Here’s what happened: I have a semi-sordid history of being an internet agitator. I’ve been called a “troll” in various adventures, mostly inaccurately, in my opinion. Of course, as a sort of moderately liberal Clintonista who dabbles in left-populism but never to the extent of becoming a Bernie Bro (Senator Paul Simon’s losing quest for the Democratic Nomination in 1988 as the representative of “the Democratic Wing of The Democratic Party” was as far as I got...Simon was like that other Midwestern Paul, Wellstone, that is, minus the hostility of the far right because he was sort of the Anti-Trump: a Downstate Illinoisian without a college degree, a fundamentally decent churchgoer and supporter of organized labor, who ran on economic populism to defeat liberal Republican Charles Percy and go on to win two more terms in the Senate. Known for his bow ties, Simon’s daughter, Sheila Simon, was later Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.)
It all started, I want to say, in 2001 or 2002. I was a late fortysomething character in what passed for a midlife crisis. The internet was fairly new as a toy then. I got into mischief with first, Slate’s comments section, and then other “message boards” as an agitator to conservatives, especially “religious right” characters, and had a blast doing it. A friend I met on a fan site for a minor celebrity told me about another message board, one operated by a C-List celebrity known for his (far) right of center rants, the NRA shill and erstwhile seventies rocker Ted Nugent, a member of the NRA Board. She said all kinds of right-wing people post shit there and sometimes even Ted himself posts. I was like, “No way!” but it was true. Nugent’s personal fan site, attached to his site which sells his music, books, and a paraphernalia, did indeed have a plethora of righties who felt graced to be in the presence of a man they thought represented them. Politically, while Nugent’s main schtick is pro-gun and pro-hunting, they were all over the map...some religious right types, sure, some of which even gently chided poor Ted about his seemingly neo-pagan prose about the joy of hunting and took the poor ass to task over his unorthodoxy, Their arguments seemed to zip over his head, and occasionally he’d just reply “I am what I am,” or something to that effect. The closest I got into an argument with Ole Ted was over the Mumia Abu-Jamal guy convicted of killing a Philadelphia cop although evidence was lacking (some even speculated the cop was killed by other cops who wanted to get rid of him and set up Mumia, thereby killing two birds with one stone). Ted had ties to a Law and Order group dedicated to defending Mumia’s conviction and argued their case, not very convincingly. His argument was essentially “I know people who know the truth,” and that was good enough for his fanboys and girls. I did not press the issue. One of the “terms of service” no-nos is “abuse of the host” (in this case, Nugent himself) and I was loath to pick a fight here I knew I couldn’t win. I saw one amateur troll who called herself “Guncontroller” rant and make a fool of herself, and she was quickly banned, although she came back later under another nom de guerre and was banned again. Another liberal poster who went by the moniker “Don Quixote” was a tech guy at a minor university and one of the regulars threated to report him for arguing on the board when he should have been working. Quixote then exited the community, for he knew this was trouble he didn’t need. [Aside: some years later, as a government employee, I was once reported in this manner once some wily soul figured out what I did for a living and who I worked for. A manager in the leadership above me forwarded to me the complaint in totality by e-mail, under the subject titled “Sitrep” which is militaryese for “situation report,” without further comment. Like Quixote, I dropped out of that internet community for self-preservation.
Moving on….not long after that I happened to driving the back roads in Deep East Texas in a rental car, not much on the radio. I got interested in a radio show on a “Christian” station (meaning, as it usually does, “fundamentalist”} and at one moment the host mentioned they had a message board on their website. The next day I was posting there. They banned me for “false teaching,” that is, not being politically correct. One person I met there (at least her internet persona, anyhow...I’ll call her Sherilyn here although that’s not her real name) was a wily, deceptive liberal who seemed to pretend to be a fundamentalist most of the time. She was raised in a Mennonite sect. The Mennonites are kind of Amish-lite, pacifist yet fundamentalist. Sherilyn had attended a fundamentalist seminary and was interested in ordained ministry even though her church frowned on ordaining women. I private messaged her with stuff like, “What are you doing? Why do yo u pretend to be something you’re not?” and her response was “you fight your way and I fight my way,” She said I was a “Warrior” archetype and she was a “Trickster.” Sherilyn was a good person, but she relished talking down to me. I later followed her to other Christian boards and secularist ones, where she became a “moderator,” a host who addressed improprieties and strived to get certain people, mostly me, to tone it down.
So here’s where Haidt comes in (long buildup, I know): Sherilyn said Haidt’s theories explain why I don’t understand the right-wing. Of course, I have always contended that I understand them certainly better than they understand us, or than they understand themselves. Nothing she (or Haidt) said made me question that, ever. Again, let me say, she is not a bad person, and, I believe, neither is Haidt. If his scholarship helps us understand what we are up against he’s certainly performed a great service.
