What Makes People Vote Republican?

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seriously, if you want to get a better idea of who and what it is that you're talking about, feel free to take a look.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
"Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most."

near the beginning of his talk he points out that most of the people watching are liberals and then he makes a georgebushvotersaredumb joke and then calls the entire audience on their obvious bias and moves on from there. it's less than 20 minutes. he's not just some dude who likes to think about stuff and then make proclamations, he's done quite a bit of research on individual morality. you can even add your own view at http://www.yourmorals.org.

one could abbreviate the basic point of the article in the OP and this 20 minute TED talk as "if you think everyone who disagrees with you, politically, is being stupid, you are not being smart."

Actually I do read quite a bit actually.



Looks to me like you're the one that didn't read waltur. And btw, I was waiting for someone to make a comment like the one you made to post this.

make it out of the first paragraph, at any point? you just completely confirmed my point. the man you're criticizing isn't the partisan hack you seem to think everyone in the entire world is.

if it's too long, just be honest, like jb, and say "tl;dr" (too long; didn't read). if you want to participate in a discussion based on an article, read the article. the man is not beyond reproach. i'm sure there are valid criticisms.

my favorite part of his TED talk was when he mentioned conservatives being prone to seeing things in an "us vs them" kind of way, and the audience laughs. then he calls them out on having the same problem.


seriously. read the article and then read your response. it's almost comical. it would be hilarious....



....except that it's how the majority of our compatriots (left and right) deal with anything remotely political.

Which the author goes on to explain in the rest of the article is a simplistic way of approaching the question. He is stating these assertions because they are the fallacious assumptions into which progressives and Democrats commonly fall. If you look through the rest of the article, he explains that this concept-- the idea that conservatives are naturally predisposed to close-mindedness-- is just as much a liberal myth about conservatives as liberals hating the country is a myth some conservatives profess to believing. The rest of the article is his reasoned defense of conservatism as an equally valid perspective to his fellow liberals. At most, he suggests that the idea of hereditary predisposition toward one political view or the other is an incomplete explanation.

@waltur

Actually I did read it, just the part that best illustrated my point happened to be in the first paragraph and I didn't see the need to make comments paragraph by paragraph.

@ Chevand

Looked to me like it was advocating that people have an express need to be lead around like sheep. Something Conservative Republicans do not advocate.

I've read Haidt's work before, because I have been so perplexed that so many people would not only vote against their own interests, but that they would so happily condone human rights violations, needless wars, economic injustice, social injustice, and so on. The Democrats are guilty of the above as well, but slightly less so, so between the two choices, why choose the one that is more harmful?

Haidt posits that morality is based on a gut feeling of disgust, so that something that we feel is morally wrong literally makes us sick. Republicans tend to be sickened by what they see as a violation of traditional morals (gay marriage, abortion, lack of patriotism) and liberals are sickened by injustice and inequality.

But I think the reason why people vote Republican goes beyond that. Much of it is fear-based (the terrorists are gonna get us!! !), and some just is down to laziness and habit. If yo don't stop to think, you are much more likely to just go with the flow, do what you are used to and what the people around you are doing.

this was your response. when it was pointed it out that this response didn't seem to make sense if you'd read the article, you quoted the the bottom half of the first paragraph.


bolded: the part you quoted and twisted to support your spin.


above: the next two paragraphs.
bolded: a difficult view to hold one is "trying to claim people aren't intelligent because they don't agree with the nutty left's agenda."

this whole exchange has me cracking up.

@ waltur

Actually, you've just proven my point. It tries to paint the idea that the masses are stupid and need to be controlled that they strive for order blah, blah, blah.

It still has the same elitist attitude that was why the Dems got their heads handed to them.

at some point, you should consider reading what this man has to say. his point isn't that "the masses are stupid and need to be controlled" or "that they strive for order blah, blah, blah." it would be much more accurate to say "people want what they want for reasons that are valid and they aren't going to vote for people who don't see their values as valid."

he pretty much agrees with you about why the dems get "their heads handed to them."

high five.

The trouble is we're all human - people can either pay attention to that, pay attention to how ethereal what we deem 'reality' is, how what someone would or wouldn't do is governed by what point is most salient, and its a trickle of both conscious and subconscious factors that lead how people sort the facts around them into heaps and either do great or truly absurd things with that result. I don't think liberals or democrats can make any claims that they're more above it though, the trouble is - when one makes that claim - it something closer to vowing toward willful ignorance. Much like some fundamentalist religious folk will seem more animalistic in some behaviors because they have no concept of themselves as animals just have no censor for certain types of behavior - the same goes for anyone who's hiding from themselves, what they are, what we are, etc.

