Are lib and con Yin and Yang?
In ch. 12 of The Righteous Mind I argue that left and right are like Yin and Yang — both see different threats, push in different directions, and protect different things that matter, and that are at risk of getting trampled by the other side.
There’s an extraordinarily good and civil debate going on about my claim in the reviews of my book at Amazon.com.
It starts with a review by a conservative reader, The Independent Whig, who loves the book but argues that conservatism is already balanced — among all 6 foundations — so they don’t need liberals to provide more balance. (See Independent Whig’s full blog here.)
Two other readers–James Wagner (liberal) and SanPete (center-left?)–then go on to discuss and debate the question. This is one of the most thoughtful, respectful, and helpful discussions I’ve seen about political psychology anywhere on the internet. I’ll just post my responses to the discussion below, but please do see the discussion to see how the arguments develop.
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[Response from Haidt]:
This is among the best, most constructive and civil discussions of politics I’ve ever seen on the internet. In briefest form, my responses to the discussion are:
1)Yin/Yang: I do mean it exactly as SanPete puts it, and I got the idea from the yin/yang nature of the openness dimension. It’s the idea expressed in the Mill quote in ch. 12: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.” Independent-Whig is right that conservatism is, in theory, more balanced. And this is why Jesse Graham and I have found that liberals have more difficulty understanding conservatives than vice versa. But in practice, no side can be so balanced that it is able to push both ways and get the balance right. As long as there is partisan conflict, each side is going to circle the wagons and push against the other side. And that is generally good: it’s like a cybernetic control system where you need a force pushing both ways. If all you ever have is Buckley’s conservatives standing athawart history yelling “stop,” then conservatives don’t end up making the changes that are needed to respond to changing circumstances, and to address the needs of the powerless, who generally to get shut out and shut down unless someone is looking out for them.
2) On why I focus my message mostly on liberals: SanPete got it exactly right: “this book is largely based on Haidt’s own experience and reflections, and since he was a liberal reacting against his own mistakes, and the mistakes he see in his profession dominated by liberals, that’s the primary perspective of the book.” This is exactly right. This is what I’ve been thinking and arguing for years. I hardly ever get the chance to meet or talk to conservatives.
3) On what liberals should do: I agree with James Wagner that liberals can “change their spots.” I think it’s hard for any particular individual to do so. But I do hope that American liberals, as a tribe, will do so. Indeed, the reason I seem so hard on liberals is that I think they changed their spots in the 1960s and 1970s in a bad way – the turn to the “New Left” led the left away from the morality of most Americans and into some positions that I think are hard to justify, morally. If we think of liberalism as a tradition stretching back to the 18th century, then I am a liberal. I want liberals to change their spots BACK to a configuration more in harmony with their grand tradition. I am confident that this will happen as the baby boomers age out of the population. I think that libertarians and conservatives all have a piece of the grand liberal tradition, and the left needs to read writers from these groups to re-discover many great ideas that they lost touch with in the 1960s.
4) On whether there is some best or correct balance: No. When nations or tribes face constant threats of attack, the liberal configuration would lead a group to get wiped out pretty quickly, so in those environments, more “binding” moralities are more adaptive. But in times of peace and prosperity, I do think human flourishing is best served by a shift in the liberal direction – thinning out the reliance on the binding foundations. I see societies as being like ecosystems, constantly in flux. There’s no obvious best setting, and we argue, as a society, over what our morals should be in each era. This is good and healthy – no one side can simply think about it and get the answer right, because each side is so limited by its confirmation biases. It can become unhealthy when we begin to demonize each other. My highest hope for the book is that it will facilitate healthier, less demonizing debates, such as this one.
Thank you!
In the discussion, TIW has made what seems a sensible suggestion about a puzzle raised in a paper you coauthored.
Link
Thanks much for your kind words about our Amazon discussion, Jon, and for weighing in with well-reasoned input. I relate very well to your sense you’ve articulated here and elsewhere that liberals reaching conservatives in conversation is rare, at least outside of argument or defensive posturing. TIW’s central buy-in of your framework is what enabled it here, providing a safe set of ideas for him and other conservatives to use to let liberals and centrists relate on common ground. We liberals can’t understand that the emphasis on our narrower version of rationality, our assumed rational superiority, and the prejudice underlying even much of our research (particularly terminology and focus) makes it very difficult for them to get beyond a nature already sensitive to contrary opinion (principal-based, relatively high biases) to engage in give-and-take. In addition, we liberals fail to understand how important the simplest, tangential relations can be with them, and how the onus for that relating should naturally fall to us- always anxious to move beyond complimenting their approach or learning from them to teaching. I am fortunate to be around conservatives much of the time, and I love the different, valuable perspective, quite outside the realm of politics, per se: they fill in personality gaps I have, and stimulate me to try to envision things differently. I wish that feeling on liberals more than anything- more than I wish that my liberal causes end up winning.
