I was looking for someone still capable of talking calmly and reasonably about the subject (ruling out Maureen Dowd) and I found Judith Warner's most recent column. She had attended a McCain/Palin rally recently and speaking to the people in attendance she realized that they're thoughtful, reasonable people who are tired of the condescension and scorn of liberal Democrats.
It's strange - I'm also tired of the condescension and scorn of liberal Democrats. Strange, because I am a liberal Democrat. Perhaps because I grew up in a state where liberals are a small minority and then I went to college at a school where liberals were a very small minority I like to think that I can see conservative Republicans and people rather than ignorant yokels. And when I'm at a party surrounded by people mocking the values of faith and family and the people who hold them, I can only think "hey - those are my values. And my people!" No wonder you're not getting Republican votes. I don't even really like you right now.
Judith Warmer points out an essay by Jonathan Haidt, "What Makes People Vote Republican" in which he points out some of the moral differences between Democrats and Republicans. He claims that morality can be described in terms of 5 characteristics: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity foundations, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. While Republicans value these things more or less equally, Democrats primarily value the first two - the idea of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity.
You can test your own moral beliefs at the website www.YourMorals.org. I thought it was pretty interesting. Like most Democrats I value harm/care and fairness/reciprocity highly. However, I'm somewhat closer to Republicans in the value I place on purity/sanctity.
Haidt claims that Democrats think that working-class people have been duped into voting for Republicans, when in reality people honestly prefer the Republican moral order that the Democratic party is lacking. Somehow
"...the Republicans have become the party of the sacred, appropriating not just the issues of God, faith, and religion, but also the sacred symbols of the nation such as the Flag and the military. The Democrats, in the process, have become the party of the profane—of secular life and material interests. Democrats often seem to think of voters as consumers; they rely on polls to choose a set of policy positions that will convince 51% of the electorate to buy."
He suggests that when we, as liberals, sit around polishing our halos and claiming to have the moral high ground we aren't thinking about the full complexity of morality. We might, he says, start thinking about how our values can be tied to ideas of loyalty and sanctity.
I found his essay both frustrating and compelling. Compelling for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Frustrating because there are many things about conservative ideology I find to be fundamentally immoral - denying equal rights to gays and women, for example.
But even though he doesn't talk about it I think that one of the reasons for Obama popularity is that his message seems to acknowledge at least the importance of unity/loyalty, and maybe even sanctity. Somehow, I guess, Democrats in general and Obama in particular, must present some sort of coherent moral order that doesn't sacrifice the fundamental values of social justice and diversity.
10 comments:
did you read the first comment on the judith warner post? what a jerk. i'm going to send the piece to my mom. i think she'll say, "yeah, that's right". I'm pretty high on all the dimensions. I'll email you my picture.
I was 4.3, 3.2, 2.2, 2.5, and 1.2.
So, that means that I value harm/care more even than the liberals and that I value purity/sanctity even less than the liberals. My loyalty score is exactly the same as the liberals on the other two I'm in between. That is, I don't value fairness as much as other liberals and I value authority more.
Did you find Haidt condescending also? Because I don't think that he disproved the thesis that he asserted. I mean, the whole duping hypothesis is based on the notion that these people are voting with the republican claims of morality, without noticing that economic and foreign policies are inconsistent with their principles. So then he goes on to talk about morality and the fact that people in small towns are comparable to people in sort of distant villages. It's still got a very we/them feeling to it. There's no acknowledgement at all of the highly educated big city republicans.
Harm 3.5 (.1 below liberal 3.6)
Fairness 3.7 (tied with liberal)
Loyalty 3.0 (.2 below conservative)
Authority 2.7 (.6 above liberal and .6 below conservative)
Purity 3.2 (umm, yeah, conservative was 2.9, liberal was 1.3)
I feel like maybe I'm looking, uh, like a puritan.
Okay, mine was:
Harm: 3.7
Fairness: 4.2
Loyalty: 2.0
Authority: 2.3
Purity: 2.3
I didn't find Haidt especially condescending. I thought that his point was that many Republicans do notice that they're voting against their economic self interests, but they choose to vote Republican anyway. And to appreciate why liberals should understand that the conservative view of morality.
You're right though that he was focused on poor and working class people. Maybe because even though there are educated, big-city Republicans, urban areas are much bluer than rural areas?
density, density...there are many more less affluent people than there are rich people; so even if there are big-city republicans, there numbers (in congressional districts, say) aren't enough to change the electoral outcome when the many more less affluent people are voting...its not even in the republican self-interest to vote in those contests (assuming turnout is equal). that's why the focus is more on rural republicans where they are a majority of the electorate. also, (though I didn't read the whole haidt thing ) the assumption about economic self-interest arguments is that that is the only interest or the most important--so, with the "values" voters, there are other concerns that are more important than economic self-interest--(purity, authority), or at least than are as measurable such as fairness or harm since you can tie them to material things.
In studying for my exams, I often find myself asking minute and overly complicated questions of the texts I am reading without considering how the authors are framing the terms of their argument, what is at stake for the authors, how do they (or fail to) define the terms they are using. So, this is why I think your post is particularly valuable. But isn't a numbers game in which you are ranked on ideologies of purity, fairness, etc. so arbirtrary that it legitimizes those abstract terms as something we can define quantitatively? I'm confused how this is useful...
Also, wasnt the whole point of Obama having that child who in Jon Stewart's words just wouldn't "shut up" a touting that he, too, has a family which he values. And his religion, or a questioning thereof, has been at the heart of his campaign.
I think as a people we are forced to sign on to these assigned categories of what it means to be a republican/be a democrat, because we rarely get straight explanations instead of soundbites that are meant to embody one of the above mentioned ideologies. It is frustrating to argue over terms like sanctity and safety, purity and patriotism, when I don't really know concretely what we even mean by those terms...
SP
You are fortunate not to have to hear the inane prattle on the radio regarding the election. Makes a person want to join a different race. Maybe the elephants are recruiting.
and by 'elephants,' I meant actual elephants. and by 'race,' I meant 'species.'
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