Conservative politics is built on disgust

[ProfessorPlum]

Some of you may know that I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind" as a really great starting place for understanding the conservative mind, and what makes them tick and how they are different from liberals.

On of the principles that guides conservatives in their emotional reaction to the world is "purity", meaning cleanliness, wholesomeness, savoriness, acceptability. For them, disgust is an emotional reaction close to the surface, and it manifests itself frequently as their sense of purity is offended. Hence, the maniacal obsession with virginity. Hence, the drive towards "racial purity" and the contempt and disgust towards people who are in any way different - different races, different cultures, different sexuality.

And so, the conservative media have developed the conservative brand around stoking disgust that conservatives have for their fellow Americans - Gay people are gross. Trans people are gross. Brown people are gross. Drug users are gross. Hippies are gross - and Democrats are all hippies.

Meanwhile, on the other side, liberal politics is built around equality under the law and equality of opportunity for people, overcoming our fear of the different. It is a politics that urges us to get over ourselves, to not be disgusted by our fellow Americans, but rather see them as worthy of the fruits of citizenship as we are.

I am glad to see to that liberals can be disgusted by the actions, policies, and hatemongering of conservatives, if not so much for the people themselves. But we should recognize the force that is disgust in our politics, and try to use it to our advantage or to disarm it.

[tblue37]

1. K&R. nt

[Orsino]

2. It's built on fear that often pretends to be disgust.

The fear is that if those reviled groups ever got together with the ret of us, we would be unstoppable.

So they will always seek to divide us.

[Caliman73]

3. Interesting premise, though I would argue more complexity.

I think that the conservative mind is driven by a need for order in the service of abating fear. I see conservatives as fearing difference where you say that liberals strive to overcome that fear.

I suppose that conservatives want purity (whatever that means) as there is not now, nor has there ever been anything pure. If conservatives wanted purity, they would have never allowed for Donald Trump to be their nominee as he is the furthest thing from purity that has been seen in a long while. Conservatives seek authority to silence their concerns about changing demographics and changing social norms. They seek to quiet the fears that keep them up at night, the idea that they might have to understand something other than their own experience and consider that other view points may be valid.

[smirkymonkey]

4. This!

[Sanders4life]

5. I disagree somewhat

Conservatives believe in the traditional family unit, and raising their families in their version of a wholesome environment, even if their version of wholesomeness is in conflict with modern norms.

They believe in helping others, but differ from us in that they prefer to do so at the local level, often through the church. Preferring to help those more likely to think like them as a consequence of locality.

They see the world in more black and white terms. Clear allies and clear foes. Clear good and clear evil. Often these definitions are in line with their religious interpretation.

[empedocles]

6. On quick trigger responses, I agree 'disgust' is prominent and important.

However, at a deep level, a foundation element is 'hate.'

trump won the republicon nomination not by competence, trust, etc. trump won be showing more explosive hate than anyone else.
Hate, especially a deep hate, allows the hater to override any other considerations. That is why Klan and their sympathizers woke up for trump, racists of all brands, lot of anti-abortion types, etc. That is why trump corruption, incompetence, nasty 'zero' for separating children does not matter to trump's base - they tend to be serious, longterm, haters; loving the trump hate, [like the old Southern Governors used to do, 'nigras', etc. So effective, they got hordes of southern voters to switch parties even.]