This: ” When nations or tribes face constant threats of attack, the liberal configuration would lead a group to get wiped out pretty quickly, so in those environments, more “binding” moralities are more adaptive. But in times of peace and prosperity, I do think human flourishing is best served by a shift in the liberal direction – thinning out the reliance on the binding foundations.” I really appreciate this perspective because it implies both a situational contingency and a place at the table for everyone, all the time, with our political values naturally waxing and waning in pertinence. I find it incomplete in a couple of ways I wanted to mention, though. First, ‘the liberal configuration’ shifts quickly and naturally to (I’ll be nice here) more binding moralities when fear rises in a culture (6 congresspersons voted against the Iraq invasion; the ultra-liberal Roosevelt getting his excuse to enter WW II; the surge of patriotism in the streets at the death of Bin-Laden). In that sense, there is no ‘liberal configuration’, only humans who are fundamentally conservative, to more or less degree. I don’t see your point as wrong, so much as unhelpful in the sense that the ‘configurations’ are very dynamic under the special condition of threat. Liberals suddenly develop a loyalty bone, or an authority bone: they also seem nowadays to lose them over time, as they feel safer. That dynamicism is key when considering the correct moral approach leading up to potential conflict: liberals believe that the emphasis on ‘binding moralities’ and the concomitant parochialism and fear-based motivations can generate conflict out of thin air. We believe that’s what happened with Iraq. In that important sense, it’s too neat to say we’d get wiped out in “constant threat” situations: to me, the war on terrorism is a constant threat situation in a pertinent sense, as was the Russian people’s belief during the Cold War that the U.S. would wipe them out given the chance. The tit-for-tat nature of escalating wrongs due to bias renders your statement too simple. The whole security side of the left-right argument is whether the personality characteristics underlying the more natural orientation to binding moralities create risk to the tribe in and of themselves, through bias. Liberal believe it to be so. Maybe that’s why there’s still so many of us around, despite the powerful argument for group selection on authority, loyalty, and sanctity. Liberals believe we gained a mess of pottage and lower security with the ~2 Trillion in Iraq war expense and the ~200,000+ civilian deaths, through abuse of the binding morality orientation. In former times, in the context of spears and limited information, my point may have been moot: in any case, I suspect there is a better way to frame when in modernity that binding moralities are more useful, and I submit such dependencies may be better found outside of security considerations. Many dimensions of our current federal fiscal shell game come immediately to mind for me. A second point relates to the way I snuck ‘concomitant’ in too neatly a paragraph or so ago: I believe it possible for liberals to adopt good parts of binding moralities while getting a bit of a waiver on some of the rigidity and uncertainty minimization conservatives struggle with genetically (statistically speaking, of course). In other words, liberals adopting select moral advantages without taking on the assumed disadvantages is how I interpret much of what’s going on in Scandinavia (where I lived awhile), and in the Netherlands. I also have experienced this in southern black religious people, and am often inspired in their presence. These are some of the happiest groups on earth, though in all cases their acceptance of broader moralities is quite distinctive. This is a bit of an opposite from saying the orientation toward binding moralities should shrink during peaceful times. Moralities can and should always be quite binding in the pursuit of happiness, but I think we can learn to let go of the less helpful parts of the complex of behavior we currently associate with broader morality matrices. If I’m not buying rigidity, etc. with a broader framework- posit orthogonality, if you will- I submit I want as much of that as I can get, peacetime, wartime, and in-between.Which leads me to this, Jon: I so look forward to the prescriptive work that will grow out of your work, taken up by others as a crop grows from good earth. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you and the team for highlighting for key gaps in the liberal world view, in a way we can hear: just as importantly, I’m so grateful that you have provided a wonderful, science-based justification for the implementation of healthy, natural aspects of conservative thought. I have been using your ideas for a long time now in conversation, and they are a wonderful gateway to understanding and common ground.
Your arguments are mostly about left and right as ideological principles. How does this leave room for conflicts between interests in politics?
Isn’t there a great deal of truth in the notion that ideologies and political disagreements are (if not fully determined by interests) highly-constrained by them?
