Brookville Democrat
Did you know that your genes help to determine whether you
are a Democrat or a Republican? In a new book, “The Righteous Mind – Why People
Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”
Jonathan Haidt identifies two important genes that predispose (but not
predetermine) human political ideology, Haidt, a moral psychologist, reviews
six major moral foundations which reside in our unconscious mind and from which
we intuitively create our own personal and innate political narratives.
Briefly these moral foundations include Care/harm, Fairness/cheating,
Liberty/oppression, Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, Sanctity/degradation.
Liberals tend toward Care and Fairness foundations and while the conservatives
also include these, they are likely to give greater emphasis to the remaining
four foundations – Liberty, Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity.
Haidt says each of these foundations act to both bind and
blind us. Each foundation confirms our own particular moral foundations and
makes it difficult for others to convince us that we are wrong. Liberals often
have difficulty of seeing how Liberty, Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity moral foundations
have anything to do with morality.
People whose DNA causes them to get special pleasure from
novelty and variety while simultaneously being less sensitive to signs of threat
are more inclined toward a liberal point of view. Conversely, if your genes incline you
to be uncomfortable with new experiences and sensitive to threat from unknown danger, you
are more likely to be a conservative.
In the midst of the continuing political gridlock in our
country I was delighted to read that the author’s analysis concluded that these
two political perspectives were like yin and yang. Quoting John Stuart Mill he
notes that liberals are experts in care; they are better able to see the victims
in existing social arrangements, and continually push us to update these
arrangements and invent better ones. Haidt believes that liberals should
continue to restrain corporations, and that some big problems really can be
solved with regulation. Conversely he believes that conservatives provide a
crucial counterweight to liberal reform movements. He believes that conservatives’
support and faith in the market is indispensable. Working together they can
check and balance each other.
For many years I have wondered why some people are liberals
and others conservative. Now I have some clarity. I no longer think that liberals by
themselves have the total answer. We need the best of both parties. The author
notes that these six distinct moral foundations have evolved over the past five
hundred thousand years. They have allowed us as a species to adapt and survive.
Perhaps Haidt’s greatest contribution is in humbling us by
destroying the myth that humans operate mainly from their conscious and
rational minds. Haidt does this by using a metaphor of an elephant and a rider.
The elephant is used to represent the ninety percent of our unconscious mind
while the conscious and rational part of our mind, the conscious rider, is a
puny ten percent. Haidt’s research should help us replace self-righteousness
and intolerance with greater tolerance and humility when discussing politics.
John Adam observed that Thomas Jefferson rarely gave public
speeches and instead took copious notes for legislative committee meetings. Adams,
speculating about this peculiar Jefferson trait, was known to say, that like
Jefferson, he knew of no instance of a legislator readily changing his opinion simply
after listening to a colleague’s contrary opinion. This suggest that a person’s
political persuasions are hard wired at the unconscious level and very rarely
given up. Has this not been your experience?
Just as your genes help to predispose your moral
foundations, developmental and other significant environmental experiences also
contribute. After reading this book, for example, it was clear that my genes
were such that at birth I was constitutionally a conservative. By nature even
today new experiences make me anxious and I am often sensitive and quite frightened of danger and the unknown.
Thus my DNA is that of conservative.
Why then have I never felt any thing else but a liberal? At
my birth in 1935 the Great Depression was just ending. I learned early from my working
class parents that President, Herbert
Hoover was to blame for all the suffering my family had gone through the past
several years. During the depression my parents migrated/hitchhiked to Texas to
find employment but found no work there. My family returned to Indiana and my
dad and other World War I Veterans marched to Washington DC to try and get
their bonus early. Instead President Hoover ordered General McArthur to destroy
their tent city and drove them out of Washington with tanks and the calvary.
My family story also involved President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt who after his election soon created the Civilian Conservation Corp and
Works Progress Administration. Only then did my dad get job. Soon afterwards Roosevelt created
the Fair Deal including unemployment compensation and Social Security.
The moral psychology research also supports the view that
when engaged in a political discussion we rely predominately on our subconscious
and our intuition. After all, it is in the subconscious mind that our sacred
moral foundations are found. Strategic reasoning always comes after our
intuitive response and usually takes the form of providing more evidence to
support and justify our political argument. Recent research suggests that our conscious
rider response is always intended to support and keep safe our moral reputation.
Perhaps the best way for Americans citizens to help break
this partisan gridlock would be for each of us to read this book and familiarize
ourselves with our own political genes and how we characteristically use our innate
foundational narratives to make our case. Insights gained from this book can also
help us to listen for and hear the others moral arguments. You will find that
once you have been introduced to the true nature of your political genes and
moral foundations they will become immediately recognizable --- both for you
and the other. I predict that if you do, both of you will appreciate and respect
each other more.
William R. Benedict blogs at: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
