“Once
upon a time, the vast majority of human persons suffered in societies and
social institutions that were unjust, unhealthy, repressive, and oppressive.
These traditional societies were reprehensible because of their deep-rooted
inequality, exploitation, and irrational traditionalism.… But the noble human
aspiration for autonomy, equality, and prosperity struggled mightily against
the forces of misery and oppression, and eventually succeeded in establishing
modern, liberal, democratic, capitalist, welfare societies. While modern social
conditions hold the potential to maximize the individual freedom and pleasure
of all, there is much work to be done to dismantle the powerful vestiges of
inequality, exploitation, and repression. This struggle for the good society in
which individuals are equal and free to pursue their self-defined happiness is
the one mission truly worth dedicating one’s life to achieving.”
--Christian Smith, Moral,
Believing Animals
Contrast
that narrative to one for modern conservatism. Republican Ronald Reagan defeated
Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980, a time when Americans were being held hostage in
Iran, the inflation rate was over 10 percent, and America’s cities, industries,
and self-confidence were declining. The Reagan narrative goes like this:
“Once
upon a time, America was a shining beacon. Then liberals came along and erected
an enormous federal bureaucracy that handcuffed the invisible hand of the free
market. They subverted our traditional American values and opposed God and faith
at every step of the way.… Instead of requiring that people work for a living,
they siphoned money from hardworking Americans and gave it to Cadillac-driving
drug addicts and welfare queens. Instead of punishing criminals, they tried to
“understand” them. Instead of worrying about the victims of crime, they worried
about the rights of criminals.… Instead of adhering to traditional American
values of family, fidelity, and personal responsibility, they preached
promiscuity, premarital sex, and the gay lifestyle … and they
encouraged a feminist agenda that undermined
traditional family roles.… Instead of projecting strength to those who would do
evil around the world, they cut military budgets, disrespected our soldiers in
uniform, burned our flag, and chose negotiation and multilateralism.… Then
Americans decided to take their country back from those who sought to undermine
it. “
--
Ronald Reagan (Drew Westen, The Political
Brain)
This
narrative’s general plotline and moral breadth should be recognizable to
conservatives everywhere. This too is a heroic narrative, but it’s a heroism of
defense. It’s less suited to being turned into a major motion picture. Rather
than the visually striking image of crowds storming the Bastille and freeing
the prisoners, this narrative looks more like a family reclaiming its home from
termites and then repairing the joists. The Reagan narrative is also visibly
conservative in that it relies for its moral force on at least five of the six
moral foundations:
1)
Care/Harm
2)
Fairness/Cheating
3)
Loyalty/Betrayal
4)
Authority/Subversion
5)
Sanctity/Degradation
6)
Liberty/Oppression
There’s
only a hint of Care (for the victims of crime), but there are very clear
references to Liberty (as freedom from government constraint), Fairness (as
proportionality: taking money from those who work hard and giving it to welfare
queens), Loyalty (soldiers and the flag), Authority (subversion of the family
and of traditions), and Sanctity (replacing God with the celebration of
promiscuity). The two narratives are as opposed as could be.
Can
partisans even understand the story told by the other side? The obstacles to
empathy are not symmetrical. If the left builds its moral matrices on a smaller
number of moral foundations, then there is no foundation used by the left that
is not also used by the right. Even though conservatives score slightly lower
on measures of empathy and may therefore be less moved by a story about
suffering and oppression, they can still recognize that it is awful to be kept
in chains. And even though many conservatives opposed some of the great
liberations of the twentieth century— of women, sweatshop workers, African
Americans, and gay people— they have applauded others, such as the liberation
of Eastern Europe from communist oppression.
In
Chinese philosophy, yin and yang refer to any pair of contrasting or
seemingly opposed forces that are in fact complementary and interdependent.
Night and day are not enemies, nor are hot and cold, summer and winter, male
and female. We need both, often in a shifting or alternating balance.
John
Stuart Mill said that liberals and conservatives are like this: “A party of
order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary
elements of a healthy state of political life.”
The
philosopher Bertrand Russell saw this same dynamic at work throughout Western
intellectual history: “From 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been
divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to
relax them.” Bertrand further states, “It
is clear that each party to this dispute— as to all that persist through long
periods of time— is partly right and partly wrong. Social cohesion is a
necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely
rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers:
ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the
one hand; on the other hand, dissolution, or
subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and
personal independence that makes cooperation impossible.”
It’s
a risk to apply Mill’s and Russell’s insights to some current debates in
American society because partisan readers may be able to accept claims about
yin and yang in the abstract, but not when we start saying that the “other
side” has something useful to say about specific controversial issues. We
should run the risk, however, because the public policy would certainly be
improved by drawing on insights from all sides.
Once
people join a political team, they get ensnared in its moral matrix. They see
confirmation of their grand narrative everywhere, and it’s difficult— perhaps
impossible— to convince them that they are wrong if you argue with them from
outside of their matrix.
Liberals and conservatives are like
yin and yang— both are “necessary elements of a healthy state of political life,”
as John Stuart Mill put it. Liberals are experts in care; they are better able
to see the victims of existing social arrangements, and they continually push
us to update those arrangements and invent new ones.
As
Robert F. Kennedy said: “There are those that look at things the way they are,
and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” In this above moral
matrix, liberals make two points that are profoundly important for the health
of a society: (1) governments can and should restrain corporate superorganisms,
and (2) some big problems really can be solved by regulation. Libertarians
(who sacralize liberty) and social conservatives (who sacralize certain
institutions and traditions) provide a crucial counterweight to the liberal
reform movements that have been so influential in America and Europe since the
early twentieth century. Libertarians are right that markets are miraculous and
social conservatives are right that you don’t usually help the bees by
destroying the hive.
The
increasing lunacy of American political life is not something we can
address by signing pledges and resolving to be nicer. Our politics will become
more civil when we find ways to change the procedures for electing politicians
and the institutions and environments within which they interact.
Morality
binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as
though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It
blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have
something important to say.
Haidt,
Jonathan (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why
Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.
These
are the thoughts of Jonathon Haidt. I strongly share his thoughts, putting me in a position of paralysis in light of the 2012 presidential campaign and the extreme, partisan rhetoric with which we are showered daily. In no email, "news" article, sound bite, stump speech, or television-radio address have I heard viable solutions to the real problems we have. Regardless of whether Obama inherited the problems from Bush and did nothing, or made them worse, he and Romney need to offer solutions that appeal to my intellect, as well as my emotion. Instead, the parties have focused on attacking one another creating a greater chasm than ever and turning my off completely.
This paralysis is oddly excruciatingly painful -- and until media and leaders are held accountable, required to offer fact-based information -- providing solutions -- I remain disgusted...but NOT disillusioned. The greatest danger is the threat of our becoming "sheeple" (complacent or compliant voters who rely solely on propaganda, agenda setting, group think, etc. to form an "opinion" and then spread their ill-informed opinion worldwide).
What are your thoughts?
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