Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters

In the 20th Century we had many major analyses of authoritarianism as a consequence of the fascist dominance of Europe that led to WWII. It is quite clear from the policies of the Reagan, BushI and BushII administrations that the appeal of authoritarianism in the US remains strong enough to warp democracy.

While Haidt’s pigeonholes may provide a vehicle for continuing to talk about authoritarianism, he does not seem to recognize that his intellectual commitment to the notion that we should balance our commitment to progress with a commitment to regress is an ethical position. He sounds like Fox News’ “Fair and balanced” excuse for their perpetuation of incitement to serve the economic oligarchy. The American Dream is allowing social change without violence. Authoritarians are violent to preserve the status quo.

As an educator, stirring up discussion has worked as far back as Plato. Getting people to talk together is an educator’s task. Using Haidt’s techniques for such purposes is harmless and entertaining. When expanded to any larger task, it becomes a mask for perpetuating caste preferences—as is the case in the traditional communities of the Orient.

Perhaps if Haidt had persevered in philosophy a bit more, he might have encountered the attempt by such thinkers as Jurgen Habermas to teach us about ethical standards for discussion. All talk is not equally helpful. The last thing we need at the moment is an excuse for the nightmare of reaction we have had for the last 30 years.

Conservatives are best explained in terms of gang behavior. The only time being a gang is good is in time of war. We will never eliminate gangs. Nor do we need to do anything to encourage them. Gangs are not interested in being understood or explained. That's a liberal touchstone.

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This article began well, and I read with interest until ‘…. is fundamentally incompatible with the way 50% of Americans think….

Whoops! I was under the impression that the vast majority of Americans don’t actually think, which is why the deplorable state of affairs exists at all.

Let me explain –

It is a pretty safe bet to assume that nearly everybody who knows the story of Adam and Eve was told it long before they were able to read the account for themselves in the Bible.

Indeed, there was a time when the Bible was only ever read in Latin in the churches, so it was difficult if not impossible for people to verify the story, especially if they didn’t understand Latin.

However, we do have the opportunity to read the Bible, and assuming that the translators didn’t add a few extra verses or sentences, or in some way modify the original text, then in my view, making sense of what is written is not too difficult.

According to the Book of Genesis, the planet was already teeming with men and women long before Adam and Eve came on the scene (001:026).

Let us take a moment to pause on the significance of this. As is the case with any book or document, some sentences carry more weight than others. People may read Genesis quite attentively, but because we have been so ingrained with the idea that Adam and Eve were the first two people, we tend to skimp over the revelation that Mankind had actually been around for some time, and not give it too much thought.

Thus, in view of the fact that Man already inhabited the planet, why should the coming of Adam and Eve take so much precedence and what might their roles have been in relationship to the rest of Man?

Well, there might be a clue in (002:005) – and there was not a man to till the ground.

Now, what might this mean? No farmers amongst the rest of the population? Plainly, this must have been the case, otherwise why say that there were no men to farm the land. In addition, the elite require a huge population of working people in order that they can live their comfortable, privilege lives.

The slave owners in USA needed slaves to farm their plantations – to do all the menial work. Furthermore, a very heavy punishment was meted out to any slave who dared to try and get himself educated. An educated slave meant he would be less inclined to do manual work, so education and slaves were kept firmly apart.

Sex would only be permitted between male and female slaves for the purposes of reproduction, with any pleasurable sex being firmly denounced and opposed, except of course when the benefactors were the white man, and there are plenty of examples where white men took good looking black women into their homes, gave them all the comforts and security, yet refused to pass on their name to offspring.

How is this relevant to Genesis? The parallel is unmistakeable.

(002:009) - And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

There is no such thing as a tree of life or a tree of knowledge of good and evil. These are plainly euphemisms for things that are more subtle; thus Poetic language is now being used to instil in the minds of the readers what is in fact an illusion.

002:017 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou [Adam] eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

In other words, God is saying to Adam – educate yourself at your peril.

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002:019 tells us that out of the ground, the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, a clear reference to farming and domesticated animals. However, on the 5th day, God had already created a huge abundance of living creatures, so this new reference to more living creatures is aimed precisely at the kind of tasks Adam would be meant to do.

In 002:024, Eve makes her appearance.

002:025 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. What is the point of saying (i) that they are naked, and (ii) that they are not ashamed to be naked?

The very next verse: 003:001 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Bear in mind that there were lots of other men about (and women). The serpent and the apple (forbidden fruit) are definitely euphemisms for the visible parts of sexual desire, but here God is saying to Adam – you mustn’t go around screwing every female you see just because you get turned on by them (or them by you). Your place is in the kitchen or the scullery or the land to work on, so we can’t have you enjoying too much sex.

Plus, the woman would undoubtedly get aroused when she sees various naked men especially if they are well endowed when she will see what could euphemistically be described as a serpent.

Using threats of eternal damnation and death, God eventually persuades Adam and Eve to control their sexual passion, and crucially, to feel guilt and shame. Hence:

003:007 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons

In the mythology, Adam and Eve are both seen in pictures wearing a single fig leaf, the purpose being to emphasise the hiding of their genitals rather than covering themselves up in general.

There is a curious passage in 003:011 And he [the LORD God] said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?

003:003 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

So, there is God and there is the LORD God, two of them.

Today, as has always been the case, the world is governed by a rich and powerful elite minority. The majority of us are forced to work for a living and to derive very little enjoyment from our lives. In fact, nearly everything we do that can be construed as enjoyable normally costs money from which someone else derives a profit – alcohol consumption and entertainment.

The purpose of the Adam and Eve story is to control sexual behaviour of the working masses, and to discourage education (and investigation). This keeps people ignorant of what’s really going on, and makes them easier to control and subdue.

Guess what? Nothing has changed.

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The conservatives intend to exterminate everyone to the left of David Duke and the liberals don't have the balls to stop them.


FREE AMERICA

VOCA, NOW!!

REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY

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Dissent is by definition patriotic in a Democracy, if one actually understands what makes a Democracy different from all other governmental systems. Obedience to authority can serve ANY governmental system (Communism, Fascism) but it is the robust and constant expression of dissent that is both unique and necessary to the functioning of a Democratic nation state. Choose whatever value system you want, but if the one you chose ignores what actually serves Democracy, then they stop claiming you are defending one. Creating a society around devotion to authority, purity, and in-group loyalty - at the expense of fairness and avoiding causing harming others - is merely textbook fascism. It's fine if conservatives want to uphold such values, they just need to admit that those values are antagonistic to Democracy, and everything that made this country different from what preceded it. Liberals are the ones who carry the lineage of the patriots which founded the nation, and those who have continued to push it forward ever since. So yes, dissent is patriotic, if your values include the one called 'Democracy'.

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There is no conservative morality. Right-wingers are degenerate traitors, pure and simple. In case you missed it, they just got done gang-raping America.

Busload of Faith

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While this article is interesting, it falls on its own sword.

Quote: “To claim that we're supporting the troops, when in fact we're opposing the war is disingenuous. It just pisses people off."

The author says 'we' as if he is an 'insider' in the anti-war movement, but this claim makes that doubtful. It is blatantly incorrect to suggest that progressives do NOT support the troops when they oppose the war. To use the author’s own definitions of ‘harm/care’, the anti-war movement has wanted to keep US troops sane, alive, and with their families, just as much as they want to keep them from killing innocent Iraqi civilians (or those Iraqis legitimately fighting to free their homeland from occupation). There is zero moral contradiction between opposing the war and supporting the troops, and it is a strong widespread sentiment throughout the anti-war movement. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t say it. Duh! Claiming this sentiment reveals either a political bias on the part of the author or, more likely, an attempt to score points with potential conservative readers by validating their inaccurate views of liberals.

To explain the Anti-War Movement's moral position in the simplest terms: If I were to try to stop a situation that endangers my children or forces them to harm others, then I am obviously SUPPORTING them.

Claiming this is insincere commits the sin of 'misunderstanding' which the author himself condemns as 'not okay.'

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Lakoff's Moral Politics and subsequent writings lay these world-view differences out for all to see. He actually grounds his findings with experimental results in neuro-biology, linguistics, frame semantics and cognitive science. The oversimplification that Haidt's work implies make a mockery of those who take this stuff seriously.

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The Bush years would seem to support the author’s argument:

Right wing conservatives slavishly supported a president who spied on his own population, pre-emptively invaded another country, and condoned torture (all fairly good indicators of tyranny).

However, the last 3 months prove the author’s claim to be incorrect. The conservative right is suddenly fiercely anti-authoritarian and out in the streets, feeling oppressed and terrorized by a 3-month-old Obama administration that simply wants to raise taxes on the rich, while giving most of them a tax CUT. Where is the conservative’s patriotism? Where is their supposed respect for authority?

Nowhere.

While values may surely be driving conservatives, it may not the ones that the authors, or conservatives claim. Just as we saw the republican party toss away it’s supposed political values (small government, fiscal responsibility) as soon as it got into power, we see supposed conservative moral values being tossed aside the second there are out of power.

It seems like their ‘values’ were just a cover to support more deeply held, hidden beliefs: fear of losing privilege, fear of a black president, and fear of losing profits through increased regulation.

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They were wrong then; they are wrong now. Conservatives vigorously opposed every societal advance that improved the lot of working people. Conservatives continue to oppose anything that benefits anyone except those who are wealthy and in power. Conservatism is the opposite of progressivism, thus conservatives are, by definition, regressive. Conservatism is born of the desire to remain wealthy and in power, thus conservatives are patently opposed to change.

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It seems that the conservatives--both Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats such as Obama--consider torture, forced disappearance and felony murder mere breaches of etiquette, matters of taste or "policy differences," not the war crimes, serious human rights violations and felonies they unequivocally are in US and international law.

The very people who decry "moral relativism" are telling us that there is no fixed standard of right and wrong. There's something strange and hypocritical in this special pleading. After all, we have frequently used such offenses as justification for war when people we no longer liked, such as Saddam Hussain and Manuel Ortega, had a history of ordering them under our sponsorship and tutelage.