note AV Dicey:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2119&chapter=164822&layout=html&Itemid=27
“It is impossible, indeed, to insist too strongly upon the consideration that whilst opinion controls legislation, public opinion is itself far less the result of reasoning or of argument than of the circumstances in which men are placed. Between 1783 and 1861 negro slavery was abolished, one might almost say ceased of itself to exist, in the Northern States of the American Republic; in the South, on the other hand, the maintenance of slavery developed into a fixed policy, and before the War of Secession the “peculiar institution” had become the foundation-stone of the social system. But the religious beliefs and, except as regards the existence of slavery, the political institutions prevalent throughout the whole of the United States were the same. The condemnation of slavery in the North, and the apologies for slavery in the South, must therefore be referred to difference of circumstances. Slave labour was obviously out of place in Massachusetts, Vermont, or New York; it appeared to be, even if in reality it was not, economically profitable in South Carolina. An institution, again, which was utterly incompatible with the social condition of the Northern States harmonised, or appeared to harmonise, with the social conditions of the Southern States. The arguments against the peculiar institution were in themselves equally strong in whatever part of the Union they were uttered, but they carried conviction to the white citizens of Massachusetts, whilst, even when heard or read, they did not carry conviction to the citizens of South Carolina. Belief, and, to speak fairly, honest belief, was to a great extent the result not of argument, nor even of direct self-interest, but of circumstances. What was true in this instance holds good in others. There is no reason to suppose that in 1830 the squires of England were less patriotic than the manufacturers, or less capable of mastering the arguments in favour of or against the reform of Parliament. But every one knows that, as a rule, the country gentlemen were Tories and anti-reformers, whilst the manufacturers were Radicals and reformers. Circumstances are the creators of most men’s opinions.”
Most modern political scientists reconcile the influence of interests and ideology by following greats like Bill Riker and E.E. Schattschneider in reasoning that ideological principles are to a large extent heresthetic maneuvers by coalition-builders. To what extent do you disagree with them?
So let me get this straight? You’re now espousing reactionary beliefs? You think that liberals should go back to embracing patriarchy, fundamentalism rather than say being open to eastern religion, segregation and sexual repression? Yes or no?
Can any rational persons truly believe this?
I want a straight answer please.
If anything I think the 60’s civilized the populace to a large extent. I will urge you to watch this http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/RaceGe Chomsky is a boss.
Crisis of democracy is very interesting as well.
libertarians are more in touch? Your statement seems completely ahistorical, Murray Rothbord make a coalition with the new left. The true libertarians like Gary Johnson strongly reject social conservatism and specially campaign as anti-demagogues.
Tell me do you really want a more socially repressive era like the 50’s? yes or so?
I read the book and enjoyed it. However, this book is addressed to American audience.
The author visited India – Orissa and discussed (what?) probably with pundits and priests and made his conclusions about this country – that is the most unfortunate part of it. This is how Westerners have viewed Indian wisdom, its philosophy. That error has been made even by Buddha who could not go to a competent teacher for various reasons. Had he done that, he would have become an advaitin. The whole lot of Indian philosophy starting with upanishads and the commentaries of Adi Sankara on these seem to have no relevance to the author. Upanishads do not make any dogmatic statements about existence or non-existence of God. It simply asks the seeker to seek by questioning. Questioning – that is the spirit of Indian philosophy. The Upanishads and the Vedas – leaving aside karma kANDa (the rituals part), conclude that the God – the Sanskrit term is ‘brahman’ which means ‘that which expands’ – is there right in the man – nay in every living and non-living beings and the Great elements – including rocks and sand – as the force that provides the momentum – yet not participating in the momentum. If God is to be sought, He – is it really He? – should be sought in each one of us – as the force behind the very Self as its assertion. That makes us feel that the whole ‘creation’ – the Sanskrit word is ‘projection’ – is but a single unit of existence. This makes the person – who so realises – to become a Universal being. His characteristic is ‘love’ – an unbound and untargeted love.
In India, there is a word called ‘dharma’ – which is interpreted as ‘law, justice, duty and righteousness’ – all rolled into one. This dharma is the cornerstone of every macro and micro-cosmic activity. Right from the Galaxies, the Sun, the planetary systems down to atoms, there is a harmonic function. And that harmony is the one that manifests in human beings too. Therefore, the Universe is bound by dharma – this is what Buddha called ‘dhamma’.
If this aspect is taken note of, then altruism can never be parochial as the author happens to argue. Altruism is the state of expression of that ‘realised’ person. For him there is no moral yardstick – he is the epitome of morals. Such great souls existed on this Earth – Christ, Mohammed – notwithstanding his war expeditions – Buddha, Gandhi, Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and scores of othere sages and saints. It is because of these people that the Earth is still a place to live – otherwise, we would have been consumed by our own passions. The author might have heard about ‘Vivekananda’ who lectured in America in late nineteenth century.
It is indeed the misfortune that the World has no time to seriously consider the ‘moral’ that flows out of this realisation. In any case, it is not my intent to educate the author on this.
If you ask, whether I am a ‘realised’ person, I will say, I am a seeker and the very search is worthy of living life a thousand times over. This message of love, if it could percolate to each and every individual, the World would be a much better place to live.
All the psychological gymnastics could then seem like peanuts.
God – if the author believes in One – Bless Him. May he search out more truth – than the ‘Righteous Mind’.