 4:35:58 PM
"You should be so lucky to stand for anything so genuine; your pathological fear of being disliked has turned you into a moral cypher."
Wah, Steve, you're so mean, why don't you like me?
How the hell do you know what I stand for or what I believe in or what I've done for it?
Your " anti-Choice, pro-NRA, segregationist, anti-intellectual, Rapture-anticipating, Darwin-banning, male-first, anti-Gay, warmongering, dollar-worshipping, kitten-killing Right" bogeymen are where I fucking come from, you doofus. Public education, free libraries, and government financial aid are what got me out. I'll be damned before I'll let those be attacked by another Republican administration.
I guess if democracy in America is doomed, what we really need is a strong leader like you, Steve. Your fearless rage-filled rants show that you may have at least some of the qualifications needed for the post of Dear Leader.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 11, 2008 4:43:48 PM
Steven,
If these crypto-fascist buggers are really the threat to our way of life you say they are, and if human nature rules out their redemption in this life, then perhaps they could be put in some kind of detention camps? They don't sound quite fully human, and perhaps the argument could be made that they have more restricted rights than we do. At the very least, we might save a few kittens.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 11, 2008 4:53:27 PM
I have no desire to lead or follow, Vicky; why would I want power, when I have happiness? I do enjoy speaking my mind quite clearly, though, as you can see... it's one of the great joys of adult life. Won't lose any sleep over who does or doesn't agree.
So, now, just get back to "empathizing" with our soi-disant "Dumb Republican" and let the healing begin, man!
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 4:53:33 PM
Dumb Republican - the Republican party doesn't believe in limited government, it believes in incompetent government.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 11, 2008 4:55:42 PM
Vicky, I must say, you're not doing a very good job of empathizing.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 4:58:06 PM
Yo, DR:
"European cities dominate the worldwide rankings of locations with the best quality of living, according to Mercer's 2008 Quality of Living Survey. Zurich retains its 2007 title as the highest ranked city, followed jointly by Vienna (2), Geneva (2), then Vancouver (4) and Auckland (5). Dublin has a worldwide rank of 25 and 8th place among European cities.
In the UK, London ranks 38, while Birmingham and Glasgow are jointly 56. The highest entry for the United States is Honolulu, appearing at number 28. The cities with the lowest quality of living ranking are Ndjamena (211), Khartoum (212), Brazzaville (213) and Bangui (214). Baghdad, ranking 215, retains its position at the bottom of the table.
The rankings are based on a point scoring index, which sees Zurich scoring 108, while Baghdad scores 13.5. Cities are compared to New York as the base city, with an index score of 100. The quality of living survey covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments.
The survey also identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based on internal stability, crime, effectiveness of law enforcement and relationships with other countries. Luxembourg is top, followed by Bern, Geneva, Helsinki and Zurich, all equally placed at number 2. Chicago, Houston and San Francisco are amongst the safest cities in the US, all ranking at 53. Baghdad (215) is the world's least safe city along with Kinshasa (214), Karachi (213), Nairobi (212) and Bangui (211). Luxembourg scores 131.4 on the index while Baghdad scores 3.8."
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 5:02:36 PM
Tough love, Steve, tough love.
As it is written, to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to empathize, and a time to kick ass and take names.
By the time your daughter is a teenager, you'll hopefully have figured out that you can do both, at the appropriate times.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 11, 2008 5:11:05 PM
Let's not pick on Dumb, he probably has benefited from incompetent government.
Anyone who thinks they are going to "vote" their way out of this one is truly delusional.
Disclaimer: I'm actually quite politically active, I work on social justice issues, organize events, and help with IT work for organizations I find helpful, usually demonstrate on the street once a week (Weekly anti war demo).
That and organizing community gardens--
I'm also currently on the "No Fly" list, so you can all feel safe.
And Steven, you have threaten the paradigm here, so you must be proven wrong, or they have to rethink their analysis, usually in the fetal position on the floor screaming.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 11, 2008 5:15:16 PM
The so called quality of life rankings are so subjective as to be meaningless. Did the Mercer people go and spend time living in these places? Even if they did (which I doubt), what would it even mean if a few people preferred some European cities to American cities?
What's more, the best quality of life in America is not to be found in the big cities - it is in small towns, in medium sized towns, in downtowns, in suburbia and exurbia.