Obama and Holder have gone so far as to characterize torturers and murderers as dedicated public servants acting in good faith under the law. What? Torturing in good faith? There have been, according to US military pathologists, at least 43 homicides of detainees at the hands of American officials; surely this should count for something.

The world is watching, and no one more than the world's billion-plus Muslims. If we don't take action, what does this say to them about our attitude towards the victims, our estimation of their humanity and the value of their lives and rights? A salafist recruiter couldn't hope for more from Obama.

And what of our allies, who now view us as a barbaric bully to be kept at a distance? How can we regain their trust if not through re-establishment of the rule of law?

If impunity persists, what of future war criminals? What is to deter them? Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Pinochet could not have done much evil acting alone. It took willing accomplices, and if systems are not in place to deter such accomplices, protection from evil designs conceived in high places is illusory.

And how can we protest credibly if American military personnel, diplomats or civilians are tortured or even murdered abroad?

There is a lot at stake here, far too much to be swept under the rug by the craven, the lazy, the calculating and the implicated.

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Spot-on regarding the bumper stickers and so-called primitive societies, but not US "conservatism." American "conservatism," is not conservatism by the article's definition, or any definition.

There is no loyalty or respect for order. We turn on our friends, make dirty deals with enemies, and make trouble where there is none. Lust for money, power, and self are considered good, again at the expense of a stable, ordered society.

The right is quick to tear down and/or ignore any authority figures it doesn't agree with, thus there is no real respect for authority. Clinton, Carter, and others are obvious examples. So-called "religious" people will even ignore the Pope when he speaks about human rights, war, capital punishment, and only tune in when he talks about abortion. And it has certainly become clear that we don't care about long-held traditions or rule of law regarding executive power, checks-and-balances, the Constitution, etc.

Red America does not compare well with the primitive societies studied and used as examples in the article(s). Most of us can at least partially understand the appeal of a tradition-based arrangement where everybody has a role, is taken care of, etc., even though it may seem unfair or even barbaric by modern liberal standards. But that has nothing to do with what we call "conservatism" in the US, which is more akin to a 20th Century fascist ideology which values aggression, upheaval and conflict above all else.

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when interracial marriage was forbidden, it was forbidden based on "purity". the only difference between a gay family and a straight family's purity is one's discomfort about the purity of gay people per se. Otherwise what makes gay families impure. It's the yuck factor: they are doing that. No! Gay parents don't do anything straight parents don't do. So yes, its homophobia, otherwise purity would not be an issue. all families are pure, yours too. But queers don't count because they're queer.

conservatives believe in the authority of the powerful, whereas liberals believe in the authority of science, and the rule of law. One is about entitlement and the other is about reason and justice. The idea that liberals are less in some of the moral instincts only could be based on a stereotype[negative stereotype] liberals. Where they put liberal and conservative ethics and morals tells more about the prejudices and categories of these authors than anything they imagine they have discovered.

Take the idea that liberals don't care about purity: if liberal concerns about the environment are not about purity, if liberal concerns about torture aren't concerned about purity, if liberal concerns about water air food and poverty, and capital punishment and the Gaza are not about purity, than what is it. Just listen to what liberals say. how they talk about the issues they hold dear.

there is no rational basis for how things were boxed up. it in is not even ethno-science. just a whole lot of just so stories. They never really looked at what people really think themselves. their outcomes are built into their instruments.

To say that liberals are unpure and but anti-authoritarian is so much nonsense. It is mind-bogglingly absurd.

If "purity" per se is so fundamental, than it would make a great deal more sense to see just how important and where it is to liberals than to say it is just tuned off.

Just superficially, to write off liberal "purity" in the face of the 20th Century's liberal concerns with pollution and clean air and water and nature, liberal concerns about roadside ads, about garbage in the streets, about ethics in government and about honesty in business, about censorship as perverting art, about government's keeping its noses out of our bedrooms, about food purity and the whole natural foods movement and drugs' purity and children's rights and about family violence, all liberal outrage about purity, just proves how arbitrary and blindered and prejudiced by stereotype this whole academic discussion has become. It really is demeaning and denigrating to liberals. Ronnie Reaganism written up as research.

It would be laughable were it not for the ethical consequences, and real world consequences. It just a fancy way to justify racist hate and elite entitlement. It reads like something from the highest reaches of Chinese Communist self justification.

No I am not blinded as a liberal to the moral concerns of conservatives but on the contrary refuse to accept justifications for selfishness and moral cowardice. Ayn Rand conservative ethics is about selfishness. Ayatollah rants are about the prerogatives of ayatollahs. Sharia law is all about rich old men running things. And Republican ethics is about the immorality of the redistribution of wealth down as well as up. People at the bottom want stability because they don't want to down further. They have too much to lose from freedom.

I am not turned down to purity and authority, but on the contrary, misuse of moral imperatives against real people is pollution, the very pollution the authors of the scriptures describe as whitewashed tombs full of rotting bones. They kill the prophets because they kill the profits. That is exactly what the scriptures say.

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The author missed a contrdiction in the conservative philosophy. They believe strongly in loyalty to the group, but in economics, it's every man for himself; the "free market". If you get left behind or left out, it's your own fault. It seems to me that liberals, who believe we are all in this together, all must be included, have a much stronger group ethic.

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These are good hardworking people who abhor most everything about our government that so called liberals do..

this is another stupid divide and conquer hit piece

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...Cnservatrash--any more than I'd want to 'understand' this gang of crooks and thugs. THIS Liberal wants these animals gone from our shores, ASAP.

They came in with their beloved Ronnie Dearest, an American traitor if ever there was one, and proceeded to steal America right out from under us.

They came, they 'didn't like what they saw' and so--rather than obeying the wise maxim: "America--Love It OR LEAVE IT"-- they set about trying to change America. That was the so-called 'culture war'. Thirty years of misery later, Liberals finally woke up and are in the process of taking out the garbage.

Of COURSE the garbage is complaining!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these pieces of pure filth did have a brilliant leader. I call Karl Rove the FDR of the Republican Party. He had almost succeeded in helping W turn America from being the Land of the Free, into the totalitarian, almost unrecognizable (by the standards of ten years ago) Fascist dictatorship that we let come to pass, since the year 2000.

Luckily, the moron Democrats (that's us) finally got up off of their dead asses and did what they always should have done--outvoted these creeps. WE'RE AT FAULT FOR THE PAST NINE YEARS--Republicans could never have stolen TWO--much less ONE--election, did we go to the polls ourselves in numbers that would have precluded Grand Theft America I--not to mention, Grand Theft America II, four years after that--or even their payoff, Grand Theft America III--aka Big Bank Bailouts.

If it really is gonna cost us a trillion dollars or so to be rid of these animals, so be it. Me, I'd like to charge them all with treason. ("Of COURSE we can torture! The Constitution? That's just a goddam piece of paper!")--George W. Bush, in his dismissal of concerns that he may--JUST MAY--have been violating the Constitution when he OK'd indiscriminate torture instead of the rule of law.

Ummm...Georgie boy, that was the Constitution that you TOOK AN OATH TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE,
you filthy piece of shit! For that sentence alone you should be looking at 4 walls in Leavenworth for the rest of your natural life!
"Torture made us SAFER"??? You--who eagerly awaited 9/11, despite warnings from your own fellow Republican, Counterterrorism chief Richard C. Clarke, that "these will be a major and devastating attack on America in either late August or early September".

He told Bush this, as soon as Bush took over in the White House. And Bush's reply? "OK, you covered your ass." Of COURSE Bush knew that something big was coming his way--that his lifelong Saudi friends were cooking up something that would make a 2-term president out of him. He likely didn't know exactly WHAT they were cooking up--only that without it, he'd be like Daddy--another failed 1-term president.

STOP 9/11??? Bush??? You KIDDING ME???

Right now this is a war, folks. 9/11 was not avenged--not by us going to war against the Saudis' deadly hereditary enemies, the innocent IRAQI PEOPLE!!!

The proper response to 9/11,--that is, if we weren't lead by a traitor like Bush--would have been to nuke Riyadh, once it became obvious who had flown the planes into the buildings. That was every bit the Act of War that the Japanese committed when they bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

And what did we do, back when a REAL American (that is to say, a Democrat) was in power?

Did we invade, say, GREECE???

Nope--President Harry S. Truman NUKED Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then the war was over. But that was Truman. A Democrat--hence by definition, not a cowardly scumbag--taught the rest of the world what happens when you make war against his beloved American People.

BUSH taught our enemies that they could get away with 9/11.

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purity is in the eye of the beholder:
Quote
Many young people are again seeking Ginsberg and his exuberant purity. Endquote.

from Alternet's When Politics Disappoints, the Young Turn to Allen Ginsberg

By Marlene Nadle, AlterNet. Posted April 25, 2009.

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liberal/conservative, cross dressin, pole-dancin, no house walkin the dog - It doesn't mattter!

We're only as sick as our secrets.

Until WE confront a stolen election in 2000 and ALL the events that ensued WE'll suffer in our own dark little Twilight Zone.

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Like gan said, if your "patriotic loyalty" is withdrawn as soon as the other team is in charge, it wasn't patriotic loyalty to begin with. The more likely possibilities are anything but admirable.

I'm all for trying to find common ground with my rivals on the other side of the aisle, but just because folks like to ascribe the highest motivations to their own actions doesn't mean they should be taken at face value; all our values (yours, mine, the other guy's) should be occasionally vetted for bias and sheer crap. Most progressives are willing to fault Obama when they feel he is on the wrong path, so they're pretty consistent; the same cannot be said of the Bush fan club.

And for the record, abortion is a purity issue, but not the way the author claims. Deep down, most opponents of abortion feel that women are being filthy dirty whores (that's where you'll find the "purity" thing), and what better way to punish them than to saddle them with direct consequences for their whorishness? In short, children are forced to come to term just so they can be a source of everlasting regret. Deep down, the pro-life crowd knows this is what they're really shooting for, but they'll never admit it.

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and hatred for the other.

