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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNationalism Rising: When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism, Jonathan Haidt
This article is two years old, but it might as well have been written today. It's a longish article, but well worth the read. I've hacked it down to it's essential prescription, which may be painful for liberals to hear. But I really think he makes a good argument for why immigration is SO important to the right. It isn't just racism (though there is some of that), but the view that the structures and values that bind our communities together are perceived to be under threat. If this is true, then the way to beat back the rising tide of intolerance is to emphasize our common bonds as Americans, and our shared cultures and values.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/v/jonathan-haidt/
NATIONALISM RISING
When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism
JONATHAN HAIDT
And how moral psychology can help explain and reduce tensions between the two.
What on earth is going on in the Western democracies? From the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and an assortment of right-wing parties across Europe through the June 23 Brexit vote, many on the Left have the sense that something dangerous and ugly is spreading: right-wing populism, seen as the Zika virus of politics. Something has gotten into those people that makes them vote in ways that seemto their criticslikely to harm their own material interests, at least if their leaders follow through in implementing isolationist policies that slow economic growth...
...[A]ll the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding differencethe hallmarks of liberal democracyare the surest ways to aggravate those who are innately intolerant, and to guarantee the increased expression of their predispositions in manifestly intolerant attitudes and behaviors. Paradoxically, then, it would seem that we can best limit intolerance of difference by parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness
. Ultimately, nothing inspires greater tolerance from the intolerant than an abundance of common and unifying beliefs, practices, rituals, institutions, and processes. And regrettably, nothing is more certain to provoke increased expression of their latent predispositions than the likes of multicultural education, bilingual policies, and nonassimilation.
If the story I have told here is correct, then the globalists could easily speak, act, and legislate in ways that drain passions and votes away from nationalist parties, but this would require some deep rethinking about the value of national identities and cohesive moral communities. It would require abandoning the multicultural approach to immigration and embracing assimilation.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,854 posts)FOX News exacerbates the division with their phony "War on Christmas" proclamations and such.
I agree about assimilation, though -- i.e., "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I am tolerant of other cultures and ways of life, but I want the same tolerance granted towards me. When I see intolerance towards me and others, representative of what's considered the "norm" in this country, I'm a bit flabbergasted by it.
ck4829
(35,077 posts)Not the 1950s... or 1850s. Its time for them to assimilate.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)They didn't start flying it again until a few generations after the Civil War, and even then it was not that common. Lately there were some moves to reduce its use, though that momentum was lost under Trump.
Still, if you want to convince them to put away their flags, do you realy think yelling "Racist!" will do it?
ck4829
(35,077 posts)I don't know how we can actually demand "assimilation" from immigrants when we have so many people born-here and living here for several generations be not assimilated, be the opposite of assimilation, and actually act proud in their paranoia of the "other", be proud of not trusting the institutions of this country, and are willing to screw their fellow citizens over just so they can get ahead.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)It's just a matter of balance between particularism and assimiliation and many and what kind of exceptions we are willing to make. For people who want to maintain a narrow view, is the goal to call them narrow minded and feel good about ourselves, or is it to make a more welcoming nation we can all live in?
John Fante
(3,479 posts)if that's what you're getting at.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)It's understanding what would motivate conservatives to be more tolerant, and trying to build bridges across the growing divide. For liberals, intolerance causes harm, and that's motivation enough. According to the article, conservatives need structures and symbols to give them a sense of unity.
kcr
(15,317 posts)This garbage doesn't belong on DU.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)kcr
(15,317 posts)https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Political-Defector/130450
His mentioned in this article: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/universities-and-the-birth-of-a-new-fundamentalist-religion/
For starters. Google brings up all kinds of stuff. He's a regular on The Intellectual Dark Web circuit for these viewpoints.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Do you have a fact-based objection or is your opinion supposed to be self-evident based on the linked articles?
kcr
(15,317 posts)Did you read any of those links?
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Did you expect me to just agree with whatever is written there? Or did you just expect me to agree with whatever interpretation you have of the information?
Thanks though for your mention of the IDW. I found some interesting articles about that.
kcr
(15,317 posts)Here is an example of Haidt's "science" from the NYT article:
Similarly, Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). This was not a permissible hypothesis, Dr. Haidt said. It blamed the victims rather than the powerful. The outrage ultimately led to his resignation. We psychologists should have been outraged by the outrage. We should have defended his right to think freely.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)It's opinion about academic freedom, and I agree with Haidt. Summers should be able to express his ideas even if they contradict current scientific consensus. I understand they might make some people uncomfortable, but academia should not shy away from uncomfortable ideas, it should research them.
kcr
(15,317 posts)There is a difference between presenting data in a research paper, and openly and vocally harassing a group to create a hostile environment for that group in order to keep your powerful majority in power. It has long been debunked that women and minorities are inferior, so there is no reason for Summers to be spouting this harassment. There isn't a scientific need for such "research". It is harassment, plain and simple. Haidt is supporting sexual harassment and racism under the guise of scientific freedom of expression, then cries about bias against conservatives. He's exactly as I claimed he was.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)And if it is wrong, isn't the first and best remedy to present evidence that it is wrong?
kcr
(15,317 posts)trying to convince other people they work with that they're just as smart and capable just because some feel these men should be free to spout their insults. It's 2018. If they haven't been "convinced" yet, the only remedy is to force them to join the modern world and open up the same pathways these jackasses got to achieve true equality.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Last edited Thu Nov 1, 2018, 09:25 PM - Edit history (2)
And he was not, so far as I know, accused of discriminatory hiring or promotional practices. At the time he made his remarks, there was a recently published paper on which his claim was apparently based.
