Wednesday, January 15, 2014

learn some moral psychology and step outside your blindered matrix...,


edge | What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that 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.

Diagnosis is a pleasure. It is a thrill to solve a mystery from scattered clues, and it is empowering to know what makes others tick. In the psychological community, where almost all of us are politically liberal, our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. We can explain how Republicans exploit frames, phrases, and fears to trick Americans into supporting policies (such as the "war on terror" and repeal of the "death tax") that damage the national interest for partisan advantage.

But with pleasure comes seduction, and with righteous pleasure comes seduction wearing a halo. Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats. To see what Democrats have been missing, it helps to take off the halo, step back for a moment, and think about what morality really is.

10 comments:

CNu said...

I'd default to Francisco Gil-White's cognitive essentialism http://www.hirhome.com/academic/Species.pdf

Papers on Ethnicity http://www.hirhome.com/academic.htm#publications

Vic78 said...

I'm going to use an easier pragmatic approach to the question; the reason they don't win is that the Democratic Party sucks. It's really that simple. Elected federal officials in general aren't serious about their jobs at this point in time. Right now the Democrats enjoy a demographic advantage, the polling on all issues favor democrats, and the young support the Democratic Party more than the GOP. Yet, the democrats still lose. I know they like to throw some bullshit out about voting against their interest or low information voters. Nobody wants to support a sorry team.

The reason I blame the party for their own failures is because I've watched them operate over the years. Look at Shirley Sherrod and ACORN. The message sent to supporters is that the supporters can't count on the party. They fold under pressure. They care too much about some bigoted middle class tea billy that isn't going to vote for them anyway.

Oh yeah they have elections to give away as well. When they aren't doing dumb shit in office, they're making sure things stay a certain way when they run for office. When they talk to potential voters, they only talk to middle class whites and their concerns. They bypass all the potential votes they could get from the bad part of town. The party bosses don't usually support the best candidate. What they'll do is support the most likely to do what he's told. That leads to a lot of the weak shit that demoralizes supporters(supporters are the people that stood in line for a few hours to get their votes in). If I'm wrong one can check the numbers in Texas and Arizona. They would be more competitive if if people did their fucking jobs.

Voter turnout is too low to say that Americans want certain things. I'll listen when turnout is at least 80%.

Due to the situation being what it is, fuck what Dr Haidt is talking about. We've got to manage this decline and devise solutions for our biggest challenges. People have little time for soul searching. What is it with these people and their need to cater to the lowest common denominator? The tea billies are of no use to us. We still have to convince them that the gig is up. The people that don't need convincing outnumber the people that do.

Nakajima Kikka said...

Since the mid-1840's, one of the Democratic Party's primary roles has been to serve as the main political and economic support system for immigrants and at least the first two generations of their descendents. Recognizing this is necessary to understanding the moral value system that internally drives the DP-USA, and why they make the kinds of political and economic decisions that they do.

Nakajima Kikka said...

Since at least the mid-1840's, one of the Democratic Party's primary roles has been to serve as the main political and economic support system for immigrants and at least the first two generations of their descendents. Recognizing this is necessary to understanding the moral values system that drives the DP-USA, and why they make the kinds of poitical and economic decisions that they do.

Nakajima Kikka said...

The RP-USA, of course, remains the best and foremost political and economic expression of Anglo-American culture and way of life par excellence.

CNu said...

lol, what would Dieudonne say?

makheru bradley said...

Among the 16 Democrats supporting the Iran sanctions bill--none other than Cory "Manhattan Project" Booker..

“He shows that he’s willing to defy Obama on a big issue,”
http://bit.ly/1j8TFxg



The oligarchic psychopathocracy has got to be proud of their latest product.

Vic78 said...

It's not all bad. Somebody's been taken to the woodshed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/15/push-for-iran-sanctions-bill-losing-momentum/
They aren't ready for the big time.

Vic78 said...

Haidt's really being dishonest or willfully blind when he talks about how liberals relate to conservatives. He's acting as if conservatism isn't about maintaining power and slowing if not outright stopping progress. His naiveté would lead one to make dangerous miscalculations when dealing with people that call themselves conservative. He might not want to deal with the realization that millions of our citizens are fucked in the head. So it might be easier to say we should try to understand them better. In simple language he's being a damn weenie.

Tom said...

Ninety-nine percent of our scarce political energy goes into promoting dumbass weenies like Haidt over the thick-skulled assheads he's mocking (or the reverse). Nothing's left over to think about what's really happening.