We are so heavily militarized and pseudo-militarized (sports and politics polarize us), we have all but lost sight of the fact that we have more in common with each other than we have with, say, fruit flies.

I feel emotionally-distanced from my conservative sister for a number of reasons, but I could never hate her. Party politics (because we chose a side and support it) is a big part of the problem.

I believe that we would be better governed if our legislators, administrators and judges were replaced by randomly chosen citizens. I doubt that a mix of ordinary people would have spent trillions on wars and banksters.

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As an open minded liberal I was tracking on this article until I got to Haidt's 5th moral realm of purity and sanctity which contained within it the principles of chastity and purity.

Sorry-I just can't reconcile these "morals" with modernity.But conservatives are taught otherwise at a very early age- especially by the church. And it permeates much of the pathology of conservatism.

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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The article implies that conservatives have a moral compass.

So, how would the author explain the hypocrisy?

My take: The conservative authorities have zero in the moral compass arena. Their God is money and they have no moral directives as to how to obtain that money.

The conservative populace are basically good people who cannot think for themselves. They follow the leader in Church or on TV. They do not read, but keep their TV on 24/7 and obviously cannot remember that the information given yesterday was different from the information given today. As long as the talking heads are proclaiming that "Christianity" is involved they will accept anything.

How did the conservative authoritarians gain this level of "worship" from the group that can't think for themselves?

They overturned the Fairness Doctrine, bought up all of the TV corporations, and have think tanks that send out "talking memos" everyday that are effectively brainwashing the populace. Yep, it worked and they are all billionaires. They won.

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Environmentalist blow the shit out of this theory.
These Liberals not only do not want to do harm, they see us as a continuation of humanity (In group). Additionally the 'authority' is Mother Nature and protecting and defending her Purity is goal one. Thus treating her as well as she Has Us (reciprocity) is essential.
Heres where this theory failed - it looked a purely individualistic motivators(psychology) and then laid them over non industrial soiciety Mores (anthropology) but never focused on the unique aspects of those raised in Industrialized societies (sociology).
Where 'Liberals and 'conservatives' can meet on common ground are in such areas- both hold the planet in high regard, either as a matter of survival, as a duty and/or as a 'gift'. Makes no difference when the goal is the same.
Personally I see our conflicts arise from our perspective on Our personal view of Status and Role.Seems conservatives view themselves as a still photo snap shot in time, Liberals view themselves in a Historical continium. While conservative focus on the immediate aspects of where we are now- Liberals often use reflective concepts regarding where we have been and where we may be headed.
Drill baby Drill is a concern over present energy issues. Tax Cuts is worry about the immediate need to 'make ends meet'
For liberals the use of fossil fuels has proven to be detrimental- consider the number of cities blanketed in smog, the rivers and lakes that have require clean up - reason 'Earth Day' Was begun.
As for taxes, Liberals view these not only as a means to meet currrent needs of the populations (in group) but also as a means to invest in younger generations and repay a debt to the older generations.
Ultimately what defines our political view is determined by whether we feel we are at the Pinnacle of developement, or merely a Work in Progress- still working through misteps towards a more perfect existence as a species. Are we fully evolved- or still evolving?
Seems this psychologist limited his definition on his own five categories, thus prejudicing and skewing his results.
The failure to insitute all three schools of human behavior and interaction has left a glaring doughnut hole in this theory.

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I find it really interesting that so many of us "educated" and "intelligent" liberals are attacking this article based on the words in the opening paragraph where the author states:

"Support our troops: Bring them home" and "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

"No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, 'Hmm -- so liberals are patriotic!'" he says, in a sarcastic tone of voice that jarringly contrasts with his usual subdued sincerity. "We liberals are universalists and humanists; it's not part of our morality to highly value nations. So to claim dissent is patriotic -- or that we're supporting the troops, when in fact we're opposing the war -- is disingenuous.

"It just pisses people off."



Perhaps I am in the wrong here but I thought that Haidt was a psychologist and that he was speaking of the realm of psychology and what conservatives thought--not facts.

In psychology the general rule is perception is truth--what you percieve is your reality--if conservatives percieve that we are not being patriotic by displaing these bumperstickers (which incidentally I have and have had since the time of the CONTRAs when I had one which said "Your taxes support torture rape and murder in Central America") well then we are not being patriotic! That is their "truth". Just as our "truth" is that we have had our country raped, pillaged and all but destroyed. The real truth is (as usual) somewhere in the middle between the two extremes.

The author is correct. We are just "Pissing people off." We piss off conservatives with our bumperstickers just as much as they piss us off with theirs. Who among us has not gotten pissed off by seeing "NOBAMA" stickers?

Both liberals and conservatives have their flash points. Both are equally valid--IF--and only IF--you are able to put yourself in the other's shoes and attempt to understand the others point of view.

In school, while debating, the most interesting (and in truth best) learning experience was being forced to take on the position of the side I disagreed with. It forced me to truly understand my own position better and to see the opposition as just as human as I was. I struggle (and with the past eight years boy did I struggle!) to continue to do the same.

One poster brought up that poelemic "America, Love it or Leave it" and said that conservatives should have done that. Have we as liberals really come that far? That same poster decried that conservatives saw that they didn't like America and worked to change it. Isn't that a value that we as liberals espouse? When I started working for social change I heard almost continuously the refrain "If you don't like it here go to Russia where you belong!". I always thought, "But don't you get it? That's why I love it here, because I CAN do this!". Have we really come full circle and it's now time for us to kick the other guy out?

They say power corrupts and if that is what is happening keep me out of power forever! I may never agree with what someone who dissents says (like the teabaggers--fake though it was the people involved did not think so!) but I will defend to the death their right to do so!

I have gotten myself off topic here (as I am famous for!). To get back on point.......we need to understand each other--if we do not we will be forever divided--if we are forever divided we will cease to be the rulers of our own destiny. I, for one, do not want that to be the kind of world my children inherit. I hope I am not alone.........

Remember the words of Lincoln. Think who is seeking to divide us and why. WORK TO STOP THEM!

This battle is too important--the treasure at stake is too dear--we have to win. Divided we fail........

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As interesting as the article on philosophy is, it is irrelevant.

The author states that coastal liberals are viewed as out of touch by fifty percent of the population....when did fifty percent start consituting a majority>

Even if they were, why would parocial chauvinism be as important a philosophical orientation as cosmopolitan liberalism?

The segments of the American polity must communicate, but t must also be recognized that the conservative side respects, authority, force and money and little else.

Talking to conservatives without the political muscle to back it up is what is naive.

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is that he uses conservatives definitions and assumptions to try to describe a liberal point of view.

Conservative discourse, with all its attendant assumptions, has been dominant since Reagan. That's why liberals have had such a hard time getting their ideas across--the skewing is in the language itself, and Haidt perpetuates this.

Conservatives don't recognize liberal in-groups, for example, e.g. gays who are under constant threat of legalized oppression and in need of protection. Conservatives also classically haven't recognized liberal disgust, e.g. wanton trashing of the environment. Liberals operate every bit under all 5 categories as conservatives. They just define them differently.

It's not that we don't believe in authority--but we are highly skeptical of authority FIGURES who don't live up to our idea of the principled, ethical exercise of authority. It's all a matter of definition, and of whether you are looking at the principle or the SYMBOL of the principle. Is patriotism blind allegiance, is it worship of a damn flag--or it is a thoughtful, measured consideration of how much we're living up to our stated ideals? The latter, in my view, demonstrates a GREATER love of country and of everything it stands for, even if we often fail to live up to it (see current liberal DISGUST at torture).

Concur with everything said above about democracy and liberal ideals.

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Yeah,authority is only their tool to obtaining power, dominion over others. Respect it when it suits them, otherwise tear it down. Great authoritarian, Bush crapped on the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Laws of this nation. But demanded everyone respect him as the great and alminghty asso-in-chief. On the other hand, now that Obama is president, they can't find enough ways to direspect the uppity Negro for usurping their rightful position of power and authority, give him no respect at all.

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~~~~~~~~
"Both arguments are rooted in firm moral beliefs. It's just that for the first correspondent, purity/sanctity is paramount, while for the second it's of minimal importance."
~~~~~~~

Who says? Really, who says that purity/sanctity is of minimal importance to the pro-dog park guy? That's one hell of an assumption. Most of this essay makes that same assumption. THAT'S the problem. The problem is that the religious conservatives refuse to consider that some of us don't think dog shit is all that impure - I mean that in the spiritual moral sense that liberals are supposedly unable to fathom. Some of us believe in the ashes to ashes of death, the circle of life, some of us would prefer to be buried in a park where there is life - not because life is only for the living - but where the co-existing species of human and canine are gathered together much as they have for thousands of years, only now we are chasing sticks instead of prey. - Call it IN-GROUP LOYALTY! None of this is meant to say that the particular graveyard in question should be a dog park, just that it's a HELL of a thing to assume that the second responder doesn't really care about purity or sanctity. Telling us that conservatives believe in purity and sanctity and authority doesn't do us any good, we ALREADY know that, but conservatives never seem to consider that liberal ideas of purity and sanctity are just as strong. As far as religious conservatives are concerned, if you didn't learned it in the bible, you can't possibly understand it, and any morals NOT learned in the bible are invalid. And that's bullshit. In-group loyalty my ass.

This Haidt guy oughtta skim through M. Scott Peck's 4 Stages Of Spirtual Growth then maybe he'll start to understand why us advanced stage 3's and 4's find the 1's and 2's so mindbogglingly frustratingly obtuse.

Jeez, Haidt says, "I had an existential crisis straight out of Woody Allen,.... If there's no God, how can there be a meaning to life? And if there's no meaning, why should I do my homework? So I decided to become a philosophy major and find out the meaning of life." - Some of us don't have a "crisis"; some of us just naturally "get it" and don't have to spend our lives in academia searching for it.

~~~~~

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This is the most elaborate justification of personal self-effacement in a liberal that I have ever seen! Get thee to a psychologist!