Wikipedia says at the beginning of its article on Haidt, “ Jonathan David Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. His academic specialization is the psychology of morality and the moral emotions. Haidt is the author of two books: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom and The Righteous Mind.
Haidt has several TED Talks for viewing. I just viewed for the second time the one on “The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.” It’s less than twenty minutes and it's pretty good. At no time does he seem to me to be talking down to liberals, like I feel Sherilyn did to me in citing him.
Haidt begins saying liberals tend to be more “open to experience” whereas to overcome prejudices and realize people are all the same everywhere no matter what. We certainly see this aspect being played out in the dichotomies of Trump and Clinton voters. Clinton did well in affluent suburbs and cities with highly educated voters whereas Trump carried the ballots in rural America (with important exceptions like Indian Country in Montana and the Dakotas, South Texas, the “Black Belt” running through central Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, and so on) and it was not ironic at all when he said “I love the poorly educated,” because that’s who carried him to victory.
Aside: a relative once explained her lack of desire to go to a Chinese buffet because “you don’t know what’s in it.” Of course, you don’t know what’s in the food at Joe Bob’s Café on Main Street in your dying town, either, but Joe Bob’s white, so...well, you get the picture. In the same way, Red America frowns on, well, let’s see, dreadlocks, piercings other than the ear (maybe not so much anymore), and so on. Anybody ever seen the 1969 movie Easy Rider? The scene where the “Cat Man” — called thusly in the script because he wore a cap advertising Caterpillar Equipment, abbreviated as “CAT” on the logo — derides long-haired men and mentions once having seen two of them kissing and how it made him sick — is something some of the rednecks I went to high school would have said back then and probably now, too, if they’re still alive. While it’s never clearly shown, it’s assumed in the story that it was the “CAT man” and his two companions who killed Jack Nicholson’s character George with a pickax to the face and sent Peter Fonda’s “Captain America” and Dennis Hopper’s “Billy” scurrying away for their lives. That scene is re-enacted in every hate crime. James Byrd, Matthew Shepherd, Brandon Teena, Gwen Aruajo, Billy Jack Gaither and so many more died because of that sort of lack of openness to experience. Come to think of it, the CAT Man is a good metaphor for the people who elected Trump, since today he’d be wearing a Koreamatsu cap, but that’s a line for a different story altogether.
Haidt goes on to list his taxonomy of personal morality. He divides it into five “foundations”:
1. Harm/Care
2. Fairness/Reciprocity
3. In-group/Loyalty
4. Authority/Respect
5. Purity/Sanctity
Haidt says that on the first two, Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity, liberals place a high value on these as a whole, and conservatives do as well, but not nearly so much. No doubt, the concepts of what is harmful, what is fair, etc., would be answered differently by both liberals and conservatives. Liberals, for instance, tend to support the rights of LGBTQIA communities, both to protect them from harm and to treat them fairly. Conservatives traditionally oppose the same, in part because they perceive LGBTQIA people as harmful in some way, as well as in accordance with the other three values matrices as they perceive them.
Here is where the conflict with Sherilyn came in: she said conservatives have three aspects, numbers 3,4, and 5 above, which liberals do not have. Haidt indeed says these are more pronounced in Righties, and few could argue with that. Or could we? Haidt suggests he is not saying liberals do not possess senses of loyalty, authority, and purity when he says that while among conservatives this often refers to sex, among liberals, at least upper-middle class or above ones, the sense of purity comes into play when the subject of food arises, what with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, low-carb and other dietary fads which tend to arise among the creative class before flowing downhill to the proles. He is certainly right on that. He does not however say liberals completely lack these attributes. He merely characterizes them as much more pronounced among conservatives, a variation of greater distance on foundations 3 through 5 than as occurs in the opposite way on foundations one and two. We value diversity of race, religion, ethnicity, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and accept that persons are differently abled but our brothers and sisters nevertheless.
Much as the often derided UN Declaration “Zionism equals racism,” complexities render a similar act of literary legerdemain of saying “conservatism equals racism” equally or even more invalid. However, one cannot deny racial animus has been an integral appeal of American conservatism at least since 1964, and before if we recognize slavery, segregation, and Apartheid were conservative policies. While William F. Buckley and other founders of modern American conservatism may have lacked specific racial animus, Buckley’s National Review specifically advocated “going slow” on civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s and featured several articles opining African-Americans were incapable to self-government, notably by contributing editor James J. Kilpatrick (later better known for the “Point/Counterpoint” segment on 60 Minutes) with his liberal foils, Nicholas Von Hoffman and Shana Alexander). NR also supported the Apartheid regime in South Africa, ostensibly due to the African National Congress’s and Nelson Mandela’s association with international communism. Fast forward to 2016’s Trump campaign which featured overt racist animus.
