Why Conservatives Can’t Understand Liberals (and Vice Versa)
While we've been on controvercial subjects, why not this one.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt says many people today live in a ‘moral matrix’.
Note these are the basics it is thought that might be hardwired into humans...some, anyway. Understand that as we grow up we adjust our understanding through experience and the demon temptations lingering in our brains.
Oh boy...this is gona be interesting...
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt says many people today live in a ‘moral matrix’.
Note these are the basics it is thought that might be hardwired into humans...some, anyway. Understand that as we grow up we adjust our understanding through experience and the demon temptations lingering in our brains.
Oh boy...this is gona be interesting...
Conservatives generally consider the amount of wealth completely controllable by how much effort people put into making it and the barriers in their way to doing so. They don't spend much time worrying about how much someone has figuring that if you bake enough bread, everyone will get some.
I find this even carries into scientists vs engineers where scientists try to determine the rules of a real universe -- and there are only so many rules, and engineers build things without limit.
I noted bread production is calculated by the Pound also a monetary unit and not by the loaf (ers)
I would like di dispute the premise of Professor Haidt's proposition. Just because he finds analogies among values (which are, by the way, poorly defined in that piece) in different cultures, it represents no evidence that they are "hard wired".
Briefly, I would like to point out:
1. Each human is, by definition, a unique individual, with no identical predecessor and no identical successor.
2. The Life process itself is characterized by these fundamental drives: survival, procreation and adaptation.
3. Evolution is a big gambling scheme. Mutations are random, but only successful adaptors survive in the big competition for existence.
4. "Conservative" and "liberal" are very loosely defined descriptions of vague and frequently logically inconsistent opposing (for practical political gains) ideologies.
5. There are two fundamental concepts that are missing most of the time in these discussions:
a. Parenting, teaching and managing are the three "incestuously" interrelated activities aiming at making individual humans better. The quality of all three is trending lower in out times.
b. There are huge differences among individual humans in their cognitive capabilities. Nobody dares even mentioning this, and the two "ideologies" I mentioned above completely ignore this.
6. Levels and quality of education and concrete abilities of individuals have enormous economical consequences.
If we can agree on a set of basic definitions, then, if we also "behave", we might have a productive discussion on the plans for the future.
Wish us all good luck and a happier, more rational future.
All the best.
Sincerely,
Maritimus
It's a rough sketch, a base to build on, but you might consider a biological point of view where each cell in our bodies contains all the information it needs to survive so long as it gets the resources it needs...this includes your brain cells also so who's to say that how we could or should get along isn't built in. Just something to think about.
I agree on parenting, education, etc, etc. These things and our language, (the conotation of our words as opposed to the true meanings- What I call, progressive speak.) has been so degraded that it's rare that the children actually grow up to be "Conscious beings"...instead of the parasitical humanoids we see today. However, I have noticed throughout history that a subset of society, no matter how educated or how they have been brought up still end up like liberals and they usually end up in government, usurping values because they can not or do not want to create values.
I don't think he suggests any pre-destination here, but we do come with some instructions, in our cells, in our DNA...it's all what we do with it but in these days it's what we are allowed to do with our potential.
Not everyone is as obstinate, always reaching for the better, as we here at the gulch.
What I did find fascinating was his disclosure that he had an acknowledged bias, as a liberal, but was shocked to find his research showed conservatives had a much more realistic view of the world. The most balanced moral view belonged to the social conservatives.
His conclusion? Liberals tend more to the fanatic, with unflinching, absolutist positions, and only a personal, devastating event can change their minds (as has been said, a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged). Conservatives waste a lot of time trying to reason with liberals.
I don't consider myself conservative, but I dislike the straw-men arguments that I hear about anyone.
Funny...that' just what Jaynes was describing.
"Good people subdue the earth. Evil people subdue other people."
I have lived such a life as to have found this to be true.
Conservatives often confuse freedom of individuation with "liberal anarchy" which is nonsense.
Liberals often view social order as "force" ...which is nonsense.
Morality is reality...and reality is the final arbiter.
Honest Bolshevik Bernie woulda been better. Only for libtards, that is.
As for decimate it means kill ten percent nothing more and nothing less. deci one tenth mate kill. and to go one post up tht's because they can't define who or what they are much less act the part. It's a joke. Try a dictionary not this fairy tale fictionary crap.