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Conservatives use MY tax money to kill people in foreign lands - for God, of course. Violence easily oozes from conservatives in their submission to and exercise of authority. What they call patriotism is used by elites to wage wars and steal money and labor from reptilian brained, autority worshiping Conservatives. I don't need a half baked lecture from Mr Jacobs on how to get along with, be more accepting of, and ultimately be more permissive of the actions of my moral inferiors. According to Jacobs, people from Thoreau to our Founding Fathers were not patriots.

TRC

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It is unproductive to delve deep into the anatomy of political factions. Simplicity will uncover the truth. It all boils down to perceived economic interests. A liberal Big Daddy is expected to promote government programs that help cities and minorities. A conservative Big Daddy is expected to preserve the status quo. Most of the poor and people of color feel abused and want change, so they vote for the liberal candidate. Blue eyed protestant whites imagine that they have a favored position and do not want it changed, so they vote for the conservative candidate. This analysis is a generalization but it is basically true.

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Despite what many, if not all (lol) posters have said, this article is really great. It is a good statement about practical moral differences that we don't think about all the time.

Though, the comments to this article are even better! Evidently liberals do believe highly in the sanctity of our own opinions! haha

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it misses the point, as does the "theory" behind it, with respect to the framing around those 5 points... one poster mentioned the work of George Lakoff above, and it's VERY important to understand the concept of framing when assessing those 5 points. What the hell is purity/sanctity? To a conservative I believe it's adherence to a dogmatic, rigid set of rules based on ancient prejudices and authoritarianism, to a liberal it's an adherence to a belief in the common rights of all and to espousing these rights. Each of these 5 points could easily be disassembled in the same fashion, as their definitions are a result of how they were framed by the authoritarians.
Yes, liberals are hesitant to accept authority, but that is not because they are liberal, it is because authority almost never fails to betray its underlings for its own gain... power corrupts, and the authority we don't appreciate is the self-appointed authority that tells us exactly what to do and how to think. Take for example Howard Zinn- a man that most any liberal that has read his work would consider an authority, and most would be happy to have in a position of Authority.
The 5 points may be nice to help understand where the right wing is coming from, but they're all subject to how they and the idea of a moral compass has been framed by authority, not about what we on the left think of as "morality". The "morals" of the right wing appear to be rooted in evolution, a compassionless struggle for survival of the species at the cost of anyone and everyone around them and a hoarding for the non-existent future far beyond necessity. The morals of the left are rooted in the same roots as civilization, the concern for their fellow man, the golden rule of "do unto others what you would have them do".
These 5 points are not about morality, they're about authoritarianism as it is defined by the right wing, an authoritarianism that the left does not accept and never will.

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It is still a "man's" world to him and he wants to continue to rule from the good ole' boys network. I suppose to take the view that women exist only for the pleasure of men will make him a "real" man. I agree, he should have stayed in philosophy class until he understood that man is a traitor to life and self before trying to dissect view and reason, morality and conservatism. Thankfully, there is a breed of man now that recognizes that people are also of a life force toward nurturing, caring and sharing. This new man is a liberal and is capable of respect, inclusion and wisdom. Move over grandpa, take your conservative, selfish and arrogant bullying ways to the grave where they belong.

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Although I do share the interest/ability to look at other points of view, I'm also one of those that perceive 2 of the 3 conservative 'virtues' are generally immoral, in-group loyalty and authority/respect.

In my teens, I realized, with the help of the education system, that in-group loyalties were foundations for some of the most inhumane episodes in history: the Inquisition, pogroms, slavery, racism, the Holocaust, Rwanda, just to name a few. All of this is tied up with allegiance to groups and a respect for authority, seeing some groups as dissimilar, and blindly following the rule of others.

Although the ideas might be useful for framing the debate to get conservative support, they are more aspects of human criminality than virtues.

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than this piece of lightweight nattering.

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In-group loyalty is better known as xenophobia, right? I just wanna define my terms...

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When scared little white people see only a choice between a gang run by Hitler and a gang run by Mussolini, they choose Hitler. He seems stronger. In the absence of a real Left, this is the choice most U.S. citizens perceive. Until the Z Magazine crowd, not to mention Daily Kos and Moveon, embrace racial inclusion as a major goal of their movements (not), who can take them seriously as an alternative to fascism?

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I guess they have no say other than to be categorized as Democrat or Republican, eh?

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I'm not sure if this is the same guy, but a while back I read something that opened my eyes to our beliefs about "corruption." Most of us profess to believe that looking out for your own, rather than applying fairness principles is wrong (at least in the abstract.) So nepotism is considered unethical, and we expect police officers and judges to enforce things with complete fairness, not based on any relationships.

But there is another moral standard that says loyalty to ones own people is a much more important value than some abstract rules about fairness to all. And in a society with those values, be it Chicago ward politics or Afghan tribal areas, to turn down a second cousin for a job simply because some stranger has better qualifications is the height of immorality.

The more personal standard of protecting and helping your own makes a great deal of sense, especially in a context in which the legal system is not functioning well.

Most middle-class Americans, presented with a dilemma in which a person close to them is known to be dealing drugs or committing robbery, would at least assert that the right thing to do would be to turn them in. Many other people would assert just the opposite, and would consider a man who would turn in his own brother or son to be an evil man indeed.

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The argument needs re-framing. It seems that it is the duty of every thinking person to root out superstition but then to realize there are individuals and groups that don' t know what superstition is or perhaps not even have heard the word. Then we need to recognize
the problem with Conservatism is its connection with personal wealth and the hypocrisy associated with ostentation and greed
cloaked in patriotism and religion.
With regard to the data, I don't see liberals
having more divorce and family desertion than conservatives. There is more "swinging" among the so-called "family value" groups. But they are just better at concealing and covering it up.

Perhaps we might need to refer back to Freud on feelings of disgust and the unclean. Conservatism views it as part of
the Underclass, but the poor and neurotic often refer it to themselves.


It might also help to remind the author of some things said in philosophy. For instance Emmanuel Kant advocated a moral imperative and practical reason of living as if what you do can become an universal law. Perhaps the bottom of the whole debate is whether reason or emotion are the basis of action and whether
as individuals we look which aspect in ourselves is framing our part in the conversation.

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Here we have the DEMS always needing a bigger shovel for the level of UTOPIAN propaganda they want to throw at the UNSUSPECTING PUBLIC.

wanna? know the latest??? Michael moore made a progpaganda film where they attempt to bamboozle the PUBLIC by claiming CUBA'S healthcare is better than the USA ....and that the USA should go to the CUBAN model for healthcare.

WANNA KNOW??? what the reality is and whaaat they are really HIDING... the reality is in CUBA people have to BEG FROM TOURISTS for allergy inhalers and aspirin. You can bet if Americans are allowed to be bamboozled into Socialist healthcare DEMS will make SURE USA is WORSE OFF than CUBA.

According to the new stimulus if your child needs antibiotics and the GOV only wants to give them Asprin or NOTHING guess whaaat they will get ASPIRIN or NOTHING.

Whats worse.. if your/adult/child are X percent sick they ARE LEFT TO DIE.

Soc healthcare is MORE expensive AND gives NO HEALTHCARE. We are no scholar, but you don't need to be a scholar to SEE whaaat is wrong with the DEMS scenario.

DEMS LIED to claim our healthcare system is broken. SOCIALIST HEALTHCARE is MORE EXPENSIVE and gives NO HEALTHCARE.

PEOPLE, OUR MARKET BASED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD. Why, sure it's not perfect. BUT THE SHORTCOMINGS it faces such as high cost of drugs and insurance---are in part THE results of the inroads the SOCIALISTS AND LIBERALS have already made into our market based health care system.

THE REAL SOLUTION TO fixing HEALTHCARE ISN'T to make UNCLE SAME/DEMS your doctor ....BUT to GIVE YOU THE PUBLIC MORE CHOICE.

ALLOWING the DEMS socialize healthcare not only would prove expensive but DEADLY. Think about it?? DEMS WANT TO SPEND MORE MONEY BUT DENY PUBLIC the meds and services it needs while GOV POCKETS THE CASH TO SPEND ON PORK.

don't ALLOW yourselves to be put off seek LEGISLATIVE and LEGAL ACTION TO KICK STIMULUS OUT AND BAILOUT. go see --The National Center for Public policy Research and American center for law and justice & site --Council of Seniors A program of Civic Council

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I mean all that thinking and reading and keeping all the blogs alive and well. Just exhausting! It's so much easier to have a neurotic need for a leader, craft a list of opinions, live and swear by them. Don't waver, it takes too much energy. On more practical matters, everything that ever happens to improve life Is the work of a Liberal. They write the music, paint the pictures, invent new things, finds cures for disease, write laws to create fairness and are always challenging the status quo, which is the foundation of Convervatism. Our Constitution was written by a bunch of Liberals. Abraham Lincoln was a liberal. The bizarre behavior of today's Conservatives is the result of their dread fear of change. They may not like the way things are but at least its all familiar to them, however bad it is. In order to live with themselves they ignore all that is wrong with the way things are. Throughout history it would appear that the Liberals have won on many fronts. We really have come a long way. But without opposition nobody goes anywhere. So we need the Conservatives for motivation and they need the Liberals to give them a reason to wring their hands. I'm not convinced that 'understanding' is in our best interest.

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Viloets are blue
I'm schizophrenic
And she is, too!
Our body politic is essentially a paranoid schizophrenic society with one personality at odds with the other, and struggling for dominance. This is just the way the neocons and their rethug stooges want it. If we quit playing their game and come together as US citizens with a common cause, the game would be up.

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Hey, I wondered about that. Most psych studies are done on college students, because they're handy. If there are systematic differences between those subjects and most people, which there obviously are, then a lot of "psychology" is just wrong. (There's a historical parallel: Freud's work was essentially an ethnographic study on 19th-century middle-class Jewish Viennese. Hence, much of it is just wrong for most people. I've seen ethnographic studies that proved that.)

Here's somebody who noticed the problem and did something about it. Already he's earned some respect.

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No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, 'Hmm -- so liberals are patriotic!'" ... The University of Virginia scholar views such slogans as clumsy attempts to insist we all share the same values.

