Thought Experiment for Liberals and Conservatives

Posted on March 7, 2008
Filed Under Donkeys (D), Elephants (R) |

Just thought I’d share this interesting and thought provoking post Ethan live-blogged during the TED conference.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been listening closely to the TED conference. He’s figured out that this is a pretty liberal group. And he asks the group to try a thought experiment - two Americans are in Italy looking at the famous statue of David. One is amazed by the beauty of the form; the other is embarrased by the naked penis. Which one is more likely to have voted for Bush?

Our prejudice is right, as it turns out. Liberals are much more likely to be open to new experiences. Conservatives are more likely to seek familiarity and comfort.

If I were asked the same question, I’d say the one embarrassed by the naked penis more likely voted for Bush. I’m not sure why that would be considered prejudice though. Hello, I have to pick an answer.

Anyways, the next part is what I found really amusing.

… Haidt argues that the brain is well organized at birth with certain moral values, held in place by neural and hormonal programming. He identifies five basic values:

I’m skipping to the third one.

- Ingroup loyalty, our allegiance to our tribe. “When we don’t have tribes, we make them, because it’s fun” - think sports teams.
- Purity/sanctity - The right does it with sex, but he reminds us that the left does it with food
- Authority and respect

I don’t know about you, but the I think he nails the purity/sanctity observation.

Comments

3 Responses to “Thought Experiment for Liberals and Conservatives”

  1. Andrew Brehm on March 7th, 2008 2:39 pm

    “If I were asked the same question, I’d say the one embarrassed by the naked penis more likely voted for Bush.”

    Another term for prejudice is “induction”. (Arthur Conan Doyle erroneously refers to it as “deduction” in the Sherlock Holmes books.)

    Prejudices are often true; the problems start when negative prejudices dictate a person’s behaviour towards members of a group, when the prejudices are based on faulty data, and when one overestimates the base of the prejudice.

    For example, I am impressed by the beauty of the form of the statue AND would have voted for George Bush (over John Kerry anyway).

    But it’s gets worse: Am I a conservative? I support public health care systems, a separation of church and state, am against the death penalty, and couldn’t care less about whether homosexuals can marry each other or not.

    This brings us to a fourth problem. The number of stereotypes is also important. Adding more stereotypes might be enough to cover people like myself.

    For example, while I am not “conservative” in the sense defined in the example, I think I share the political positions I listed with many so-called “neo-conservatives”.

  2. Al on March 7th, 2008 10:05 pm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan

    Even the supposedly godless Chinese can still be wounded if their sanctity is violated. I don’t know why I’m still bitter about it. Maybe to incident showed how the peaceful were powerless to stop something like that. The incident really stirred up some ugly impressions when it happened in 2001, but I really should know better by now.

    I guess lately I’ve (guiltily) thinking that Yahwists ignore the rest of the humanity due to their hubris, but it’s probably me being judgemental due to a poor mood. Honestly, the Enlightened One would be quite disturbed that some people use a physical monument as a source of anger.

    Sorry to vent.

  3. Nomad on March 8th, 2008 12:49 pm

    I took the test, some I am more conservative than the conservatives, and sometimes more liberal than the liberals, especially when it comes to religion and sex :lol:

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