Difference between revisions of "2008-09-09 What Makes People Vote Republican/woozle"
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(→Haidt: morality: lots of rewriting; two new subsections (liberal morality, conservative morality)) |
(→Haidt in India: rewrites & tweaks) |
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<blockquote>On Turiel's definition of morality ("justice, rights, and welfare"), Christian and Hindu communities don't look good. They restrict people's rights (especially sexual rights), encourage hierarchy and conformity to gender roles, and make people spend extraordinary amounts of time in prayer and ritual practices that seem to have nothing to do with "real" morality.</blockquote>Now hold on a minute here (again!). Just because people in those communities don't have rights we're familiar with doesn't mean they ''don't have rights'' -- perhaps even rights of equal or greater strength to those we have in the West. Complex caste systems typically have equally complex codes of grievance and redress. This has to do with the "authoritarian bargain" I mentioned earlier. | <blockquote>On Turiel's definition of morality ("justice, rights, and welfare"), Christian and Hindu communities don't look good. They restrict people's rights (especially sexual rights), encourage hierarchy and conformity to gender roles, and make people spend extraordinary amounts of time in prayer and ritual practices that seem to have nothing to do with "real" morality.</blockquote>Now hold on a minute here (again!). Just because people in those communities don't have rights we're familiar with doesn't mean they ''don't have rights'' -- perhaps even rights of equal or greater strength to those we have in the West. Complex caste systems typically have equally complex codes of grievance and redress. This has to do with the "authoritarian bargain" I mentioned earlier. | ||
| − | Just because ''our'' slave-owners gave their slaves no rights and treated them like cattle doesn't mean that servitude in India is equally demeaning. Remember, the Indian tradition has survived not ''decades'' but many ''centuries'' -- possibly ''millennia'', for some elements. It is this attribute of having survived the test of time that makes a tradition valuable. Most of the "traditions" claimed by conservatives are recent ''innovations'' -- decades old at most -- which they have dusted off, re-branded as "eternal verities", and tried to shoehorn into a changing, modern society which increasingly rejects them. | + | Just because ''our'' slave-owners gave their slaves no rights and treated them like cattle doesn't mean that servitude in India is equally demeaning. Remember, the Indian tradition has survived not ''decades'' but many ''centuries'' -- possibly ''millennia'', for some elements. It is this attribute of having survived the test of time that makes a tradition valuable, and not to be tampered with lightly if it is still working. Most of the "traditions" claimed by conservatives are recent ''innovations'' -- decades old at most -- which they have dusted off, re-branded as "eternal verities", and tried to shoehorn into a changing, modern society which increasingly rejects them. Many of them also ''do not work well'' for some significant portion of the people involved. |
| − | For a counterexample which | + | For a counterexample which reinforces my point, look at the [[wikipedia:Amish|Amish]]. They've lived here since before America was a country. They have very strict social rules and an aversion to much of modern society -- but they keep to themselves, they don't try to change the greater society which hosts them (despite many philosophical differences), they take care of their own, they don't threaten anyone (this is important!) -- and you'd be very hard-pressed to find a liberal or progressive voice complaining about them, arguing that they need to "catch up" or "get with the times". |
If conservatives want to go off and create enclaves where they can enforce their own rules (within reason and within the law and in a non-threatening way), they are certainly welcome to do that. If (on the other hand) they want to remake larger society in their own image, then their ideas and actions are (indeed, ''must be'') fair game for the tools of rational analysis and criticism. | If conservatives want to go off and create enclaves where they can enforce their own rules (within reason and within the law and in a non-threatening way), they are certainly welcome to do that. If (on the other hand) they want to remake larger society in their own image, then their ideas and actions are (indeed, ''must be'') fair game for the tools of rational analysis and criticism. | ||
| − | <blockquote>But isn't it unfair to impose on all cultures a definition of morality drawn from the European Enlightenment tradition? Might we do better with an approach that defines moral systems by what they do rather than by what they value?</blockquote> | + | <blockquote>But isn't it unfair to impose on all cultures a definition of morality drawn from the European Enlightenment tradition? Might we do better with an approach that defines moral systems by what they do rather than by what they value?</blockquote>This is a rather fuzzy statement, when you get right down to it. Is he talking about how we ''classify'' moral systems, or how we ''evaluate'' them? |
| − | Haidt continues on a direction with which I can't really argue, defining morality as "any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible." | + | If the latter (which would be more on-topic), then this is compatible with what I just said, yes -- and it would be Haidt playing his shell game again: he just said we should judge morality by its effects, by '''how well it accomplishes social goals''' -- but wasn't he just saying earlier that morality isn't subject to rational analysis? Isn't he here embracing the liberal view of morality, that it should be judged by its results? |
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| + | Haidt continues on a direction with which I can't really argue, defining morality as "any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible." He says this as if it is somehow sharply contrasted with the liberal view on morality, but I don't see how it is. | ||
And now we get to the bit which Barone quoted at length. | And now we get to the bit which Barone quoted at length. | ||
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===Haidt on ethos=== | ===Haidt on ethos=== | ||
Haidt sets up two distinct kinds of societal ethos: | Haidt sets up two distinct kinds of societal ethos: | ||