Perhaps, but they also send two very important messages: 1. To conservatives who believe in might-is-right, it sends the message that liberals are not afriad to stand up to them. 2. It shows others of our kind that we're not alone -- very important in places like the Bible Belt.

he argues it is important that liberals recognize the strength that impulse retains with cultural conservatives and respect it rather than dismissing it as primitive.

I agree. I feel that both sides bring something to the foundation that makes for a stable, yet innovative and progressive society. But recognition, and respect has to be a two-way street. When will those newfound conservationist Christians acknoweldge it was liberals who led them to the environmentalist's table? That their prior stance has helped degrade their God's green earth? Until they accept the validity of our crusade we really can't stand with them as equals.

Haidt is preaching to the one group that is even partially willing to consider his proposition. The other side would never consider it. Where is the right wing's Haidt? The only time that side crosses the aisle is when they've got a political move in play.

I'm tired of catering to conservatives' demands; when it's obvious that their childish politicking is what has brought our country to the brink of disaster. Maybe in the future we need to sing Kumbayah, but right now I think a fight is still in order.

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This was a very interesting article for me as I have long found it difficult to decipher the political discourse in the USA. Your vocabulary is very different to ours. I am from Wales, Cymru, in the UK and was brought up as a Non-Conformist christian who became a leftist, or to be more precise, a Marxist, and I have to keep adjusitng to your use of the word "Liberal" which means something very different here. I think the article is thought provoking and correctly identifes the chasm that seems to exist in your politics between what you call left and right. It might be a shock to you but many of us here think that Barack Obama is rather conservative (we just though Bush was mad). But we can paradoxically understand where our own conservatives are coming from and have a very different take on patriotism as there conflicting views on the UK and the coutries within it - Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.
The last point in the article about the environmental movement is also interesting as there is a similar shift of traditional positions here but we have a Green party as well. To conclude, no-one IMHO has a monopoly of the truth and the sooner everyone recognises that, the sooner we can start a real debate on the future of this planet

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Politicians have split the issues so it is impossible to vote for freedom. Liberals will let me have an abortion, but not a gun. Conservatives are the opposite. Many people I know want both. I will let folks have a gun, an abortion, smoke a joint, say what they like, and I don't care if the Mexicans come here as long as the are productive. I believe in fiscal restraint in government and that people should take care of themselves and their families. This collection of views alienates me from all known political parties. This forces me to vote for scumbags like Bush because if we lose our gun rights, all of our other liberties will surely follow. For all the horrible crap GW has put us through, he made it through eight years in office without banning a single firearm. No democrat since Kennedy can say that. We need a party of freedom. Any takers?

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This same topic has been tackled already and with far more insightful analysis than Haidt's.

The article is riddled with presumptive leaps and rhetorical flaws that just blow my mind how this could be done to a topic so well covered already by vastly better minds.

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"Haidt's research reveals that liberals feel strongly about the first two dimensions -- preventing harm and ensuring fairness -- but often feel little, or even feel negatively, about the other three."

This is patently false. Liberals, progressives, do have intense commitment to loyalty, authority and purity - the difference lies in how they define the scope and application of these traits.

For liberals/progressives, loyalty is universal in scope, loyalty to everyone; for conservative, it is essentially exclusionary and xenophobic, loyal only to those like themselves.

Liberals/progressives recognize a hierarchy of authorities with individual authority at the top in value, while conservatives favor external - government authority superseding all other layers of authority.

As for purity, liberals/progressives have a broader application, and so embrace environmental issues, for example, and recognize the preeminence of personal purity - what someone else claims is impure for me, may not be. Conservatives consider purity/impurity very differently - "if I don't like it, no one can".

If Haidt's research and theories are accurately represented here, he is misled, at best.

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Often, when
a green and
delicate rose
appears near an
hopeful hedge,
a passing cloud
invents an emotion,
and even a smile,
like beautiful
thoughts in the
sun of your song.

Francesco Sinibaldi

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I do realize that the psychologist would just take what I'm about to write and dismiss it along the lines that it's *precisely* the liberal logic that he's trying to critique, but I still think it needs to be said.

I don't think that these 5 moral compasses are equivalent to one another. More specifically, I think that a belief in equity (whether do no harm or distribute things fairly) trumps in-group loyalty as a "higher" level of moral thinking.

In fact, I'd argue that "in group loyalty" is the cause of much human suffering. In the microcosm, consider cases of family dysfunction like battering, incest, addiction, and so on. When the victim voices abuse, it is far far too common for the family to rally WITH the abuser AGAINST the abused under some guise of "in group loyalty." That's the internal cost of mandated social order and hierarchy.

The Sopranos? I rest my case.

In the macrocosm we can see the external costs of mandated social order and hierarchy. Consider, as an obvious example, the contradiction that underpins the American foundational premise of "All men are created equal." Well, at its time of origin that only applied to a very small (and very loyal) in-group--white propertied men. The moral blindside of that limited lens is all too easy to map out: African slavery, indentured white workers, the genocide of Native Americans, and no political rights for women. It was a, I'm sorry, higher level of morality--equity, common humanity--that led to the various social movements that have opposed that version of "in-group loyalty."

An insider's "loyalty" is all too easily an outsider's "tribal mentality," and for good reason.

Next, I also take issue with the easy pigeonholing of scholars like Thomas Frank who try to explore why conservative voters consistently vote against their own economic self-interest. The easy way to dismiss that argument is to say that "the author is arguing that these voters are stupid or duped." NO. The "duping" part is that these voters do not see that their values--comfort in social order, respect for authority, patriotrism, the traditional family--are being TIED to an economic policy and political ideology--i.e. government is always bad, free market is always good. It's the linking of the moral values to the policy that is problematic.

There are also piles of studies that document that conservative voters are "duped" in that they falsely believe that conservative politicians are on their side. See, for example, studies from 2004 showing that conservative voters believed Bush signed the Kyoto Protocol (he didn't), recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (he didn't), or believed Bush was telling the truth when he said that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and that we found weapons of mass destruction (Bush is on record saying both were false). What I'm getting at here is that a documentation of conservative misguidedness goes beyond conservative values, and, instead, shows how those values are exploited and manipulated by the GOP and American corporations. That's a much more complicated argument than "individual conservatives are stupid."

To put it more simply: There is no logical and absolute moral link between tax cuts for the rich and opposition to abortion. The GOP and corporate lobbies spend billions to, first, make that link, and, second, make that link seem self-evident.

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Personally, the premise Haidt is putting forward is completely wrong. The difference between conservatives and liberals lies not in how attached they are to five areas of morality, but in how each group believe morality itself originates.

Conservatives believe that humans are intrinsically corrupt, and morality must be imposed from external sources - deity, religion, government, community, etc. This is essentially a sociopathatic approach.

And so polluting a stream is not impure, if the external authority of a government, or a corporation, says so. And the consensual relationship of two men or two women is impure if a government, a religion, says it is.

Liberals believe that humans are not intrinsically corrupt, and morality arises internally, expanding outwards to community, government, religion, deity.

And so, polluting a stream is impure, if you find fish are all dead, the water makes you ill, if one's own experience of the water is poisoned, regardless of what a government or a business says. And the consensual relationship between two people of the same gender is pure if they experience as such, regardless of what a government or a religion may have to say.

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Have you liberals ever read the Nazis book "Why We Fight"? You sound just like that in your stands against nationhood and your cries for "universalism". Nazis claimed that by removing individual sovereign nations and having one world globalism, all the nation state wars would end. Centralized world control is the breeding ground for despots and dictators with no restraint by opposing forces. So much for your global, universal and "final" solution. Where have we heard that before?

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This "research" totally ignores Riane Eisler's work. "Binding groups together" occurs in Dominator cultures and Partnership cultures. One trait of Dominator culture is unawareness of Partnership alternatives. The presupposition that support for essential institutions equals respect for hierarchial authority is an example of "The Dominator Trance".

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I just took the first tests on the website listed in the article. Even with my limited understanding of psychological testing (I have an MA, not a PhD), I can tell the tests do not provide the information about moral judgments they claim to.

One example: on a test of "mental health" -- now really, can you judge someone's mental health in a two-page quiz? -- one of the questions is "Do you ever feel weakness in one or more parts of your body?" (not an exact quote) I do, because of a PHYSICAL problem I have -- what does that say about my mental health?

Other questions on other scales are about as helpful.

I am far less impressed with these theories than I was when I read the article.

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The extent to which vulnerable people are preyed upon by religious bigots, is hardly even addressed in this article. I found the whole premise, a lot wanting in trying to understand the differences between liberal and conservative people. Whereas liberals are people first and think for themselves, conservatives as a group are hammered into believing that humanists are satanic, that feminists are Nazis, that man has command over his god given environment, and all authority, however distasteful need to be fully obeyed or get ready to incur the wrath of a jealous god. These are brainwashing techniques and does not allow the individual to experiment or think for herself or himself.

The hate that these groups emanate should be exposed. The tea baggers, the Prop 8 proponents, were more hateful than pious, more vindictive than giving. This article tries to coddle these hatemongers and frankly does not address the psychological bankruptcy of these hate spewing clones.

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Which of those "five foundational moral impulses" would explain why the majority of conservatives oppose universal health care? For that matter, under the author's hypothesis it should be liberals, not conservatives, who oppose gun control.

In short, Haidt fails to address or explain the most fundamental driving force behind conservatism.
To quote James K. Galbraith: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

And it is this underlying stench of selfishness that we liberals find so abhorrent and, yes, immoral.

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Claiming liberals are moral relativists is quite far-fetched. Sort of like claiming that anyone who does not believe in god cannot make moral decisions. Moral relativity is crap. Liberalism is a good thing.

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I first read about Haidt's work in the NYT and took his survey back on September 12, 2008. My results validated what I already knew. As one of only 3% of all respondents designated "Extremely Liberal", from my perspective, even the far left appears as but a mere speck on the distant horizon. I have always been an out-lier and cherish my position as one who swims freely in open water beyond the net's confines (even an alter-net :-). Nonetheless, I know where the rents in the fabric exist and easily travel between the two domains.