From where I stand, I can't imagine quality of life being much better. Come to many parts of Michigan, for instance, Steven, and you will drop some of your European snobbery. We have nice, well-kept homes. Crime is quite rare. We are all good middle to upper middle class people, our neighbors are nice to one another and come to each other's assistance in time of need. The community comes together and supports its schools and its children. We donate our time and our money, and we look after our families - young and old, good and bad. We have nice parks and recreation opportunities, and lots of cultural stuff going on. And, all this is going on just 45 minutes drive from Detroit.
We are not alone. There are countless communities like ours here.
There is no doubt that many large American cities are plagued by crime and poverty. But, this is only a small part of the picture, and there is no sensible basis for arguing this comes from Republican policies.
On the contrary, in New York City (for example), they hired a Republican mayor after Democrats nearly ran the city into the ground, and bingo, the quality of life improved dramatically there.
I would say the problem with crime and poverty in America is more related to the divisive racial politics and associated grievance & guilt mongering of the left and their Black Power allies. Rather than focusing on helping building strong families and communities in black areas, rather than taking on the public school officials and teachers unions, black leaders and their leftist allies have spent the past 40 years working to shake down and shame whites and the institutions of society (e.g., businesses and governments). It obviously hasn't much helped anyone, and this is why some of our big cities have such problems. (Europe is facing its own problems with minorities - need we mention riots in Paris?, honor killings, breeding grounds of terrorism in Germany and Britain, capitulation to Islamic bullying, etc, etc.?)
Posted by: Dumb Republican | Sep 11, 2008 5:30:13 PM
Dave:
It's amazing how far you can get when you travel on foot!
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 5:33:43 PM
Dave, you are a true progressive hero, what with your anti-war demonstrating and all that. If you want to stop the war and get the Americans out of Iraq, why don't you go over there and fight on the side of al-Qaeda, Moqtada, and the 'insurgents'? I'm sure Saddam would've appreciated your support for his regime (if he hadn't been so appropriately hanged).
Oh, and by the way, you don't know shit about me, do you now? Ah, but I forget, so called progressives have no hesitation in making judgments about things they know nothing about.
Posted by: Dumb Republican | Sep 11, 2008 5:36:22 PM
Dumb--
I know nothing about you (other than you are politically illiterate).
Like the rest of us homo sapiens, you think heuristically, and base reality on story and myth.
You discount the future over the present.
These evolutionary survival traits have brought fitness to humans for quite sometime.
I'm just pointing out, they may be liabilities under our current conditions.
It's a tough gig being human.
I think a basic understanding of thermodynamics and and evolutionary biology would make this subject and discussion moot.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 11, 2008 6:06:54 PM
DR:
If you're making more than a 100K a year, are not secretly bedevilled by exponential debt curves, have the things you want and need, feel good about life under Bush or Bush-like leaders, aren't much bothered about large-scale civillian slaughter generated abroad by US military enforcers, it's not my contention that you're "dumb". You're only an idiot if you're *suffering* under the current regime and don't even know it and want more of the same. So, there's that.
You want your values to dominate, it seems to me, and there's nothing on an absolute scale that says you shouldn't, because the Universe is, quite clearly, an amoral construct. Babies die of AIDS; innocent animals burn to death in forest fires; good people get cancer and rapists win the lottery, et al.
I don't want your values to dominate; I'd like to see you keep your values to yourself. I'd be delighted if things could be arranged so you could live on a Republican island, and leave most of the country for people I could get along with (well, you might have to share your island with violent, money-mad criminals, and creative writing MFAs, because I can't get along with *them*, either).
I want the country to be smarter, cooler, and far less TV-fantasy-bullshit-addicted, and, yeah, gun-free. I'd like to see more maturity (leavened with wit). I don't mind religion, but I don't want it in my face. I want to be free to gently mock anyone's super-being in public.
I want all this *because I want it*; because of the happenstance of personality; the vagaries of inner style. Sure, I get quite worked up over slaughtered Iraqis (and I was upset by the Taliban's stoning of "whores" years before anyone noticed the phenomenon), but I do so knowing it's my personal preference to. I can even (depending on your views) consider you *evil* without being *fundamentally* righteous about it.
I decide what's "good" and "evil" because I have to, for my own purposes, to keep things straight: as everyone should. My idea of "evil" is not inherently superior to yours, but I'd be somewhat of a fool not to invest some genuine energy into advocating it.
I want your team to lose. I will have to wait to see this happen, if it ever does. The only way to do it, as I've stated above, is logically; methodically; without recourse to flimsy wishes and dreams. It's simple: people like me (within a fairly broad range) have to outnumber people like you (within a fairly broad range) for me to get my way.