Nowwas that sarcastic enough to get someone off their couch potato butt to attempt to explan the terms? Only been 15 months of asking.
Ah never mind it's probably that same tired old PC left wing crap and the definitions don't work .
Lie with the pigs you get dirty and that's all conservative and liberal means to me.
missives, Michael. . you are unique! -- j
.
The terms I shall repeat are so over defined they have virtually no meaning and are useless. Perhaps a wall to hide behind?.
Add in the use of the original base definitions doesn't apply since it' snot two parties any more but one and the terms are doubly useless UNLESS it's as acting directions in a scripted play of sorts.
The last line is a cry of disgust and dispair.
If the country, it's voting segment at any rate, insist on getting all razzle dazzled with brillian BS and basing their decision on ....same, what, fairy tales more farfetched than any war story I ever heard or told....there is no point in using the terms.
so I'm determned to automatically redact them in the same manner i change 9.99 to 10.00 and Pre Owned to Second Hand. and Congressional so and so sez to 'another batch of intentional lies,"
The act like one party with one basic philosophy of government I shall treat them that way. They insist on be called left i will agree change it left over, used, unusable, discarded, trash and treat them that way.
Those that attempt to engae in discussion will concede to my definitions or go away I don't need to hear wasted meaningless useless words and they may treat me the same.
I am unique in one way only. I recognized what is real and what is not and did something about it. Successfully. Some others have picked up on it. That is good. Some others have added to and refined it and contributed in one or many ways. That was tremendous.
I looked at 1984 and saw that it wasn't good. All pigs may be equal and some more than others but I am not a pig. A pig could never make as many spelling mistakes as I do on it's best day.l
I'm a human, I recognize my own nature. Thank you 'Life' for making me that way. Responsible only to myself and only from when I went from formative years to adult hood. Right about time to get drafted or join up. Adult decision Numer One. Age 21 rolled around I'd been two years in active combat zones.and received a treat. Hey Pig we are going to make iyou a little more equal. You can vote. And I answered Hey Pigs. I'm a human being and you will never be equal ro or superior than me.
Really not all that unique -- At times, I can articulate the difference between a human being and a more equal pig. Why? Because I'm objective and recognized my own nature, fouond it useful and declared it good.
With no small assistance from this group and a lot of thanks from this human being.
Liberal and Conservative are garbage and crap and toilet flushings for sall the good they do - as words. Might fertilize some field somewhere.
Liberal means: seeing the world as they WISH it was.
Conservative means: seeing the world as it ACTUALLY IS.
Liberal means: believing top-down, govt control FIXES all life's ills, which REMOVES INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS.
Conservative means: smaller, less intrusive govt allows individuals to rise as high as their talents, desires and effort will take them.
Liberal means: guaranteed equal outcomes (irrespective of effort or ability)
Conservative means: guaranteed equal opportunity.
Broadly speaking, I think both sides do represent and 'live up to' my description, as my description stems from observation of policies supported and promulgated by each side.
where they often don't fit. . it is, though, a fun set of
ideas. . objectivists might list a totally different set of
"moral foundations" -- pleasure/pain, advantage/
disadvantage, contribution/detraction and the like.
and, as freedomforall says, objectivists reject both
liberal and conservative positions. . but it is a good
article, for mental exercise! -- j
.
I laughed writing that thinking why AR you old scoundral The Definition of Objectivism is "Always Check Premises especially your own."
Moreover, we like to think that our own ethics are universal, natural, normal for all people. Everyone wants fairness. Everyone values loyalty. It just is not true. The Success of the WEIRD People is an anthropological study of eight different cultures contrasted with our own.
In the Ultimatum game, one party is given a largess with instructions to share whatever they want with the other party. If the other party feels that the split is inequitable, no one gets anything. In our society, most people draw the line at a 70-30 share. If the recipient does not get at least 30%, then no deal. Some other people are more rational in the pure market sense: any gain is better than nothing. Some other cultures feel that the distributor is under no obligation to share anything. Some people (especially in Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia) will engage in "altruistic punishment" where they would pay out from their own share without recompense to bring a loss to an unfair distributor.
(My comments here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
It is interesting... On a related note, the blog "Intellectual Take Out" does offer a potpourri. Some of the claims are interesting, but false.