While I concur with the premises that form the basis of his analysis, I believe Haidt misses an even more critical and fundamental disparity.

Our division comes down to basic biology - who controls breeding rights and hence preservation and continuation of their species ...

In the vernacular: Conservative straights (and I don't mean heteros) are still pissed-off because the smart, creative, talented, beautiful (inside and out), sexy, 'hipper' chicks/dudes rejected them. Rah, rah, juice-head, cheerleader-types like Bush, were, are, and, will always remain, a total turn off (personally, my stomach turns at the mere suggestion of having sex with one). Regardless of what's in their wallets, conservatives are/were never cool (and they still can't dance to the tune of any band's drummer but their own).

It's not only their 'party' that's on the verge of collapse, they risk the potential extinction of their entire gene pool ...

Here's the best population control mechanism I can recommend - Teach your children well and, hopefully, your sons and daughters won't breed with the wrong-righties - end of story.

Phala

Whys=Wise but No≠Know

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Mr. Haidts field is in mind control, since it doesn't help many people, other than drug them up and aid them in submission and conformity.

This article proves the field is branching out. Very sophisticated bull, I must say.

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Who Will You Vote for on Nov. 6th and Why?

Mankato, Minnesota -- He was a third year student in college and interested in housing issues. I asked him whom he favored in the Presidential campaign. He replied: "Are you kidding?" I said: "What do you mean?" He replied "Ronald Reagan, of course."


So I started inquiring about which candidate he thought was superior on specific issues. He observed that Reagan and Mondale each had their "better" positions on a half dozen foreign affairs subjects. Turning to domestic issues, he acknowledged that the massive Reagan deficit and its time-bomb impact on interest rates inflation and employment were serious. In quick succession I asked him which candidate did he prefer on the following: consumer protection, energy, utility rate policy, housing, civil liberties, civil rights, environment, worker health, public lands, children's programs, treatment of the elderly, approach to the needy and disabled, social security and Medicare, food inspection, cancer prevention, corporate crime, the Supreme Court appointments and fairness in the tax system. He unhesitatingly answered Mondale on all points.

I asked the obvious question: "Aren't these areas of significance to you?" "Yes", he said. A few hours later after meetings with students, I heard him say that he was rethinking his position on the Reagan-Mondale contest.

Although it is hard for anyone to reconsider their Presidential preference, I have found that thinking about a list of issues people care about begins the process of over—riding the grip of images, slogans and the two or three impressions about candidates that often govern a voter's selection. People, in short, need to give themselves time to think about what matters to them and not just react to what is projected over the television screen.

So, in that spirit of reflection, ask yourself whether reading, thinking and talking about your vote for President is worth five hours or ten hours of your time in the last days before November 6th. Even if you have made up your mind, unmake it to test your reasons more rigorously on the issues you have not yet associated with the candidates' respective records and philosophy.

Furthermore, ask yourself who is more likely to tell the truth? Mondale told the truth that taxes would have to be raised to reduce the deficit, mostly by repealing some recent gaping corporate loopholes and restoring some of the tax cuts on the wealthy. The top five percent of wealthy taxpayers and corporations were given 80% of the benefits of Reagan's 1981 tax cut. Reagan is plain falsifying when he repeatedly says he would not raise taxes. His aides right now are drafting a tax bill for Congress and, while they will call it "reform", others will call it more revenues from the working class.

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I couldn't agree less. The great difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives want to force their beliefs on everyone else. Every other difference derives from that one characteristic.

It's mainly a male thing, but females have traditionally gone along with this ego-based characteristic, in the hope of meeting the requirements of male belief---long established in the world's societies via might in various guises---and thus they hope not to be as severely damaged as they might otherwise. It's usually called "faith," although it's actually male dominance.

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I liked it and thought it really applies to what the ezine is/should be. It was a relevant topic, well put together, and far more apt than a lot of the fluff you get to see here.

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It's disguised as an academic study, and maybe it's what passes for one for dumb, self-hating, non-critical thinkers.

My first clue about the author was the absolutely obvious, tepid, backhanded praise he includes from colleagues at the beginning: Jonathan is a thoughtful and somewhat flamboyant theorist.. I really appreciate his lively mind...Jon is full of good new ideas. If I were an academic, and these were my best reviews, I'd kill myself. And if we go to look up the guy's book notices and the opinions of more of his fellow academics, I daresay we'd find some serious problems with his psychology-cum-morality table dance.

What I finally came to understand was to stop acting as if everybody was equal. Rather, each person had a job to do, and that made the social system run smoothly.

This is nice if you're on top, but if the social system runs smoothy because your job is to clean up the swill, then what? And this flaw exists throughout his arguments. The Five Foundations that are the basic premise of the article are not "universal". They're specious constructs which ask us to legitimize the basic right-wing social agenda. Conservatives value purity and hierarchy, but don't feel really strongly that harming people is wrong. But that's OK...right? A more loaded apology for conservative impositions on the culture I've never seen.

Then come the smears against 'liberals'. Liberal organizations have a weak sense of authority (guy's never been to a Move-On meeting, obviously) and liberals don't like to punish their kids or punish criminals. Is this guy running for a Republican seat somewhere?

And the next big clue? The pundit from the CATO Institute, finding it all fascinating. Remember the Cato Institute? That sneaky little voice of the right and corporations, masquerading as a simple little playground for libertarians? Funded by Big Tobacco, Rupert Murdoch (who's on the Board) and other righty-tighty's? STILL advocating for the privatization of Social Security?

Cato is famous for publishing things that cleverly deodorize foetid ideas, most famously refuting the statistics that say smoking is a cause of death. They have nothing to do with libertarianism--that's a front. Cato is a right-wing, corporate mouthpiece.

I could go on, but why bother? Another piece that belongs in AlterNet's new 'Fool Me Once--Please!' Section.

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ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

And that's where all the rest of the conservative beliefs spring from.

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Jonathan Haidt, like so many acedemics, is making things waaaaaaay too complicated. This "liberal"/"conservative" divide is really quite simple:

The Republican Party is not really a "political" party, it is a marketing firm whose product is reactionary bullshit designed to maintain the status quo by keeping n*ggers, queers and women in their places and the working classes at each other's throats while the upper class laughs its collective ass off all the way to the bank.

The Republican Party's target consumer is white, lower-level managerial middle class or aspiring, even if they are union members (e.g. Alaska "first dude" Todd Palin), suburban or exurban, some college to college graduate--usually with a useless degree like business administration useful only for managing the neighborhood Applebee's; have little or no appreciation of the fine arts or literature.

Your typical "conservative" tends to fall into one or more of the following categories: Rush Limbaugh-listener; Ted Nugent-fan; Sarah Palin-skirt sniffer; light-in-the-loafers-homo hater; holy roller; snakehandler; gun barrel-sucker; SUV-pilot; outlaw biker-wannabe; porn film actor.

The one characteristic they all have in common is extreme gullibility and willingness to suspend disbelief when spoon fed bullshit by Republican Party authority figures.

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...And we need to vote all 'em 'sumbitches out of goverment'and vote in regular americans

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Haidt is supposedly trying not to be ethnocentric. The article may not do justice to his theories, but adopting the Democratic-Republican one-dimensional political division as representative of the "liberal"-"conservative" spectrum is just that. It uses an idiosyncratic U.S. political division to make sense of supposed moral universals.

By this token, there are plenty of "liberals" who are: more supportive of corporations than of labor, pro nuclear-weapons, pro-war if prodded by a "liberal" leader, and who would rather help a stray dog than a person from another social class sleeping in the same park. To be "conservative" in this sense actually means being less of a hypocrite by practicing what one says.

Perhaps less obviously, a pro authority and pro in-group loyalty stance in many ways just maps onto an excuse for displacement of personal responsibility for societal issues. This is perhaps OK in societies in which a rigid social structure functions and people need not bother themselves with others' affairs (if such a society exist), but it's positively detrimental in a democratic state, where engaging in critical reasoned discourse with authority is supposed to be a constitutive part of loyalty to the democratic process and respect for its institutions.

On the "conservative" side, using in-group loyalty to justify e.g. torture, I suspect, usually involves vicarious enjoyment in a show of force from "our" side by mistreating someone else seen to be on the other side. Torture is only an extreme example: if you took a look at the crowd at McCain's concession speech, most of the faces that were around were white. I find this curious, but not surprising: conservative "in-group loyalty" in most cases seems inseparable from a dose of enjoyment, conscious or not, of being on the "right" side of a might-makes-right scenario. It's supremacism, or at least supremacism-lite: a degree of unwillingness or inability to treat other moral and cultural realities as equal to one's own.

On the "liberal" side, in fact, in-group loyalty is alive and well, at least if liberals are defined as in this article. The reason many Western self-proclaimed center-lefties question authority is in part because they rationally realize the consequences of the authority arrangement are unacceptable. However, at the same time, they benefit from this arrangement, and thus, for many, it is difficult to follow their dissent through to its logical implications. Pursuing the questioning of authority on the basis of its consequences leads to questioning the fundamentals that provide the benefits without which one can barely imagine living in a Western society (gasoline, electrical power, year-round fruits & veggies from all around the world, "security", a seemingly infinite abundance of consumer goods, etc.). So the supposed disrespect of authority on the side of many "liberals" can be readily seen as an attempt to have it both ways -- by confronting authority on identity-centered, human rights and symbolic issues (all important, to be sure), they often vehemently refuse questioning their societies' social and economic fundamentals. There is no lack of deference or in-group loyalty in this.

Our in-group is the living matter of the Multiverse.

Our authority is knowledge & love of past, present and future.

Our purity is awareness of one's place and movement in the networks of interdependence.

(This was written in a bout of insanity.)