People like me tend to be less fanatical in the realization of goals; it's my belief that 5 Republican-types on a desert island will end up building all the huts and bridges and rain-water barrels and lording it over the other 25 bohemians. I also believe the Republicanish are more likely to resort to physical violence. That's why I think we need to out-breed you. You're a member of a go-get-em tribe, DR... with a certain element of anti-social pathology to it, in my opinion. A few of you on any island go a long way. It's very possible that our hominid forbearers owe their pre-historic survival to your personality type.
You'd *hate* the country I want to see happen, one day, of course. I'd like to see pictures of Sam Cooke and Isaac Asimov and Lee Miller on the paper money, for one thing, and free violins (and lessons in the Sukuzi method) for kids in the ghetto. Miscegenation, free love and multi-gender whateverness: that's a given.
No hard feelings.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 11, 2008 6:38:30 PM
Oh Gawd! TypePad's anti-spam filter is withholding my post, suspecting it might be spam. My links must have confused it.
Doggone it!
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 11, 2008 8:15:57 PM
Dumb Republican, brothers and sisters,
Only my humble opinion, dumb brother pach, but I have to agree that you chose an apt moniker for your participation here.
The welfare state's a failure? Sure is, but the corporate welfare state is alive and well and ruling the world. Have to have a safety net of social welfare when the wage slaves fall off the corpo gravy train. Otherwise, they might revolt.
www.davidkorten.com/
www.gangsofamerica.com/
Dave goes to peace protests so he's a traitor? The traitors to the Constitution are the Republicans who sold the country out, first with the Patriot Act (with Dem approval, I concede) . . . the Military Commissions Act . . . "enhanced interrogation techniques" otherwise known as torture . . . suspension of habeas corpus. And it was a Republican administration that lied its way into invading Iraq with the pretense that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Saddam, the former US ally. Read some Chalmers Johnson before you accuse a war protester of being a traitor who'd like to fight for al Quaeda.
I wonder who will be the Bush administration's Robert McNamara, writing the story of the Iraq castrastrophe and saying how "we" were so very wrong. Bet it won't be Cheney.
Don't mean to add to the acrimony of this discussion when we could be enjoying some grace-filled camaraderie, but I'm getting angry, too. And BTW, fellow Dems with empathy, I didn't see you refute a word of what Steven has written. Instead, you chided him for his anger and what, for reasons best known to yourselves, you view as his confusion.
As I said earlier, I think Haidt is confused. Appeals to in-group cohesion, authority and purity sound similar to the kind of good groupiness promoted, er, enforced in Chinese thought reform. And you could have fooled me, but I thought the Republican party stood for rugged individualism, the myth of the self-made man. No? Thought I heard that somewhere.
www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing19.html
And, Dumb Repub, who is shaking the country down to pay for the Iraq debacle? Ghetto guilt mongers? Al Sharpton? I don't think so.
Look at what Geoffrey Canada is doing for kids in Harlem. Look what Jaime Escalante did for kids in East LA. Or, then again, go back to reading Shelby Steele. Charles Murray? Watching Fox News?
I've been open-minded reading here, but I think I'll abandon that tack before my brains start leaking out through my ears.
CMI
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 11, 2008 8:35:29 PM
I think Haidt should write a piece on what causes people to hijack legitimate, original philosophical content and turn it, slowly and deliberately, into quasi-political mudslinging that could be copied and pasted from any of ten thousand internet forums.
I have been particularly amused by the suggestion that even discussing the philosophical content in question amounts to "panic" or "admission of defeat" by left-leaning people.
Since we're talking about ideal worlds, mine also has an island on it, but it's going to have to be a lot bigger than Steve's.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Sep 11, 2008 9:47:49 PM
kakistocracy (kăk'ĭ-stŏk'rə-sē, kä'kĭ-)
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
[Greek kakistos, worst, superlative of kakos, bad; see caco– + –CRACY.]
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 11, 2008 9:54:53 PM
Nick,
I think you should write to Edge's Reality Club and tell the respondents that they hijacked the legitimate philosohpical topic.
I liked Roger Schank's response the best. Don't even feel guilty about it, either.
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 11, 2008 10:19:55 PM
First off - I want to thank you all - I have never had so much fun in my life!
Really, here I am trolling around in a liberal, Republican hating forum, duking it out with you guys - it's great!
Anyway, I want you all to just quit being so angry and so damned closed-minded. I think that was the point of Haidt's essay (getting back to the philosophy). His point was that liberals and progressives should seek to understand the appeal that certain Republican ideas have to many HUMANS (yes, they are human), see where the kernel of wisdom or truth might be in those ideas.