The article on "Science versus Scientism" is a echo of an old post-modernist claim. That it is offered there reflects the anti-intellectual tradition in conservatism. Also, that article conflates claims about "cave men" without naming who said those things. That view of "cave men" was the popular one, not the scientific one. And even if you could find a 19th century anthropologist or paleontologist who asserted it then, that view has long since been discredited. And it is the only example offered, as if one bad idea discredits science as "scientism." It only cites G. K. Chesterton, a clever guy with some interesting ideas of his own. Chesterton was no more correct as a scientist than were John Stuart Mill or Oscar Wilde.
At the detail level, the article about phrases from the Middle Ages was wrong about "red letter dates." The practice goes back to the Romans. We have their calendars painted on the walls of their villas, including "movable feasts." It is not called the Roman Catholic
Church for nothing. They did not invent red letter dates; they inherited them.
In other words, it is all nice to discuss, but mostly here, everyone is talking about their feelings, not the facts.
Of particular interest to this group should be Haidt's additional thoughts relating a a sixth base of morality, that of liberty/oppression. He says, "The desire for equality seems to be more closely related to the psychology of liberty and oppression than to the psychology of reciprocity and exchange.... [So] we added a provisional sixh foundation-- liberty/oppression. We also decided to revised our thinking about fairness to place more emphasis on proportionality."
There are two aspects of fairness, "On the left, fairness often implies equality, but on the right it means proportionality - people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute, even if that guarantees unequal outcomes."
"WE ALL DECLARE FOR LIBERTY; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name----liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names----liberty and tyranny."
-----Abraham Lincoln, 1864
I think that what positively identifies Liberals from Conservatives stems from the nature of the five categories themselves. Liberals will take the stance which minimizes the three identified by Haidt as lacking in their worldview because they view themselves as the originators of those notions. They view themselves as the ultimate authorities, they ascribe to might makes right philosophies (eschewing loyalty to people or principle), and they view themselves as temporary and therefore willing to discard the body. Conservatives take the approach that they are not the ultimate authority nor are they temporary and that alliance to lasting principles is important.
So the real question in my mind is this: what leads a person to reject the other three ideas?
If it wasn't for this basic information built into us...we never would of survived this long.
Makes me think I should have included Shakespeare as one of those top ten philosophers on the other thread.
Lack of self awareness he says...isn't that what I've been saying? laughing so out loud!
think that I have to worry about why they can or
can't understand each other. What I think (from what I understand of Objectivism; I want to avoid
plagiarism or misrepresentation here) is that man
is born with a brain, and a "pleasure/pain" mechan-
ism, and the free will to focus his mind honestly
and consistently on the facts before him, or not
to do it. And this determines his character. (I
don't think it determines his whole personality,
such as excitability versus calmness, tenden-
cies to energy versus lethargy, loquacity versus
taciturnity, etc.--these may very well be inherited; but what he will get excited about, what he will get energetic about, what he will
talk a lot,or not, about, will depend on his "stan-
dard of value". And the standards of value will
depend on how honestly and consistently he
chooses to focus).--And in some people this
focusing, or failure to do so, results in a mixture
of political views which becomes "conservative",
and in others. "liberal".
I know liberals, I understand liberals, that is why I usually crush them in debates.
I know Islam and I know our enemy, which is why I would easily defeat them.
Liberals are much like the sociopath, or criminal in their mentality. The Criminal believes that everything they want belongs to them. But if you take from them using the same rational you are dealt with harshly.
Liberals I will state with great emphasis have a serious mental disorder. I will stand by that statement since there is NO liberal that can hold a logical fact based discussion. 100% of everything is emotionally based which is why I beat them. I play by their own rules until they cry, give up or decide to actually listen to fact.
For a couple decades I was friends with a guy I enjoyed hanging out with. Even worked for the guy for a while. But, deep down he had what seemed to be a real anger, perhaps even a hatred for white people. He was a liberal. Last year I ended up just breaking ties with the guy. Was unfortunate because, if it weren't for that deep-seeded trouble that would occasionally pop up, he was a neat dude. Live and learn...
Now, take that divide and multiply it 100 times and you get islam, especially the radicals.
I went in prepared to read some George Lykoff crap but came out duly impressed. There is a lot of objectiveness in the authors findings. Because he understands basic definitions.
I gotta side with Ayn Rand on this one. Set it aside but keep an eye on it in case something new develops.
Until then the give away words are, 'it is thought that might be' and then goes straight into objectivism.
Teacher: Students Crave Ethics Instruction
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/bl...