Fair enough. It is certainly true liberals do not regard variations of race, nationality, and such to be nearly as significant as conservatives do.
In terms of fairness and reciprocity we believe in equal opportunity for all, for prohibition and sanctions for discrimination, and have continually expanded enfranchisements for racial minorities, immigrants, women, youth, the disabled, LGBTQIAs, and more. Conservatism tends to dismiss racial minorities’ concerns as seeking privilege and care for the poor being a matter of supporting the undeserving, people the dismiss as “those who are unwilling to work.” Likewise relief for the unemployed is similarly dismissed. Trump’s campaign talks a good game of reindustrialization and job creation, but his proposed cabinet of super-rich figures would seem to indicate that is empty rhetoric at best.
Jim Hightower famously dismissed economic conservatism as meaning “I’ve got mine, and if you don’t have yours, too bad for you.” That’s hardly a commitment to fairness and reciprocity at all.
Let’s move on to “In-Group/Loyalty.” Conservatives certainly have it toward our nation, the white race, their social-economic class, and their communities. They are more likely to remain in their home towns after reaching adulthood. Those who grew up on farms tend to even if they don’t work in it, support agribusiness interests. Those who went to college tend to join alumni associations. They tend to stick with the churches they grew up in or join megachurches and develop a loyalty to them. Groups like Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Club, the Masons, Elks, Moose Lodge, etc. tend to stick with them and the membership of these is largely conservative. Likewise, Veteran’s groups.
But liberals do not have a lack of such affiliations. We join unions, environmental groups, feminist groups, and racial/ethnic groups like the NAACP and LULAC. We are mostly Democrats although in some places like affluent communities in places like Connecticut and Chicago’s suburbs, a good number of Republicans are moderate to liberal, although these are mostly voting Democratic at the Presidential level anyhow. In our local communities we are no less supportive of the down and out. We recognize private charity alone is not sufficient to support the poor. And as books like Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort, we like to coalesce with like-minded families in communities like Austin and Seattle.
Then, “Authority/Respect”. There can be no doubt conservatives are more likely yo be unswervingly supportive of the police and military than liberals. Their churches tend to be more authoritarian. But there are limitations to this respect when it comes to other aspects of the government, It was not liberal Democratic members of Congress who claimed President Obama was “uppity” or shouted “You lie!” at him during a State of the Union address. Not very respectful of authority at all.
Finally, “Purity/Sanctity.” Haidt himself notes conservatives are often preoccupied with notions of purity and disgust. Hence, heterosexism and slut-shaming. Combine that with In-group/Loyalty and you have devotion to conservative religious groups and their dogmas. But as Haidt admits, liberals tend to point out devotions to purity about food, animals, and courtesy to members of oppressed groups. I would venture liberals who are devoted to their pets are no less objecting to certain Asian customs of eating dog meat as conservatives who are devoted to their pets. They are even more so likely to object to slaughter of endangered species and mistreatment of animals in circuses and rodeos. Bullfighting may present us with a conundrum as we object to the cruelty of the practice, but want to be respectful of other cultures. Surely Haidt is aware of that.
I believe Sherilyn’s conclusion Haidt claims conservatives utilize all five of his matrices and liberals use only two of them is not borne out by his work or by facts. I think while she meant to provide legitimate criticism, she misread his remarks.
However, it made me initially hostile to Haidt. It seems he is too cavalier in his praise of conservatives and his seeming attacks on liberals. In the TED talk, he remarked the lack of conservatives in the social sciences is problematic. He made the claim “Anthropology is lost” because it is devoid of conservative practitioners. As we say, though, facts have a liberal bias. It is no secret some six percent of scientists are self-identified conservatives, and I suspect many of those are employed in fossil fuel industries.
I will continue to read Haidt’s works with a critical eye. He has much we can learn from. We cannot convince conservatives to adopt our ways via any rational means. We should have, in the 2016 campaign, devoted more efforts to jobs issues and revitalization of depressed communities. That’s a given, but given other factor in this election (James Comey, Russia, etc.) it’s unlikely by itself it would have made much difference. We need to study Haidt’s work and apply it where we can, but most Republican voters over 40 are not going to come over to our side easily. We need to continue to focus and things like the 50 state strategy need to be revitalized. In 2020 we need to try to overcome 2016’s Clinton/Sanders division and get people on either side of it to turn out in November. No doubt Trump himself will provide us much ammunition to appeal to enough voters to win back the Presidency. It is quite possible he will not run for a second term but the GOP nominee will likely be hampered by his record. Despite his lack of respect for others in the purity/sanctity area will work to our benefit. We shall see.