As a libertarian leaning, atheist, scientifically oriented Republican, I have a lot more in common with many of you than you think. But, I've thrown in my lot with the Republicans, because, I think on balance, the IDEAS on which the Republican platform is generally based simply WORK better, on balance and in total, than liberal ideas.
There is much to admire in the ideals of liberalism - notably the sympathy for human suffering and the desire to improve the condition of the world. Perhaps not all Republicans share these views, but I believe many do (certainly I do). The problem is how the ideas of liberalism work in practice. Put simply, most have been tried and have failed, and it is usually based on false assumptions about how the world works, about how people really are. And I think that is maybe why so many of you are so damn angry - you're frustrated because you know what you want but you don't know how to get it.
There's also a deep strain of reflexive, unreflective thinking that pulls under the currents of liberal thought. All you all know about me is that I vote Republican, and then so many of you have assumed so many things about me. I do not, in fact, only want to be around people that are like me - I love diversity and 'quirkiness' (whatever that is), and I respect the private choices of individuals, whatever their form (as long as those choices don't impead the freedom of others); I don't believe in God and I do believe in evolution and share your scientific worldview; I own a gun but it's so my kid and I can go shoot at paper targets, and so I can defend my home against intruders (you never know, and you never want to be powerless); I don't believe in extending the heavy hand of the state intrusively into private behavioral matters any more than I believe it should be extended into private economic matters (why are you guys inconsistent on this?); I'd be happy to share an island with Steven and all of his friends - it sounds like it would be fun - as long as he didn't discriminate against me because I'm a Republican, and as long as he didn't ask me for a handout (unless of course I came to know him and he gained my trust and he really needed it - this is what friends do, isn't it?).
Here's where I do agree with what most people understand about Republicans: I think economic redistributive policies are wasteful and ineffective, and I don't believe they make anyone really happier or better off. Is a person that depends on others for handouts really happier or better off? The fact is that you are not going to solve economic inequality without injustice - i.e., the forced confiscation of resources from supposedly free, private individuals. The Bolsheviks really went at this problem and so they just decided to slaughter all the bourgeouis wealth producers. Instead of worrying so much about economic inequality, why don't you focus on what some of you claim to care about - which is happiness. Why don't you go about working on the culture so that people can come to believe that their lives and their happiness shouldn't be defined by what they make or what they have in relation to other people, and then why don't you lay off the guilt trip and attempts and forced confiscation on those that are plucky, smart, and fortunate enough to achieve material 'success'.
On another note, there is always a strong undercurrent that I get from these forays into the progressive world that Republicans really like the idea of killing brown people. I find this personally revolting - in this way you are de-humanizing me and others that vote Republican. Of course I care about the innocent Iraqis and others that die as a result of American military action. It just absolutely breaks my heart - I wish the world were a better place, and such action would never be necessary. But given the tragic state of our world, at times the peace and prosperity of future generations must be secured with the blood and suffering of innocents today. There was slaughter in Iraq and the wider Middle East long before we got there. I think the noblest intentions behind our interventions were (and are) that this state should not continue in perpetuity, that SOMETHING had to be DONE (rather than merely wished for), to change the course of history and fast forward the pull of backwards and violentlands into the blessed modernity of which we all enjoy the fruits (even Steven).
I, too, want to live freely and peacefully, without judgment on others. I want the whole world to enjoy the freedoms we have - brown people, black people, white people, yellow people, all people should live in freedom from all manner of forceful coercion. The thing is, I think the Republicans have better ideas about how to bring this about. What have the leftist governments of the world done to enhance freedom throughout the world? What was the fate of the Eastern Europe(dominated by the ultimate leftists) vs. Western Europe and Japan after WWII? What was the fate of South Korea vs. North Korea (or Vietnam, where you predecessors cheered for our defeat)?
I have sympathy for the ideals of the left but not for its delusions. Soft power just doesn't cut it in a world of murderous tyrants and ruthless strongmen. Stealing from the rich to give to the poor is no justice. Rehabilitation programs for violent criminals that can't be re-habilitated just doesn't work. And shunning pride in ones country and throwing off all notions of national unity and patriotism results in the weakness we saw in France in 1940 and that we see throughout Europe now. We should be proud of our country not because we live in it, but because it is based on the purest ideals of self-governance, freedom, and equality before the law, and because these ideals have consistently driven us and the world towards improving conditions for men, women, and children everywhere.
