Fascinating article on moral underpinnings of political thought

[pegkerr]

People vote Republican and liberal intellectuals are mystified. For their part, Republicans say that Democrats "just don’t get it." What is this "it" they don’t get?...

What makes People Vote Republican?

Comments

[arian1.livejournal.com]

Fear. Really I think that's about it.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

But his argument doesn't explain the adoration of Palin, the super-individualist (if you put lipstick on John Galt, he's still John Galt).

I grew up in the very racist south, and the attitudes of present-day conservatives, and their emotional defensiveness about them, appears to me to descend directly from those conservative values. Loyalty means "we" are better than "them." "Social order" means "our way or the highway."

It took me a good part of my adolescence, in the late fifties, to learn to see beyond that kind of thinking. He's right that I don't get it, and I hope I never get it again.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I said in sleigh's LJ, where I first saw the link to the article:
I think it comes down to "Us" and "Them": liberals tend to have a more encompassing "Us" than conservatives do.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yes, very true, though I think some liberals recognize the need to get beyond that kind of thinking. And at that point, the communication with conservatives really gets difficult. I don't think the "us-them" divide comes naturally to Obama, for example (though it does to Bill Clinton!), and maybe not to Al Gore.

[dreamflower]

It's amazing to see scientific corroboration of what I've long felt--I've always thought that the main differences between liberal and conservative is that one concentrates too hard on the "thou shalts" of morality while the other concentrates too hard on the "thou shalt nots".

Yet it appears to be a bit more complex than that. If Democrats can understand that, they will have a far easier job of attracting the middle.

I've always considered myself to be just a tiny bit to the left of middle, and now I understand why polarization upsets me so much.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

That was really interesting, and made me think. Thanks.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Fascinating article.

And, if largely correct, deeply weird. Why do republicans seem to own the individualist vote, if the culture they crave is so deeply collectivist? Why is "socialist" the worst thing they can call a democrat when we're the ones pushing individualist notions? If we're the secular party, why are *they* the ones always giving handouts to big businesses?

Everything is completely backwards!

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting this article. it's providing me with a lot of food for thought! (and not a little eye-crossing.)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Heck, I was *at* Penn in 1987, and there were always tons of flyers looking for people to participate in psych experiements. Now I'm sorry I didn't go hear his stories.

[irinaauthor.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about moral clarity and being afraid of change. That might apply to my mom, and the reasons she's a republican. But my mostly pro choice (though anti Roe V. Wade), pro gay marriage, anti death penalty, pro freedom of speech/religion/press, anti war in Iraq, anti George W. Bush husband votes republican because he thinks the Democrats are wasteful of his tax dollars. He (a) doesn't want to pay any more in taxes than he is right now; (b) knows that most of his taxes go to support a vast and inefficient government bureaucracy that he'd rather shrink than pay for; and (c) would rather choose himself which charitable organizations to support than pay taxes that mostly go to zillions of middle managers instead of people who really need help.

Also, he's a lawyer and his studies have led him to the conclusion that strict constructionist interpretations of the Constitution are what the Founders intended. That means he's not wild about voting for people who will appoint judicial activists, because he thinks it's dishonest at best, if not an outright betrayal of the framers of the laws that are his job to follow.

He's still undecided in the upcoming election, though. He's waiting to see if John McCain is going to be like he used to be, or like George W. Bush. He said that this paragraph from an article the New Yorker ran in May sums up his disgust with the President perfectly: "In its final year, the Bush Administration is seen by many conservatives (along with seventy per cent of Americans) to be a failure. Among true believers, there are two explanations of why this happened and what it portends. One is the purist version: Bush expanded the size of government and created huge deficits; allowed Republicans in Congress to fatten lobbyists and stuff budgets full of earmarks; tried to foist democracy on a Muslim country; failed to secure the border; and thus won the justified wrath of the American people."

Actually the whole article is pretty good. You can check it out here.

I guess I'm just saying, it's easy to say that people who vote republican because they're rigid, cowardly, and self-righteous, but reading that bothered me. It's not why my husband votes the way he does, he's none of those things. I'm as liberal as they come, but I still completely understand his choices. His priorities are different from mine, is all.

Edit: And, ha, that'll teach me to skim, since that's not exactly what the writer is saying at all, beyond the beginning of the article. It's what he's getting at, I think, with the parts about authority and morality having equal part in the republican worldview with fairness and caring for others, but later in the article he says it nicer. Even then, I don't know. My husband, for instance, is anti Roe v. Wade (though neutral on abortion itself) and pro gay marriage for legal reasons, not moral ones: he thinks the laws are bad.

I dunno. It was an interesting article, and I'll definitely show it to him. I'm interested in learning his take on it.