by Madeleine KandoIn an article in the Guardian of June 5th, Jonathan Haidt gives an alternative answer to the question 'Why Do Working Class People Vote Conservative?’. According to Haidt, the generally accepted ‘duping hypothesis’, which says that the Republican party has duped working class people into voting for them by putting the focus on cultural and moral issues rather than on economic issues, is not the real reason.
He points out that voting on a national level is more about a moral vision than about specific policies. That is true, but out of that moral vision flow the policies that a country adopts, so the usefulness of that statement is a bit doubtful.
Haidt goes on to say that most Americans don’t want to live in a nation based primarily on caring. That’s what families are for. Really? How can a family care for its children if the society doesn’t provide specific policies that allow it to do so? If you cannot afford health insurance, you are pretty much up shit creek, no matter how much you care about your children.
Politics on a national level 'Is more about a moral vision that unifies a nation and calls it to greatness than it is about self-interest or specific policies. In most countries, the right tends to see that more clearly than the left.' That's it? No explanation, no facts to back up the statement? What about all those (left leaning) countries in Europe that have created the European Union? Is that not the ultimate vision of unification, not just for one nation, but many?
Haidt, in this article and elsewhere, compares the moral mind as being like the tongue, an organ that is sensitive to a variety of moral flavors. He identifies six moral flavors: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation.
The first three, care, fairness and liberty are equally important to both conservatives and democrats. But on loyalty, authority and sanctity, Conservatives have a hands up, says Haidt. The immediate question that comes to mind is: loyalty to whom? As societies become more enlightened, the group to which loyalty is given expands. We are moving away from the tribal. Loyalty to a clan is no longer required or desirable. And is loyalty truly a basic ingredient of the moral cuisine, or is it more like an artificial flavor?
On the subject of authority, I would think that placing exceptional value in authority is not always a good thing. In fact, I might want to replace that ingredient on the moral palette with ‘freedom of thought’ or ‘critical thinking’.
Sanctity/degradation: I agree that certain things are sacred, but they have acquired their sanctity status because they were considered true. So I would replace the sanctity flavor with the 'truth' flavor. Truth is far more morally valuable than sanctity, and much less prone to subjective interpretation. Sanctity is so intertwined with culture, whereas truth has the advantage of being cross-cultural.
Morality's ultimate purpose, if it's the right kind of morality, is to increase human well-being. If in-group loyalty, respect for authority and purity/sanctity fulfills that purpose, then they are legitimate candidates for the moral palette. If they don't, they should fall by the wayside.
Besides, who says that Haidt's analysis is correct? It is possible that fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity are simply facets of a more general concern for harm/care (See Richard Harris' article 'A Response to Jonathan Haidt'). In that sense, if a conservative finds it very important to not blaspheme, is it truly because he finds it immoral or because he doesn't want to go to hell and be harmed?
In conclusion, if the working class is not duped by the Conservatives into voting against their own interest, then they are voting against it because of a misguided sense of morality. When a society moves away from allowing the majority of its citizens to fulfill their ‘capabilities’, as Martha Nussbaum calls it, by removing social safety nets and allowing extreme inequality between rich and poor, then the morality of that society is misguided and should be revisited. I disagree with Haidt and believe that Democrats have a stronger sense of morality. That is why I am a Democrat. leave comment here
4 comments:
A brilliant rebuttal.
One thing immediately comes to mind (among many): As David Deutsch recently noted in THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY, “morally right values are connected with true factual theories, and morally wrong values with false theories” (121). Thus, loyalty, authority and sanctity can lead to wrong values, as they have done so often throughout history (think of organized Religion!). These are precisely the most dangerous and often most fallacious “moral flavors,” because they eschew TESTING THE VALIDITY of the values which they blindly support.
I'm in agreement with so MUCH of this - thanks for supplying material for meditation - how are you tom?
Madeleine is a seriously-committed writer like you.
There is a much more simple explanation of why people vote conservative. It is in their self interest. Many expansions of government also reduce liberty and people who vote that way may well value liberty more than "caring" or governmental support.
Think back to a time when you were young. Even if you were not very good at something like sports you realized that if everyone got a trophy, the value of the trophy was not valuable. Individual achievement is valued in the American character.
From my perspective this kind of discussion is a lot like "how many angels are on the head of a pin?"
I am not sure what you mean by 'expansion of government'. As the population of a country expands so does the government that has to ensure that the rights and liberties of that population are protected: the right to a fair trial, the right to own property, voting rights, the right to practice our religion, the right to free speech, the right to privacy etc.
The majority of the times when our liberties were infringed upon were during conservative administrations (the political witch-hunts of the McCarthy era, the Watergate scandal and, during President Bush, the Patriot Act). When that happens, we turn to the government (usually the courts) to protect us from that abuse. Our liberties would soon disappear if we did not call on the government to actively protect them.
Obviously you do not really think that this kind of discussion has no value, or you would not have commented on it. I personally believe that the moral values of a country determines the quality of its government.
As far as your comment about trophies, I don't know how to interpret that…
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