One final note - I don't think anti-war protestors are traitors, and I was wrong if I suggested that. The point I should have made was this - liberals should think when they oppose a war - what are they really against? In a sense, when you want to stop a war, you want our military to stop fighting the people they are fighting, which results in a victory for them. So this doesn't necessarily make you a traitor per se (in the sense of wishing for one's land to be overrun by foreign invaders, for instance), but it does to me suggest that you want to see the other side win, which again means that you think their aims are more legitimate than ours. After all, when we fight a war, we aren't fighting ghosts, we are fighting people that are fighting for something. Before you suggest we stop fighting them, you ought to think about what THEY are fighting FOR. And, I think this point is right on because the anti-war demonstrators are of a different ilk than those that oppose the war on national interest grounds - the national interest folks don't think its worth OUR blood and treasure to defeat whoever it is we're fighting.
OK, thank you - now go check out some right leaning forums and get into some scrapes there. You'll probably hate a lot of it, but perhaps you might learn learn a thing or two also. Try following Haidt's advice and see what pearls of wisdom you might gain. Think about how they might be right, and how you might be wrong - isn't this what openness (i.e., liberalism) is all about?
Posted by: Dumb Republican | Sep 12, 2008 12:34:19 AM
"I have never had so much fun in my life!"
Must be quiet in Michigan, DR. Thank you, too, for being a jolly good sport about being a dumbbell and all.
No doubt we could all benefit from questioning our assumptions and worldviews. But I somehow don't think Haidt and Durkheim are on the wisdom trail.
I'm sure you're a swell guy, DR, but golly, what you wrote here (and other places) in your farewell address puzzles me:
"We should be proud of our country not because we live in it, but because it is based on the purest ideals of self-governance, freedom, and equality before the law, and because these ideals have consistently driven us and the world towards improving conditions for men, women, and children everywhere."
Has a Panglossian ring to it, DR. (Sorry, Nick.) I mean, Native Americans living on reservations would be able to attest to that, right? I could go on, but I think I'll take Roger Schank's advice and stop here. People believe what they believe.
Nice talking with you, though.
Here's a book you might want to check out if you're ever in an especially open frame of mind:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment
Namaste,
CMI
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 12, 2008 2:49:01 AM
"After all, when we fight a war, we aren't fighting ghosts, we are fighting people that are fighting for something."
We aren't fighting ghosts, we're making ghosts. And most of those ghosts we're currently making weren't fighting for something, they were sleeping, or playing, or driving to a relative's house, or attending a wedding, or carrying water in a bucket from the only source of relatively clean water in the bombed out zone they lived in. They never came running at an American suburb with a stick or a knife or a rock; they never came close to posing a threat to you, your family, your acquaintances, your tribe. They were born, lived for awhile on the other side of the world without once thinking about you, then died (some quite painfully) with your political approval.
Imagine your wife or your boyfriend or your nephew or your mildly irritating neighbor just sitting down to breakfast and suddenly dying on the spot in a bloody mess because someone Caesar-powerful who lived thousands of miles away and considered your community barely human in the first place needed to score political points or maximize the profits of his oil interests.
You don't care, DR; I know you don't care; but why should you? There's no absolute cosmic reason that you *shouldn't* be a purely selfish animal. I can't prove that my revulsion at your sang-froid (or self-servingly delusional denial) about human slaughter on such a scale isn't arbitrary.
Maybe you saw actual profits as a result of the goals achieved by killing these hundreds of thousands of foreign people, or maybe the killing serves a long-term goal you're patient enough to wait for the dividends therefrom. In any case, you risk nothing, *personally*, in the transaction. Even if the miraculous occurs and your leader is held accountable for goal-oriented civillian slaughter and goes down in utter (though un-hung) disgrace, you'll watch it all from the sidelines.
So, possible upside for you: cheap gas; fuel-source dominance (for generations) for your tribe; trickle-down profits in a re-energized economy. Personal risk: zero.
It makes sense.
"I want the whole world to enjoy the freedoms we have - brown people, black people, white people, yellow people, all people should live in freedom from all manner of forceful coercion."
Can't have it both ways, DR.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Sep 12, 2008 4:39:45 AM
DR is so deluded I'm amazed he isn't religious. Why not go the whole hog?
Posted by: Jared | Sep 12, 2008 10:03:33 AM
Atheists = clear-sighted, level-headed
Religious = delusional
I don't think so, Jared, but I'm not geared up for a Sam Harris-like discussion on belief in a tooth fairy, a reductionist view of what some people refer to as the divine. Harris's moral sensibilities lead him to believe that it might be a good idea to "dust off" the strappado to extract information from a recalcitrant detainee.
