10/27/16

Conservatives serve a tastier meal!

I’m not a very good cook.  Fearless, but not so good. My family suffered for decades with grocery store rotisserie chicken and green bean/mushroom casserole.  And some of our Thanksgiving meals have been the stuff of legend.

There was the turkey we cooked in one of those supermarket aluminum pans. You know, the cheap, flexible ones?  And when we went to take the bird out of the oven, the pan collapsed, spilling hot fat into the oven where it immediately burst into flames.  Who knew that would happen, right? Made for crispy turkey skin along with the singed eyebrows.

Then there were the pumpkin crème brulees in individual cups.  I bought a blow torch at the restaurant supply place that turned out to be big enough to repair a major pipeline.  As our daughter’s sweetie said, “Open flame at a Gilbert Thanksgiving? What could possibly go wrong?”

And then there was the Thanksgiving where I decided to do a New England clam bake instead of the usual. Being squeamish, I wanted to be sure the lobsters were dead before putting them in the boiling water.  The lobsters took exception to my plan.  What a mess. Enough said.

So what does this have to do with liberals and conservatives?  It takes us back to those moral foundations that underlie most societies and how Liberals and Conservatives use these foundations to cook up tasty notions. 

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt suggests that we think of this like an audio equalizer.  Here’s what Liberals look like: 

Liberals are most concerned that others suffer no harm.  Seeing someone in pain deeply distresses them.  They are also concerned, though to a lesser degree, with anything that restricts their Liberty.  Finally, Liberals are concerned with fairness, which to them means equality. (To conservatives, it means proportionality. The difference in definitions all by itself accounts for a lot of the demonization of The Other.)

So in putting together their platforms and policies, Liberals have three spices to choose from. There will be a lot about Caring for others, Liberty (pro-choice, for example) and Fairness (equal rights, equal access, gay marriage).  But that can limit the dishes they can offer.

Conservatives, on the other hand, hit about equally on all six foundations. Their equalizer looks like this:

They care a lot about others’ being hurt but not as much as Liberals do. They’re about the same in Liberty but with different issues (Don’t’ take away my guns) and Fairness, but are much more involved in moral foundations like Loyalty (Colin Kaepernick, for example) Authority and Sanctity/Purity (opposition to gay marriage and sex education). 

What this means politically is that Conservatives have more spices in their spice rack. They can craft messages that address any and all of these six values while still being true to their conservative philosophy.

Side Note:  Arch Conservative Ted Olson helped argue for gay marriage in the landmark Supreme Court case of several years ago.  He said that marriage equality WAS a conservative value, but I believe he was basing that on issues of Liberty and Fairness, not the usual Sanctity/Purity.  It was an interesting turn. Many Conservatives disagreed.

Wild flight of fantasy:  Emotions and behaviors are contagious. Seeing others yawn, we yawn ourselves. Seeing someone hurt can make us hurt. This caring for others, feeling their pain, can be tied to what are called “mirror neurons” in the brain.  If I’m in pain, parts of my brain light up in an fMRI scan.  If I see someone else in pain, some of those parts still light up.  It’s the neurological foundation of empathy. 

David G. Myers, Psychology, 9^th edition

.

It makes me wonder if an overabundance of mirror neurons determines, in part, whether someone is a Liberal instead of a Conservative.  Now there’s a dissertation topic for someone!