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sojourner, sophie22, RichardOa37, et al make their points. Poor Haidt comes off as an extremely sheltered individual who has found his metier in academia but knows little about the cold, cruel, vicious world we live in, of a planet run by resource-grabbers who hang on to power by any means necessary, be it _conditioning_ a-la-Bismarck (the way to hang on to power is to give the _illusion_ of participation) or by outwardly repressive means as used in your typical military dictatorship.
One essay by Adorno would wake the man up. Perhaps Fromm's _Escape from Freedom_ could help him out. Even Bronowski's _The Ascent of Man_ could be useful.
How does Haidt define the quasi-metaphysical categories/constructs he employs? "Human morality," "morals," "moral dimensions," etc.? I am uncomfortable with the facile labels "liberal" and "conservative" as mere mental/linguistic shortcuts that signify nothing.
Haidt went to India and failed to realize some folks have been _trained_ by their cultures to believe and _feel_ that they _cannot survive psychologically_ without externally-imposed strictures and inherited, cultural mental straitjackets that _condition_ conformity and obedience. Haidt reached the opinion that hierarchies and social rules are somehow necessary, if not beneficial. For whose benefit? Certainly not the guy at the bottom of the totem pole.
I am persuaded that the recently discovered impulses embedded in our evolutionary brains help individuals conform to social and cultural mores. Ever heard of the tribal impulse and the territorial impulse?
They are the inner, evolutionary tools cultures (actually, the ruling hierarchs) use to manipulate and condition obedience and conformity from their masses.
Haidt cannnot see the forest for the trees.
I love the excuse that neanderthal Rod Dreher used in order to continue in his newly "revealed" deterministic ways, "It's in our nature." Yeah, like the empathy-challenged guards at Dachau who merely "followed orders."
I only finished reading this piece because a friend whose opinion I value highly suggested I read it.
Otherwise, I would not have made it to the halfway point...
Some of us are "different." We have empathy and compassion because we have suffered the blows of bullies and know that they will continue to breed and influence each other and continue in their "control freak/authoritarian personality" ways as long as no one stops them or raises his/her voice against their abuse. We have seen poverty in our country and abroad and know it doesn't just "happen" that some peoples have "less access" to resources than others. Yes, my "morality" is ultimately empathy based: "there but for the grace of God, etc." And on Pastor Niemoller, "First they came for ..... and I did nothing, etc."
It's called "enlightened self-interest." Did I "choose" this course of action and feeling? Who knows?
Along comes Haidt to tell us that some Kant-like "moral" category is embedded in our evolutionary brains to continue to abuse and lord it over our fellow men for the sake of "social order."
This man should study more history, economics, and philosophy before making such absurd generalizations. Ah, the stuff of best-sellers...

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Scientist say that our sun is 93,000,000 miles from earth. I saw a article on AOL where they found this glob of a light patten that is estimated to be 12 billion light years from earth; now, for those of you that don't know how many miles light will travel in a year, are you ready ? 10 TRILLON MILES. This light pattern is estimated to be 12 BILLION lights years from earth ;now, I don't know if these guys know what they are talking about but if they do,then what you and I think does'nt matter. The only true fact is that if you are reading this post you will dead in 100 years or so because the universe don't give shit what we think. Now, am I conservative or liberal? well,Iam neither but I BELIEVE the dirty little secret of conservatism it has as a benefit you can be a racist or worst a republician without the hood. This is my contribution to the grand sceam of things, Pleasant dreams. HAHAHAHAHA.

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To conquer, divide. To keep conquered, keep divided.

It works, doesn't it?

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have ever seen a sunrise walk across a quiet lake caressed by a gentle wind ...
it's like a vast polished diamond finely cut a thousand time...sparkling before you eyes.

not unlike the string of comments associated with this article.

Wow!
Thanks.

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Some of what this researcher says about US right-wingers can be summed up in one of their favorite sayings: You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, meaning that to get what you want, you have to do some harm.

A huge problem with right-wingers, though, including many in my own family, is that they think that things aren't going right unless "eggs are being broken" - if people aren't in pain somewhere or things aren't being destroyed, things can't be right. How will we know we're doing well if other people aren't doing badly? seems to be a right-wing way of seeing things.

And the researcher's claim about right-wingers valuing authority and rules more than they value other things is relative. Right-wingers value certain kinds of authority and certain kinds of rules and laws, not others. They do often value punishment and authority for its own sake. That's why in places like Texas they're fine with knowing that innocent people are being executed; keeps everyone afraid and in line. Doesn't matter to them that it's unjust, as long as it's not right-wingers being executed.

I'm so far left I don't really even fit on this researcher's spectrum, but I value stability, too, only it's a stability in which different people would be punished than those right-wingers like punished. It's a stability based on justice, law, and fairness, and not on maintaining the freedom to do harm and to dominate. I've observed enough right-wingers to know that people shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want, so don't pin that stereotype on me. It's just that it's right-wingers that would be hobbled in the kind of society I value, a society based on justice and fairness.

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Anyone who can consider purity to be a moral dimension of the same magnitude as harm is a conservative. Shame on the editors of Alternet for being fooled twice.

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Conservatives are in disarray

isn't it THEY who should be worrying about how to figure US out?


Sorry, but I don't see nutty right-wingers worrying about whether their bumper stickers are pissing me off or not.


We win by being RIGHT about things.
Not by accommodating the inherent wrongness of the other side.

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Gawd, I hated all that "We're patriots too" crap of the last 6 years. I was and am against war as a way of settling anything. I can't support a mission to invade and vanquish another country no matter how much I may care for the lives of the deluded troops we send over to accomplish it. I got all kinds of shit for my stand but really, what other one is there if you believe this way? We severely ostracized the so called "good Germans" who supported their troops for not standing in defiance of their leader's "mission" but it's a horse of a different cover in this knee jerk paradise. I for one and I'm sure thousands of others refuse to be "good Americans" while our nation does deplorable things in the name of us all.

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but their purpose is not to persuade anyone of anything. Their purpose is to make a public declaration of principle. This serves to reinforce solidarity with like minded people. It also reminds others that the viewpoint in question exists, something easily forgotten when people surround themselves with the like minded.

This makes perfect sense in terms of the group loyalty value, which is part of the moral language presented here, which makes it odd that this guy doesn't get it.

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I think that some folks who are attacking Haidt as a closet conservative might be missing his point. He is trying to come up with an explanation for how Republicans "think" that doesn't involve retardation or pyschological patholgy.

He is just trying to explain what your average person sees in the Republican party. He is not saying that the pure evil Republican masters of the universe are themselves interested in anything but private financial gain, just that they have been able to manipulate the folks who are drawn to authority, tradition, and purity. He is trying to give us liberals a framework to understand these weakminded Republicans so we can draw them over to us.

We people are funny beings... Half of us stare into space worrying about the government torturing people while the other half of us are freaking out because abortion is legal. And neither half can understand why the other half could possibly care...

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Some things they mention here are very cool, because the "media" has a fake shadow-boxing thing going, where the discussion is always steered away from the elite control of things.
It makes me sad that people who claim they want to help our country and people still hold to the illusion that the democrats are any better than the republicans, or the neoliberals are any better than the neocons these days. Neoliberals like to rot things out from the inside with a warm handshake, and neocons like to blow things up from the outside. That's the only difference. Over a year ago, the democratic congress approved funding to rot Iran from the outside by stirring up dissidents and supporting certain factions. If you don't know that will cause sadness for all of us, or that it was the democrats that did it primarily, I don't even know what to say.

"Vote for change, vote Obama", "Smart wars not dumb ones" and other shams make me think that we're all still being dumb and not willing to look at the real problem any more than we were four years ago.

Obama is increasing the war funding, increasing the crackdown on universal civil rights, neutered the anti-war and racial justice movements and we have people who claim they want better still deluding themselves, just because he'll do all these things, but throw a few "liberal bones" to us with a high interest rate, when it was our money to begin with. Why should any state have to agree to plans that look good in statement, but dig them into deeper poverty when thought out? It's their money to begin with. The feds take way more than the good they do any state, forcing them to agree to hidden strings to get the money back that was overtaxed in the first place from their own residents. I wish I could give the State all my tax money instead of the feds, who use it to kill people and destroy the environment with their weapons, harmful big agriculture and big oil subsidies and toxic financial agreements.

The stupid things "liberals" are saying while supporting this sick, murderous system (but it's OK, they're vegans) are no better than the rationalizations "conservatives" use to ridicule them and support the same sick thing. There is no America. There are only the crips and bloods, Democrat and Republican, and the people that tear each other apart to perpetuate the distractions while digging the current situation in deeper.

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It is Holy to heal other people, to care for them. That's what Jesus of Nazareth teaches.

It is Holy to be fair, to the Samaritan, to the woman accused of adultery, to the Roman Centurion, to those of the rich who are not corrupt thieves. That's what Jesus of Nazareth teaches.

It is Holy to obey the authority of God and not of corrupt emperors. It is unholy to burn a pinch of incense on the altar of Caesar Augustus who set himself up as an earthly god.
May the true God help you in your obedience to rich crooks instead of to the Living God who is all around you even now.

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This is another well-meaning and correct and helpful in many respects, but finally partial and flawed in conception and unpacking, because it denies DEPTH, and is in FLATLAND. Please consult Ken Wilber and his AQALsystem and Spiral Dynamics - both can be googled - plenty of info on both for the whole INTEGRAL picture.

I'm not saying Wilber or Don Beck are without faults - Ken Wilber was slow to see through Bush's war myth-making, but for approaches that understand real evolution and "second-tier" transcending and including both conservative and progressive levels and structures, (and the ultimate plenitude of the Ground-of-Being, and Spirit-in-action in homecoming, so to speak), I recommend them. This is an ongoing project, to understand all the different levels and potentialites.

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Jacobs' writes "... in a widely circulated Internet essay titled Why People Vote Republican, Haidt chastised Democrats who believe blue-collar workers have been duped into voting against their economic interests. In fact, he asserted forcefully, traditionalists are driven to the GOP by moral impulses liberals don't share (which is fine) or understand (which is not)."


I hoped he would have pointed out that some of us on the left realize that the economic system the right has chosen to strive for unquestionably promotes morals they oppose.
The '96 Telecom Act, for example, which Clinton passed to appease his critics on the right has brought a consolidated media which, excuse the cliche', supports the "Sex-Sells!" mentality more than at any time in the past.
Also, one could look at any of the high rate abortion areas, and realize they are almost always in parts of the country where women are pursuing the cowardly-careerisms promoted by this economic system.
This are a few things that I feel are worth noting.