Moral idiocy afflicts even the scientically minded.
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 12, 2008 12:01:23 PM
As it happens, I don't find Haidt's analysis all that convincing, and I think he presents it badly. As Daniel Everett points out in his commentary, you have to work a lot harder than Haidt does to support a claim that something is "innate."
I think a huge part of the Republican resurgence is due to their co-opting of the "Dionysian" energy of the '60's. ( see the movie Bob Roberts) Turns out that "Free To Be You and Me" can also mean the freedom to be an unapologetically selfish, boorish bully, especially if you're a white male. This element is an extremely visible part of the Republican front, but I think it is in uneasy alliance with more traditionally-oriented conservatives in the midwest and upper midwest.
I also don't see how "People vote Republican because they hate our freedoms" and "We're all doomed, doooooooooomed!" constitute an intellectually superior position to Haidt's attempt to find an evolutionary basis for moral intuitions. But I think the search for some kind of "innate" reason why people vote Republican is fundamentally misguided. We should be looking for all the contingent, proximate reasons people vote Republican, and then drive wedges in the fault lines. Why, for instance, have none of the religion-explaining pundits picked up on the fact that Sarah Palin is not just fundamentalist, but charismatic? This is an issue that divides conservative Protestants like no other.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 12, 2008 1:03:37 PM
How's this for empathy - from the other side?
The biggest mistake we can make is to infantilize our opponents - assume a lack of intelligence or cunning on their part.
As Steven Augustine pointed out, Aunt Betty (or Aunt Sarah) knows full well what she wants ... and why.
Posted by: Ruchira | Sep 12, 2008 1:23:15 PM
I think we have to admit that when it comes to political cunning, the republicans leave the democrats in the dust. Obama made a terrible decision in not choosing Hillary. McCain made a brilliant decision in choosing a down to earth redneck woman. Politics is not a tea party, it is war, and one which the most ruthless will win.
Posted by: Jared | Sep 12, 2008 1:53:53 PM
Dumb, it was princely of you to write copiously for us about your thinking, and to suggest that, following your example, we expand our minds by dropping in on other-wing forums. I need to caution you, not all progressives are coming from transcendent ignorance of those political philosophies they don't share. I would never want to bank on something nasty in the woodshed having afflicted you, so that decades later, you are the way you are and not the way you would otherwise have been. Don't assume I don't partake of your world view only because it's never been adequately explained to me -- before now. Consider that many people here reject what you stand for because they do understand it, not because they don't.
Now, if you've dropped in with a quiver full of condescending and easily overturned assumptions about the brown, white, yellow, red and black people here, then what hellish failure of insight might impair your take on the brown people the government you helped to put in power makes war on? You don't even suppose other Americans who disagree with you -- "fun" as we surely are for you -- can possess information like yours and arrive at different conclusions than yours, so how are you to understand people we cross swords with a world away? By starting with the assumption of their ignorance, Dumb? That's just gorgeous.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Sep 12, 2008 7:29:36 PM
Well, well. What a few days it's been, eh? This gun-slingering, creationist whackjob that the Reps have trucked in from the tundra has sure put a cat amongst the pigeons. Looking from afar, I honestly am beginning to believe for the first time that there may be something to that tired old cliche of a 'dying empire'.
Steven is, of course, largely correct.
Posted by: MattInOz | Sep 12, 2008 11:59:44 PM
Oops, should read "gun-slinging". Ask DR, he's got one!
Posted by: MattInOz | Sep 13, 2008 12:05:56 AM
Oz,
Slinging or clinging, they're packing heat. Are those clay pigeons you're talking about?
You say you're looking from afar. How far is that? Top of the Matterhorn? Are you an expat in Luxembourg by any chance? Just curious.
CMI
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 13, 2008 1:41:49 AM
MattinOz,
You may feel you're looking on from Ayer's Rock as Americans who fundamentally agree with one another yet choose to bicker let their civilization crash. That'll be bad on all of you in Oz if we don't vote right, however. I'm sure you see the wisdom of hoping the next president isn't eager to war with Russia, and is capable of preventing another and bigger 9/11, this time with a dirty bomb. Civilizational decline-wise, we'd just better not be showing everybody how -- for their sakes, not for ours.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Sep 13, 2008 2:17:04 AM
"What makes people vote Republican" is also the wrong question because voter suppression is a huge part of the Republican strategy. What makes people *not* vote Democratic is a better question. But I guess figuring out how to extend political participation to those folks would be too ickily political and "patronizing" for some in the liberal elite.
