"Can Science Explain Tea Partiers’ Rage?"

[applegrove]

Can Science Explain Tea Partiers’ Rage?

by Joshua Holland at Bill Moyers

http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/31/can-science-explain-tea-partiers-rage/

"SNIP...................................

Joshua Holland: Chris, let’s talk about morality. I’m personally offended by the tea partiers’ resistance to giving uninsured people health care. I find it a bit shocking that a political movement could be so filled with animosity toward the idea. But according to NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt — and other scholars — conservatives have a different moral compass entirely. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Chris Mooney: Absolutely. There are many people doing research in the psychology of politics. Jonathan Haidt is a pioneer in the psychology of morality and how that feeds into politics, and it really helps with something like this where you have strong emotional passions that are irreconcilable on the left and the right.

So what you’re describing is his moral foundation of “harm,” which liberals tend to feel more strongly about. These are emotions relating to empathy and compassion – measured by the question of how much someone is suffering and how much that suffering is a moral issue to you. How much is caring for the weak and vulnerable a moral issue to you?

It’s not that conservatives don’t feel that emotion, but they don’t necessarily feel it as strongly. They feel other things more strongly. So to Haidt, this explains the health care debate because liberals feel, most of all, this harm-care-compassion thing. Conservatives feel it a little bit less strongly, even as they have this other morality. Haidt compares it to karma — it’s really interesting — where basically, you’re supposed to get what you deserve. And what really bothers them is somebody not getting what they deserve. So the government getting involved and interfering with people getting what they deserve is really bad. That, I think, is the clash.




....................................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Fascinating

[LisaLynne]

2. Very interesting ...

And plus, for most of them, their Calvinist "God" is supposed to be making sure people get what they deserve, so that only those who are the right kind of religious prosper. All of the talk of making things more equitable is messing with their whole world view!

[applegrove]

3. I come from calvinist canada and we are much more liberal.

I think because we had quebec. And so we have had to accept that not everything could always be about us. That we had to compromise over the years. And it was good.

[adirondacker]

4. Excellent read. I like the moral foundation graph...

"And when you look at the graph, the biggest disparities between liberals and conservatives — and, again, libertarians — are “purity” and “authority.” That’s where you see the biggest gaps between the groups. What is purity in Haidt’s reckoning?

Mooney: Purity is basically whether you feel moral emotions when someone does something you view as disgusting or indecent. A lot of this is going to involve your judgments about what’s sexually proper, but it could be other things that are disgusting. Basically, this is a way of measuring the emotion of disgust, and what this shows — this is the most striking disparity of all of them — is that liberals and libertarians really don’t sense disgust very much. And they’re together on that completely. There’s an amazing number of things that liberals and libertarians are together on. But conservatives feel it much more than either of them. And so this can explain a great deal in politics — it’s most regularly invoked to explain gay rights and how people respond to that, which I think is very appropriate. But I think it also gets into a lot of bioethical issues."

[longship]

5. Maybe science can treat it?

Here's a solution.



And then, there's Boehner...


Come on, guys. It's all Torazine these days.

[flamingdem]

6. This is very accurate!

However I think a conservative can learn to feel empathy. Social pressure and understanding what is at stake can change people.

[applegrove]

7. The fact that republicans think in black and white screams out for adult growth.

I called it years ago. They were grown down by the noise machine. Taught to think like narcissistic teenagers.

[flamingdem]

8. It's true that there's hope for very few of them but some do convert

like Thigpen, forget his first name.

[DevonRex]

9. You mean who the fuck bit them and turned them into lunatics?

I hope so. Maybe there's a cure.