Follow the Sacredness
Politics is so weird in part because voters are not pursuing their self-interest, they’re pursuing their group interest. And even for group interest, it’s often not about the group’s material interests, it’s about protecting their sacred totems. Circling around sacred objects helps a group cohere. So if you want to understand why we’re suddenly all talking about birth control and abortion at a time when economic matters are so much more important, follow the sacredness. I explain this in more detail in a NYT Review essay, here,
and also in a 2 minute NYT video, below:
If you want to learn more about sacred values in action, read the work of Scott Atran, e.g., here on war, and read chapters 11 and 12 of The Righteous Mind.
Wow, what a great interview you did on Point of Inquiry! I’m mentioning it here to encourage you to make an entry for it on this blog. The same goes for the NYT book review and the side interview with Saletan.
I loved your book and favorably reviewed it on my blog.
I agree that the idea of ‘sacredness’ is key, but I think it’s a stretch to say that the central sacredness for OWS is ‘care for the vulnerable.’ The ‘care’ concern that you see at OWS is not just for the vulnerable and oppressed. In fact, the choice of the 99% label seems intended to convey an image incompatible with vulnerability or oppress-ability. Identify OWS’s many ‘time-consuming, wealth-consuming’ practices, and what are they designed to honor? The democratic community itself.
The sacredness of OWS and many other liberals (including me) is the entire community, the populace, the hive itself and the network of interdependencies that all of us—not just the vulnerable—rely on. Our moral outrage is not triggered by routine unfairness, but by massive imbalances in power and wealth that are threatening the health of the American hive–the “corporate superorganisms” that you described so well in your book.
Karen McKim, Wisconsin