The American populace is no stupider than the ruling classes need it to be. Those of you who are not of the lumpen classes yourselves are doing pretty well out of a system that relies on turning citizens into passive, uncritical consumers.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 13, 2008 10:11:12 AM
Ruchira:
You really think Aunt Betty *wanted* her grandson to die in Iraq? Or that it's somehow her fault for being so gullible as to think politicians and the media wouldn't collude in perpetrating a massive fraud (about Saddam's weapons and involvement in 9/11) Most of Congress and the NY Times were taken in by that one.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 13, 2008 11:36:49 AM
The more I think about Haidt's article, the farther out it seems. Democrats need to expand their moral spectrum by becoming aware of elements in Durkheim's morality model, with its underlying theme of nationalism and in-group loyalties, authority and purity? If "Democrats would do well to read Durkheim," Haidt, if he wants to be all psychological about this, would do well to read Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom.
ship
ship
And if he wants to understand better how Republicans and Reagan-era hero Milton Friedman and other champions of profit, endless economic expansion and privatization undermine community -- or "collectives," as he puts it -- I highly recommend Stephen Marglin's the Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community.
Take heart, Elatia. I have no illusions about saving civilization, but I'm beginning my volunteer stint for the Obama campaign.
Also contemplating the implications of Martin Buber's I and Thou, which is why I wouldn't agree with Steven Augustine that "Aunt Betty is a shit." I mean, it sure looks that way, but I aspire to a "higher moral ground."
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 13, 2008 5:32:14 PM
Really, you need to get over this voting thing--
It cripples and neutralizes all that health anarchy that would actually change things,
Vote for strategic or existential reasons, but use equanimity in your expected results.
You will then be grounded in realistic outcomes, and not demoralized by a system that will not commit suicide.
You must kill it yourself.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 13, 2008 8:58:42 PM
CMI,
I think you've pegged my co-ordinates a little awry. It's cold here because of the season, not the altitude. All's forgiven, considering there's only an "al" in it... but it's Australia, not Austria.
Which of course makes Elatia right on the money - but what's new? I agree with all you wrote Elatia, I hope there's nothing I said that led you to believe I'd welcome it otherwise...
Posted by: MattInOz | Sep 14, 2008 9:53:43 AM
No Vicki, Aunt Betty does not "want" her grandson to die in Iraq. But that may be a price she is willing to pay if she is assured by "Uncle George" and "Aunt Sarah" that it is "God's task" to ensure her way of life - namely, no abortion rights for women, prayer and creationism in schools, no affirmative action, no universal health care for the undeserving and yes, making sure that the oil supply remains unimpeded. Aunt Betty is not *shit* but she is convinced that *shit* won't happen to her and her own if the country went in the direction she wants.
As for NYT and its cheerleaders for the Iraq war, they are *shit.*
(I am reeling in the aftermath of Ike. Just borrowed my husband's laptop, powered by the car battery to write a quick comment. Please forgive any incoherence)
Posted by: Ruchira | Sep 14, 2008 12:21:39 PM
Ruchira, it may surprise you to learn the extent to which the ideological complex you describe as Aunt Betty's "way of life" is a consensus manufactured by the right wing ascendancy.
Consider this excerpt from "Thy Kingdom Come" by Randall Balmer:
W.A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, expressed his satisfaction with the Roe v. Wade ruling. "I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person," the redoubtable fundamentalist declared, "and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed."
Why is the right so good at papering over their own divisions while dividing and conquering their opponents? Why should Aunt Betty even listen to what Steven has to say, since he openly wishes she were dead?
The religious right is more diverse than it looks to people whose visceral disgust at polyester-clad, jello-salad eating, Folgers-drinking Aunt Betty keeps them from looking closer. Again, why haven't the Democrats picked up on the fact that Palin is charismatic and used that to drive a wedge between her and more traditional fundamentalists? There's no schism like religious schism.
Finally, if anyone thinks that the 21st century so far has been a high water mark for right-wing ignorance and bigotry in the US, they don't know their history very well. Father Coughlin, America First - ring a bell? That was the backdrop for the Democratic Party's most progressive hour. Would FDR have gotten very far if his party had been made up of defeatist, elitist whiners like Steven?
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 14, 2008 6:25:05 PM
Ruchira, I forgot to say sorry that you're dealing with Ike aftermath. Don't run down the car battery, who knows how long you'll need it.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 14, 2008 6:31:39 PM
Vicki, it's not that the American right is crazier now than it was in Father Coughlin's day -- it isn't. It's that the global consequences of the American right being as crazy as it is and no crazier, and in power, exceed even the threat posed in the mid-century by Father Coughlin and all that he represented.