Academic debates are not designed to protect anyone's feelings. They are meant to be a free exchange of ideas to find the truth. The price we pay for this free exchange is that some ideas will be wrong, insulting or crazy. It's important to know about those wrong ideas, if only to disprove them. The ideas don't go away just because someone got insulted or we forced whoever said them to resign
ck4829
(35,077 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)No ties of history or any shared Constitutional principles of any kind?
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)I think it's a world I would want to avoid. Maybe there is a happy medium between the two?
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)Jihad is not just terrorism, its an anti-globalist, sometimetimes.nativist political mindset...
Barber's book didnt provide a satisfactory solution,.but the critique is spot.on
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)The tendencies of what I am here calling the forces of Jihad and the forces of McWorld operate with equal strength in opposite directions, the one driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets, the one re-creating ancient subnational and ethnic borders from within, the other making national borders porous from without. They have one thing in common: neither offers much hope to citizens looking for practical ways to govern themselves democratically. If the global future is to pit Jihad's centrifugal whirlwind against McWorld's centripetal black hole, the outcome is unlikely to be democraticor so I will argue....
Jihad delivers a different set of virtues: a vibrant local identity, a sense of community, solidarity among kinsmen, neighbors, and countrymen, narrowly conceived. But it also guarantees parochialism and is grounded in exclusion. Solidarity is secured through war against outsiders. And solidarity often means obedience to a hierarchy in governance, fanaticism in beliefs, and the obliteration of individual selves in the name of the group. Deference to leaders and intolerance toward outsiders (and toward "enemies within" ) are hallmarks of tribalismhardly the attitudes required for the cultivation of new democratic women and men capable of governing themselves. Where new democratic experiments have been conducted in retribalizing societies, in both Europe and the Third World, the result has often been anarchy, repression, persecution, and the coming of new, noncommunist forms of very old kinds of despotism...
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Response to JCMach1 (Reply #14)
marylandblue This message was self-deleted by its author.
kysrsoze
(6,021 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)And I don't see any evidence he hates anybody. Do you think everyone you disagree with is motivated by hate?
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)Fuck that guy and, honestly, fuck anyone who thinks he is more right than wrong.
I mean, DU ain't what it used to be and maybe I shouldn't be surprised to see this equivocating dangerous bullshit here but COME THE FUCK ON.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)But I guess for you it's a place for profane tirades against fellow Democrats. Now that you have released your aggressive tensions in this safe space, do you have something rational and informative to add?
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)or the side of a meaningfully progressive, improving society. If he is on yours, that's your problem, and the irony of your use of the phrase 'safe space' is glaring. His ideas are tempting (as demonstrated by you) and dangerous. Whatever truth he spouts has been stated better by others without the addition of dangerous, unproven theories.
If you want to understand what I'm talking about, I will leave it to others who can explain it much more delicately than I can.
"...but essentially the issue is that Haidt is claiming that liberals and conservatives have different brains, which leads them to have different moral foundations, which leads them to associate with the values of different political philosophy. In other words, Haidt claims our philosophical differences are founded in biological differences. However, Haidt has never shown that this is true, and contemporary research suggests that the brain doesnt compartmentalize morality into various boxes in the way that hes proposing."
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-science-backed-criticism-on-Jonathan-Haidts-moral-foundations-theory
https://livingindialogue.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/what-moral-foundation-theory-gets-wrong/
http://patriciachurchland.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2011_InnateModularFoundations.pdf
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)I read the links you provided and found them interesting, but none of them explain the reaction to Haidt. I don't get why this is MY problem. Surely you didn't turn into a sputtering pile of rage because he has an incomplete grasp of neuroscience or factor analysis, did you? I'd say you were triggered, but you might find that a glaringly inappropriate use of irony. Sorry, can't help myself sometimes.
Apparently, you think his ideas are not just wrong, but dangerous on a "fundamental" level. So dangerous in fact that nobody can even speak of them. It's not even a matter of explaining "delicately." Three people got upset on this thread and none of them can explain it AT ALL.
I used to think I was a liberal because I like to explore new and different ideas. Seems that's not really true for liberals anymore. Seems like now it's about stifling things we don't want to hear. But that's not me. Never was. Never will be.