Is the Tea Party Fair-Minded?

[Qutzupalotl]

Is the Tea Party Fair-Minded?
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt on morality and politics.
By Alison George|Posted Sunday, March 11, 2012, at 6:15 AM ET

Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, has delved into the tribal world of politics, where each group is obsessed with its own rightness. But self-righteousness, he says, is an essential part of being human.
...
What about extreme groups like the Tea Party?
Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness. It's not fairness as equality of outcomes, it's fairness as karma—the idea that good deeds will lead to good outcomes and bad deeds will lead to suffering. Many conservatives believe the Democratic party has been the anti-karma party since the ’60s. It's the party that says, you got pregnant? Don't worry, have an abortion. You got addicted to drugs? Don't worry, we'll give you methadone. It's the party that absolves you from moral irresponsibility.

The Tea Partiers don't hate all government: just government they see as subverting karma, subverting moral responsibility. This hatred is, I think, a derivative of their love of proportionality. They're perfectly happy with social security, a retirement scheme which Franklin D. Roosevelt deliberately portrayed as a form of fairness, you pay in and you get out.

more:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2012/03/jonathan_haidt_on_morality_and_american_politics_.html

[The Wielding Truth]

1. THey have been twisted into thinking that self-preservation is the most important thing.

Yet what they really have to fear is preserving social democracy.

[brewens]

2. Delusional thinking on their part. They have their abortions when needed. They just think they

won't, at least some of them.

Law and order? If it's their kid busted for drugs they don't let them rot in prison. that calls for hiring the best lawer thay can afford. He's really a good kid and deserves a second/third/fourth chance.

"Welfare"? It's only fair that they get if they're down on their luck. It's those "other" people that don't deserve it.

[Enrique]

3. based on that answer, I don't think this author knows much about the Tea Party

they actually are opposed fundamentally to Social Security, they call it a Ponzi scheme. Maybe some individual members don't understand that that is the Tea Party's ideology, but it is. They are direct descendants of the John Birch Society. The JBS was actually founded by the Koch brothers father.

This guy, at least in this excerpt, is talking about some kind of sanitized version of the Tea Party, not the real one.

[ewagner]

5. agree and add...

tea party groups seem to morph with the region or locality....they are not united in anything but hatred of Obama.

[Populist_Prole]

11. Just what I was thinking: What tea party is he talking about?

I mean, it really doesn't exist per se anymore, as there really is no need. It was just a catchy name for the hard-right wing of the Republican party, and it fed its member's identity politics dynamic.

They don't want any part of fairness: They're just selfish mean-spirited reactionary assholes. Of conservatives I know, the teabgger types are the ones I dislike the most. The author ought to interview them.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Tea Party - an astro-turfed group that thrives on ignorance and hypocrisy.

See - this article can be much, much shorter!

[RKP5637]

7. Yep, that's pretty much the bottom line. Ignorant hypocritical robots ready to be commanded. n/t

[Enrique]

6. fair-minded isn't the term that came to mind...

[RKP5637]

8. I often wonder how many sociopathic assholes we have in this country today. Quite a

few I suspect.

[lastlib]

9. This would presume that they are -minded....eom

There is a reason we refer to them as "morans"

[Viva_Daddy]

10. Sure, the Tea Party is "fair-minded" just like Faux News is "fair and balanced".

[3waygeek]

12. More like out-of-their-minded n/t

[MissMarple]

13. The title is misleading.

Many of the posters jumped off with the word "fairness" as they understand it. They really need to read the article and watch a presentation by Haidt on ted.com (a great site) that I have posted below. There is also a good interview with Haidt on Bill Moyers. It must be kept in mind that Haidt is a psychologist observing and reporting on what he sees. He is not saying how things should or must be.

If one is to answer that with any degree of "fairness" to Haidt, the concept of fair has to be put into perspective with his use of it. What Haidt is intending to do is shed some light and understanding on how the conservative mind thinks and views the world as well as how the liberal mind does so. We need to understand the inherent differences between two essential ways of viewing realilty. The liberal mind is more open to change and diversity, the conservative mind prefers the familiar and prescribed. The concept of "fairness" differs somewhat between the two. The liberal mind is more nuanced, the conservative mind is more black and white. This almost mirrors the differences between the new and old testaments. To understand the conservative outlook it really doesn't matter what the liberal outlook may be. They are different, but each may hold a piece of what we all need to get along. We all have our strengths and our blind spots. We have more in common than we now realize. I do believe the center holds.

Understanding the tea party mindset, and how conservatives view the world is quite valuable. It is a step or so beyond the framing discussions, expanding on Lakoff. However, that is not quite to the point of dealing with the people behind the curtains pulling the strings for personal gain. They are beyond an acceptable morality of any sort. They have always been with us, they always will.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

[TheKentuckian]

14. I don't even buy that they are minded.

[MissMarple]

15. Not constructive

Sorry, I know I sound a bit school marmish, but, seriously...that wasn't thoughtful or cogent. You can do much better than that. The point is that it doesn't matter that they are either minded or fair as we understand those terms. I'm belaboring an obvious point, but we really don't have the luxury or the time to be flippant. Would it were so, I tend at times to be snarky and flippant.

[JHB]

16. The article title is misleading...

...since the quoted section is near the end and is the only portion directly commenting on TPers. Though in the context of the article it doesn't seem quite so out of the blue and clueless. Within the context, there's less need to repeat "within their own framework", which should be added to nearly every sentence when excerpting it.

They have a lot of morality plays in their heads about how things "should" go, and liberals interfere with that (e.g., the death penalty so that the guilty pay the ultimate price... but then liberals get them off on a bunch of "technicalities" (like making sure they have the right guy, that due process has been given, etc.)).

Part and parcel of this, however, are a lot of assumptions that are not necessarily true or even demonstrably false (welfare queens, anyone?). And an active resistance to giving up any of these cherished untruths.

He also doesn't address higher-level, longer term agenda-pushing. He touches on oppo research, but doesn't get into apparatus designed to use the inclinations of the TPers and drive them in a particular direction. Deliberate efforts to gin up that moral outrage and point it in a particular direction. I noticed a lot of TPers who were complaining about higher taxes were actually talking about state and local taxes, but their frustration at those was channeled to the national level (where taxes had gone down) to focus all their anger on Obama.

[MissMarple]

17. Ya think? They are sensing a paradigm change, and they are not very happy campers.

The familiar and predictable world they remember and think they had is slipping away from them. And somebody has to pay. These are not flexible people. Bless their hearts.

[center rising]

18. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha