Dems Good! Reps Bad!! Right? (Not So Fast, Says Haidt)

Indulge a little more serious, and I am serious that this will be serious, rambling about the divide between liberals and conservatives...

I am liberal, vote Democratic every time, and stand slack-jawed, incredulous at the opinions of my conservative friends.

Most of my friends are conservative, and likewise stand with mouths agape at my opinions.

Other than their political views, they are reasonable and responsible people.  And, this is very unnerving and scary to me.  How can reasonable people believe such unreasonable things?  In my more paranoid moments, after watching the History Channel until 3am, my mind full of Holocaust images and stories of otherwise normal  Germans who participated in the carnage, my friends come to mind.  And, I see similar flashes of potential for a Neo-Nazi America.

But, that is only when I'm tired, and hungry and haven't had my brain's pleasure sensors sufficiently stimulated sufficiently recently.

What makes otherwise reasonable people vote Republican?  Several months ago I read an article by Jonathan Haidt who is liberal as I am, but who nonetheless came to a place of comfort and respect for his conservative friends.  Whether you are a liberal or conservative or moderate, you should read this article by Haidt.  We owe it to each other!               

Here's a teaser...

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?  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.

Here the author starts to set up his own version of "scary friends" contrasted with his reasonableness.  

A transformative experience was his trip to India...

My first few weeks in Bhubaneswar were therefore filled with feelings of shock and confusion. I dined with men whose wives silently served us and then retreated to the kitchen. My hosts gave me a servant of my own and told me to stop thanking him when he served me.

Later...

Back in the United States the culture war was going strong, but I had lost my righteous passion. I could never have empathized with the Christian Right directly, but once I had stood outside of my home morality...

What happened in India that changed him so much?  Are you interested in his journey to respect for conservatives?  Then read the article...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

Adding this after the initial post...  if still interested, you can read about more of my anguish and angst here...

http://larryandro.blogspot.com/2008/11/ruminations-in-morning.html