I agree with you that Palin's take-no-prisoners brand of end-time thinking is bound to be disagreeable to many passionately religious people, who are quite capable of making her out as an ideologue rather than a true Christian. Conceivably, there are pro-life feminists out there who would be horrified to learn that women were charged upwards of several hundred dollars for rape kits in Wasilla, AK, when Palin was mayor. I mean, maybe you DO think every unwanted pregnancy should be brought to term, but you might not think every girl in your town who has been raped should self-finance the search for her assailant's ID. I think it's perfectly correct to say there's a way to talk to Christians about Palin, and to non-traditional feminists about her. I'm beginning to get some practice!
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Sep 14, 2008 7:18:45 PM
Elatia, it's not the End-Times stuff or talk of God's retribution - they all agree on that. It's stuff like raising your hands while singing and whether speaking gibberish is a true charism. Congregations have split over this - why not use it?
I agree about the stakes - all the more reason to get savvy.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 14, 2008 8:13:20 PM
Vicki, Steven never said he openly wishes Aunt Betty were dead. He said he's sorry so many Iraqis are dead.
"Why should Aunt Betty even listen to what Steven has to say, since he openly wishes she were dead?"
But, as Roger Schank observed, people believe what they want to believe.
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 14, 2008 8:44:57 PM
CMI, you are right, I should have written "he covertly wishes Aunt Betty were dead."
At least, that's how I interpret:
The only possible change will be generational... maybe, in twenty years or so, things will start looking up.
But what do I know, I'm just a "moral cypher." Of course, Steven is so much more reality-based than I am - first-hand experience observing fundamentalists in the wild and studying their history cannot match Steven's intuitive grasp of the subject.
"People believe what they want to believe" - very scientific!
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 14, 2008 9:17:38 PM
Amendment: Make that people interpret as they want to interpret -- or can't help interpreting.
I don't think you're going to save Aunt Betty or the Democratic National Committee and the Obama candidacy by demonizing Steven.
He also said he could coexist on an island with Dumb Republican. New generations are educated differently, and education was the area that Schank sees as sorely lacking with regard to the American electorate.
I don't think you're a moral cipher. But you're going to have crusade among the James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Ted Haggard true believers. I'm preaching to the local choir.
Best of luck,
CMI
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Sep 14, 2008 9:45:58 PM
Elatia--
A former girlfriend of mine was raped in Alaska, so the idea of charging for a rape kit (a policy embraced by Simple Sarah) I find brutal.
Maybe Slavoj Zizek book on violence would be a appropriate read?
Sometimes action is needed. And not at the ballot box.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 14, 2008 10:28:26 PM
Ruchira (who I hope has her power back and all her loved ones unscathed) wrote:
It is hardly infantalizing or patronizing to suggest that Betty does not in fact know what she wants. Most of us don't, in any kind of complete way. And even those of us that do, or believe they do, are susceptible to persuasion. We wouldn't be having this discussion otherwise.
I grant you that most people's politics are fairly intractable. Most people, statistically, will probably vote more or less the same way until they die, or lose interest. But how many people arguing here that there's no point in trying to engage Republicans took the opposite approach on the matter of religion when The God Delusion came out? If I remember right, it was critical back then that "freethinkers" expose religious believers to intelligent argument, and books by Harris and Dennett were structured according to this directive (Hitchens, not so much).
It's easy to write people off in politics, because tribalism runs so strong. But by the same token, we could easily write off at-risk high school kids, many of which will engage in street crime no matter what happens in school. We could write off the mentally ill, many of whom will never leave their asylums. The people that try and change the lives of gangbangers and schizophrenics are considered heroes and rightly so. So why are the people trying to understand (and perhaps, even help) Aunt Betty called "Vichy Democrats"? Are Liberals tasked only with providing universal health care and financial security to those who vote the right way?
To approach things this way is, in my opinion, to fall under the spell of the Culture War myth, which can only benefit Republicans at election time. Feeling like your "lifestyle" is being taken away from you is a much better motivator than a given economic policy or diplomatic doctrine.
I think Haidt's analysis of Liberal versus Republican morality is wrong for many reasons (eating the family dog is not an indicator of support for Keynesian economic policies). But the kind of sanctimoniousness that Steven Augustine was displaying here a few days ago falls right into Republican strategists best laid plans.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 15, 2008 9:49:20 PM
Steven, can't we just get rid of the ghetto altogether? As long as we're talking about ideal worlds...
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 15, 2008 10:01:11 PM
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