On another note though, with left and right, the big controversy is of course societal. Egalitarian vs. individualistic. Those who are putting in a bit for egalitarian unfortunately have it in their minds that where Lennon failed they can succeed, I'd figure globalism may in fact just make that easier. The trouble with that - its a flu dream, and one that everyone else gets to live as a result if they get their way. Make the world better by sabotaging it, mourning what they sabotaged as failed, and ultimately kidnapping any trace of objective reality perhaps cleansing the history books so were kept even more in the dark and perhaps forget who we are or where we came from - that's what I'm afraid we'd have to look forward to. The thought of that just makes me shudder at how molested the people of Russia have been, and I can completely understand the drinking problems over there - ie. no control, no hope for the future. Dealing with some smarmy social conservatives or people who might judge me for being different, doing my own thing, yes, its annoying but - its far better than living in a 1930's depression time world - long term - and having to look over my shoulders at all times as the likelihood of someone killing me for my shoes has gotten to be common place. That's one of many reasons why, when I measure my options, voting Republican (as I did on November 2nd) is quite easy.

He is referring to the offensive references to intelligence in the first parts of the post. It also paints Republicans as fearful cowards while painting Democrats as a bastion of reason. He read this and was offended which is understandable. He then moves on to classifying Republicans as exploiting some imagined mental weakness.(he also implies that only Republicans use national crisis to grab for more power, a blatant lie ex. patriot act.) He read this and was offended, which is understandable. Refer to the first three paragraphs for these offenses,in the third one he explicitly states the Republican party's success is attributable to some kind of diagnosis. In a later paragraph he groups racism, narrow mindedness, and idiocy as a default values of the Republican party which they damn well aren't. (the only reason this wasn't mentioned in my last post was because I thought pointing out the obvious attempts to insult his opponents at a basic level would be apparent to anyone with a brain and be quickly disregarded as irrelevant, my mistake.)

In one of his later posts he refers to the political brain, I thought that the notion that people had to believe your ideals work before accepting them was known to all but apparently not hopefully this will become apparent to more in the future. Democrats need to realize that the only reason we have as much of a safety net as we do is because we needed one, if they want more liberal policies they are going to need to adapt these ideals to American concerns, instead of human concerns. This might seem wrong to you but look at it this way, the chances of the whole world identifying as one group on anything but a symbolic level isn't going to happen until we have a new world with its own people to compare ourselves to. Settle for each nation implementing its own moral system with liberal ideals and you will succeed.

@inuyasha You obviously either skipped the ending which is much better than the opening or failed to understand the ending due to being upset I suggest you either finish, read the whole thing again this time staying calm, or only spectate on this discussion. You'll just make yourself look bad otherwise.

EDIT: @inuyasha its could be argued that you didn't read very far at all after all you tried to say that it didn't outright claim racism as a Republican trait which it actually did.

While I'm at it I should probably point out that this man never actually decried his earlier views, he just pointed out an explanation of his new found understanding of their mechanism, purpose, and origin. He then proposed a way the Democratic party could use this. He never actually claimed to have changed his mind about the Republican party although I can see how Waltur might have thought that.

No he points out a way for the Democratic party to implement a more relatable moral system into American society, he never actually espouses that the current system is valid just that if the Democrats are going to try and implement a new system they need to do it on Americas term for American interests. That is to say America should come before anything else including ideals. He's just pointing out how Democrats sometimes view their ideals before their country, and how they might actually have to change the traits of their ideals that just aren't compatible with what republicans view as an American identity. This isn't to say you should compromise your ideals to comply with their identity, just that you need to supply a new one that has American-centric ideals.




Yes pretty much. But he didn't have to open up his paper in such a rude way. He demeans the Republican party to a mental state that he claims Democrats often view as barbaric. While he explains his understanding them and gives his reasons for viewing them as tolerable(as opposed to tolerating them out of principle) this paper makes it obvious he still looks down on them as lesser somehow. This paper was obviously written for Democrats Waltur, maybe he thought that their wouldn't be anyone outside of the Democratic party with an interest int this paper.

EDIT:



Just skip the first few paragraphs, the ending is way more interesting and much more worth it than the opening.

EDIT2



No he doesn't he just explains it and makes some observations of how his understanding of this mental state can be used. I suppose he sort of rids it of the innate part but their really isn't much difference between the results being innate and the results having a process, other than the process being more useful.

Sorry for the string of posts but I wasn't getting emails for this thread and I'm a bit sick of falling behind on some threads.

To me it seemed more of a trick Americans to get back into power and the force a particular kind of 'morality' onto the 'stupid masses.'

You can choose to read it the way you read it ikorack, but from my standpoint it looks like Democrats still don't get it.

Well yes but its a morality that wouldn't be fully liberal it would have to be compatible with most of Americas values, it would then stay static until enough people fell away from this new morality for change to be needed again. The morality they used would by definition have to be a compromise between the ideals that currently make up America.



Agreement isn't a requirement of understanding, and while they(or at least this guy) gets the process and understands how it works he wouldn't really be able to understand the feeling without experiencing it himself, the kind of faith needed for a trust of whats right and wrong just isn't present in a moral system based completely(or to an extreme) off of reason. I would have to say your right they don't understand the feeling but thats not likely to change until they have tenants that they can agree to as a group. Really group morality isn't the Democratic party's strong point, but at least this is closer to what I would call a path to an ideal compromise.

EDIT: To summarize your basically right this isn't understanding based on empathy, but the end result would be a good situation for all involved.(and yes it would be a new morality, it doesn't how ever have to be forced, although it would likely leave the extremists a little upset)