Difference between revisions of "2008-09-09 What Makes People Vote Republican/woozle"
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
(→Haidt on ethos: saving work) |
m (→Haidt concludes: done writing; now to proofread) |
||
| Line 152: | Line 152: | ||
In fact, I'm putting the rest of this section on /ignore. If there are any useful points I missed, someone please point them out. | In fact, I'm putting the rest of this section on /ignore. If there are any useful points I missed, someone please point them out. | ||
===Haidt concludes=== | ===Haidt concludes=== | ||
| + | <blockquote>If Democrats want to understand what makes people vote Republican, they must first understand the full spectrum of American moral concerns.</blockquote>I won't deny that the discovery of these pillars does give us a sort of "starter theory" for understanding the Republican mind. Like Bohrs's "cupcake theory" of atomic structure, it gives us something to talk about as we figure out what is wrong with it. | ||
| + | However, this isn't really all that valuable of a service, since there already existed a much better model: that of [[authoritarianism]]. | ||
| + | |||
| + | An authoritarian is someone who values authority, whether earned or assigned, over all other considerations. Authoritarians generally believe that an individual's authority overrides any rational objections which might be raised by the authority's subjects (i.e. individuals who are under the authority). Authoritarians tend to take the view that division is weakness, rather than seeing dissent as part of an honest effort to help one's country choose the right path. | ||
| + | |||
| + | This is consistent with a wide variety of conservative traits: blind adherence to the "truthfulness" of conservative talking-points despite contrary evidence, just to give the most obvious example. (The online book ''[[The Authoritarians]]'' makes the case much better than I could, so I will refer you to that for understanding authoritarianism and how it applies to conservatism.) | ||
| + | |||
| + | The idea that these additional three pillars are somehow something important and worthy of respect ''unto themselves'', rather than because of their supposed benefit to society, is complete eyewash. The idea that they are valuable because they are important to society is implicit in Haidt's arguments throughout, but when it comes time to examine exactly ''how'' they are valuable -- no no, that's the time when liberals need to just shut up and respect those Three Pillars of Sacred Woo, because Some Things Are Not For Rational Minds to Comprehend. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Sorry, not buying. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Haidt concludes his article with the following paragraph (my comments in ''[italics]'': | ||
| + | <blockquote>Unity is not the great need of the hour ''[agreed]'', it is the eternal struggle of our immigrant nation ''[agreed]''. The three Durkheimian foundations of ingroup, [[authority]], and purity are powerful tools in that struggle ''[sure, if you want a religious dictatorship; Nazi Germany was a pretty unified place, I hear. Very interested in racial purity, too. And authority.]''. Until Democrats understand this point, they will be vulnerable to the seductive but false belief that Americans vote for Republicans primarily because they have been duped into doing so.</blockquote> I've just shown the truth of that "seductive but false" belief, and you have failed to show that it is wrong. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Oh, and my "gut" says to tell you this, Dr. Haidt: Bite me. | ||
{{editing}} | {{editing}} | ||