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You are all the same American swine whether conservative or liberal. From the outside looking in the hatred you have for eahother is amusing and at times appears to be a colossal joke. At the end of the day people caught up in your wars of terror are still dying while you chickens squawk at each other, so what is the use of your supposed differences? Your liberal leader seems no less a genocidal blood thirsty and hypocritical pompous ass than your conservative one.

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The author shows understanding only of the small portion of the populace who fit into his pigeon holes. His assessment of morality ignores the extent to which it is deliberately shaped by the ruling class. As usual, human behavior is far more complex than the latest theory.

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Liberalism and conservatism don't exist in a vacuum and it's dangerous to theorize without taking stock of the interplay of larger forces. Further, what we understand by these terms is not what was understood in the past; just like gay used to mean: happy.

A wealthy, privileged conservative or liberal is not the same as a working-poor conservative or liberal. The obsession with commerce by society in general warps people's morals and ethics. As Polanyi suggested, economy used to be embedded in society, whereas now society is embedded within the economy. Commerce is inherently amoral, and leads many to become conservative and immoral, in their pursuit to preserve the money and power.

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...am I the only one that enjoyed the article and found it helpful and interesting? Hm... apparently so.

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U.S. regulatory czar nominee wants Net 'Fairness Doctrine'

Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period.

Read on WND.com.
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IS THERE ANYTHING A LIBERAL DOES NOT WANT TO CONTROL OR RUIN OR TAX?

"Thou shalt not ever be angry online"...how would the lefty websites exist without the angry profanity??

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As presented here, Haidt's theory is a justification for some of the worst in human behavior, such as caste systems, racism, ethnic warfare, and so on. And I agree with comments saying so above.

The broad sweep of the history of "civilization" shows that we are gradually throwing these things off. Maybe, in some ways, anyway, since most people don't accept as moral and just things like slavery anymore (though apparently it still exists in traditional form, let along wage slavery).

The theory attempts to explain "conservatism" in a positive way. But strangely, it does not correspond to the way conservatives describe themselves. They claim to respect primarily "individual" rights, as compared with those damned "collectivist" liberals. In actual practice, however, conservatism is the tribalism, authoritarianism, and worship of central power which Haidt explains and admires.

And those economic "rights" conservatives stick to (ignoring lots of other civil rights in the process) are really the privileges of wealth, the wealth which by necessity is always stolen from the workers and the natural environment from which it all originates.

So while in some sense Haidt strips the veneer off the casket of conservatism, exposing it for what it really is so he can praise it in counterintuitive fashion, the way he does so does not resonate with actual conservatives.

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“Don’t assume. You might make an ASS of U and ME.” - anon.

This article makes an assumption which is incorrect.

Whereas it is true that Haidt’s five foundational moral impulses provide a framework which may help to understand human behavior, it is a mistake to assume that everyone defines their in-group the same way.

Haidt’s framework includes loyalty to an in-group. For some people the in-group is I-Me-Mine. For others it is the school they are or were attending. For others it is their country of origin. For others it is the people who live in their country of origin. For others it is the people who live here on Earth, from whatever country. For others, it is all of that which is living.

More about this later.

Identity with in-group is more fundamental, and precedes, identity with American Conservatives or American Liberals.

Thus, the author’s first mistake is to assume that his in-group (which, apparently, is Americans who believe that their culture is the only valid one) is the valid in-group for all the people who live in the United States.

The author compounds his mistake by defining authority/respect in terms of social hierarchy. For some people authority is vested in respect for life, rather than some particular hierarchy or other.

The mistake is most glaring in the author’s concept of purity/sanctity. More about this later, too.

The mistake is compounded further in this article by limiting itself to people who define their in-group the same way as the author. He quotes someone whose example of purity and in-group being out of bounds are people outside of our culture (sharia devotees).

Now here’s more: The inclusiveness of a person’s in-group is related to a person’s spiritual development. David Korten described “orders” of consciousness as a developmental path, which provides a framework for understanding human spirituality (Korten, David, The Great Turning: From Empire To Earth Community).

Progress along this developmental path coincides with expanding one’s in-group from self outwards.

Korten is not the first to see the connection. The great religious teachers of all the world’s religions made the connection, and urged us to expand our in-group. Jesus put it wonderfully when he said “love your enemies”.

Korten also points out that most American adults have expanded their in-group only far enough to include Americans. He calls it Socialized Consciousness, and he has noted that people of socialized consciousness are unable to recognize the valildity of other cultures (even the cultures of other democracies) and sometimes (but rarely) to translate the purity/sanctity impulse into justification for violence against “others”.

I note here that all of the politically-motivated assasinations which occurred in the USA in the past century were committed against “liberals”. But that’s not a valid way to divide liberals and conservatives. In the century before last a “conservative” was assassinated.

Finally, it appears to me that the points of view expressed by the author are grounded in Socialized Consciousness.

Bo

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Addiction can ruin the life not only of the addict, but also the lives of those around them. If someone you care about faces the many horrors of addiction, you no doubt will want to do everything you can to help that person recover, don't you? If you live in the Denver area, the best thing you can do is to stage an intervention in Denver, Colorado and check your loved one into the best drug treatment program you can find. This will most likely mean a residential treatment program lasting at least 28 days, maybe longer. This gives your loved one the time and resources they will need to free themselves of their addiction. It will also give them the chance to learn the skills and techniques he or she will need to stay free of drugs or alcohol and return to being a part of his or her family and community.
Intervention in Denver, Colorado may be the only way to make sure that your loved one checks into a treatment program and gets the help they need, even if they really want to. They may not have the strength. Addiction is a disease, and willpower alone won't beat it. Drugs rewire a person's brain and can make it so the person needs drugs just to feel normal. When the addict receives proper treatment, though, this disease can be beaten.
Treatment has to start somewhere, and intervention in Denver, Colorado is a good first step. You will need to intervene and check your loved one into a rehab program. The fact that you are reading this shows you already understand the stakes in your loved one's battle against drugs or alcohol. The intervention in Denver, Colorado can get your loved one in a program that can give them the tools they need to get sober
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Brock Lesner
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Miami real estate-Miami real estate

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Everyone's afraid to say this: conservatives and progressives are on different levels of development/evolution, progressives being on the higher, larger, deeper, bigger, more inclusive rational/trans-rational level(s), and conservatives being on the lower, smaller, shallower, less inclusive pre-rational to rational level(s).

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What is not being pointed out here is that BOTH Republican and Democrat ELITES are TOTALLY out of touch with people who have to work for a living!

Because the AMERICAN VOTER is apparently INNATELY STUPID, it seems WE continue to elect these plutocrats who have NEVER worked a DAY in their life at a job they had to go out and get on their own merits without their family connections or their Ivy League and prep school connections...

Remember the confusion that George Hebert Walker Bush had when he went into the grocery store and had not a clue? It was supposed to be a photo op that he was NOT an elitist and in touch with ordinary people...

THE PEOPLE WHO RUN THIS GOVERNMENT LIVE IN A DIFFERENT WORLD THAN YOU AND I AND THEY TEND TO FORGET THAT THERE IS ACTUALLY A WORLD OUT THERE--where ORDINARY PEOPLE NEED JOBS,AND HOMES,AND GROCERIES! They really have no clue!
I worked as a newspaper reporter, an administrative assistant, etc. with all of the access to the inner chambers. If it weren't for their support staff, assistants, etc. THESE PEOPLE WOULD NOT HAVE A CLUE and had it not been for trust funds and a cadre of CPAs and attorneys retained by ancestors way smarter than these privileged children,economic Darwinism would have devoured them long ago.

GET OFF YOUR BEER-SWILLING, TV-DUMBED DOWN ASS AND GET ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN YOUR POLITICAL PARTY. A SYMBOLIC GESTURE LIKE THE TEA PARTY WON'T DO ANY GOOD IF YOU JUST GO BACK TO THE SAME OLD NON-INVOLVEMENT. REMEMBER HITLER AND STALIN? Imagine them backed up with TECHNOLOGY and you have what is in store for ALL OF US ORDINARY SHEEPLE, BOVINE MENTALITIES...

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A great liberal ( who was completely dedicated to human freedom ) once said , " Judge not , that ye be not judged ; condemn not , that ye be not condemned , revile not, that ye be not reviled ; For with whatsoever measure ye mete unto others , so shall it be meted unto you . " Also , " Ye shall know the truth , and the truth shall set you free , " and " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you . " .... My Dad said , years ago , " The Ten Commandments are so-called because they are about the ten most popular things people do which are harmful to themselves and others .... May I suggest that interested persons read THE ABOLITION OF MAN and MERE CHRISTIANITY by C.S. Lewis ? Also , A REPORTER FINDS GOD THROUGH SPIRITUAL HEALING by Emily Gardiner Neal ? ...... It seems to me that the meaning of " liberal " has been twisted out of shape , as well as " conservative " and " reactionary ..... " As Humpty Dumpty said , " When I use a word , it means exactly what I want it to mean , neither more nor less . " If you don't get my meaning , please open your trusty copy of WEBSTER'S UNABRIDGED . Rich Parker

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From reading the comments to this excellent article, once again I see the blind, arrogance of liberals.

Citing yourself as a teacher, or otherwise intellectual is only a method to associate you as some elitist who knows better than others. You do not. You are not more intelligent than people you disagree with. Further, your self-aggrandizement only acts to discredit your points.

If you take anything away from this article, as a liberal, it should be to stop underestimating conservatives.

To be a conservative you have to understand the progressive position and understand the long term consequences of such action. It is easy to see how 10,000 years of human social evolution has brought about the conservative values that are shared by most Americans. It is the progressives who push in new directions, and conservatives that evaluate and correct those initiatives.

Without Conservative Americans, "progressives" will destroy freedom, if not due to arrogance, then due to haste or a failure of understanding the past. America is good as it stands. So remember that you need us, much more than we need you.

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