4 ms·

Right/left axis is becoming useless, except as a branding system. It's much more useful to find out if someone is outcome/negotiation oriented vs. thinks in abs

• Mirioron 7y ago
  While I think that your distinction is interesting, I find that even people who say they are absolutists are willing to negotiate based on some criteria.
  • narag 7y ago
    I don't know anyone that self defines as "absolutist", but many that simply are that way. My elementary school was a religious one. There was something that deeply annoyed me about how they reasoned. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I got a knee-jerk reaction as soon as I heard it. It was just that: love is better than hate, virtue is better than sin, etc. so you must comply with what God/they/your parents said because they loved you vs. your bad instincts, inspired by the devil that is Bad. By the time I started high scholl in a public school, the dictator had died and we transitioned to democracy. Tolerance was the magic word. We can now speak our minds, accept others' opinions, discuss frankly any idea. But then the left was the forbidden set of ideas making itself a space. Forty years later they're hegemonic and "zero tolerance" (I hate that expression) and beware of what you say are back. They're exactly the same as their parents (that they consider troglodites) just with a different set of dogmas. Ideas change easily with the fads, but mindsets not so fast. The trick is to present an idea that's absolutely good on paper like: "don't you think that everybody should have what they need to live?" But ignoring all the practical details of implementation: if it's at all possible, if the proposed measures are useful to reach that goal, etc. No one of them would call themselves "absolutists", that sounds like ancient regime, or fascists, nazis. But they reason in absolutes and there's no way to touch them with words. They won't negotiate because they just vote for politicians that promise to magically implement that wishful thinking. The politicians will negotiate to reach power, though, they know better.
• galangalalgol 7y ago
  That is super interesting! I recognize I tend to think in absolutes an try to adjust for it. I also am tempted by elegant solutions over practical ones. I get stuck on consistency as a value. Not that consistency or elegance are bad, if they work. I'll add that Haidt's analysis that the value placed on compassion relative to loyalty or fairness is a good predictor of party rings true. Compassion > fairness -> democrat Compassion = fairness -> republican Compassion < fairness -> libertarian
  • narag 7y ago
    That works until globalization takes your job to Singapur and the left wing party that you vote for starts saying that we should let all the poor inmigrants in because it isn't fair to let them die in Libya. Then the left becomes a high-income urban professionals ideology while the blue collar workers start voting Trump or Johnson... Hillary said just as much a few months ago.