5 ms·

I'm currently a registered Pacific Green, lean left, and on the political compass I'm basically smack dab on top of Bernie Sanders (whom I voted for and donated

I'm currently a registered Pacific Green, lean left, and on the political compass I'm basically smack dab on top of Bernie Sanders (whom I voted for and donated to in the 2016 primaries). And have never voted Republican. So his observation is about my own "side" more or less. But I'm totally unsurprised to see this downvoted here only 18 minutes in. Here's a short article on the paper: https://ricochet.com/76902/archives/conservatives-understand-liberals-liberals-dont-understand-conservatives/ https://ricochet.com/76902/archives/conservatives-understand... The paper itself: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2027266 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2027266 Here's his TED talk on it: https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_liberals_and_conservatives https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_... What's funny is if you bring this up (even with sources) to conservatives. They're unsurprisingly unsurprised. But if you bring it up to liberals they often get furious because it goes against their beliefs that they're the more intelligent, more educated "side". Nevermind that believing in only two possible sides is six times dumber than astrology... something "both sides" are about equally guilty of. If nothing else I strongly encourage everyone to watch his TED talk. It's super informative, well delivered, and has a solid message of unity tbh.

mariodiana 5y ago
Thank you. I have a friend I haven't seen since high school, though I'm connected with him on Facebook. He will outright tell you himself that he's a communist—familiar with the writings of Marx, etc. We could not be more diametrically opposed. However, he's as clear-eyed as you seem to be. I suspect that most people simply aren't all that intellectually curious. I don't remember if Haidt explicitly mentioned this, but I think somewhere either he or someone commenting on his study asserted that it is much easier to pick up the party line of liberals through osmosis, since those in education, the media, and so forth tend to be liberal. So, even conservatives are more readily exposed to the liberal take on things. Liberals on the other hand are not. But the point I'm making by mentioning my friend and thanking you is that I suspect that people who are intellectually curious are more or less inoculated against mischaracterizing the side they disagree with, since they don't learn almost exclusively through osmosis. I appreciate your contribution to this thread.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> But I'm totally unsurprised to see this downvoted here only 18 minutes in. I am unsurprised as well. Aside from any other concerns about the comment, its relevance, or the study and its methodology, the upthread post, like the popular right-leaning media articles on the study, lies about the results: Upthread post: “What he found was that conservatives had no trouble answering the way liberals do. However, liberals could not do likewise.” Actual article abstract: “Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated the ideological extremity of moral concerns for the ingroup as well as the outgroup. Liberals were least accurate about both groups.” (It also misleads about provenance, saying “Jonathan Haidt [...] did a study”, when Haidt was third author.) The actual results (especially liberals being less right about typical liberal positions on the axes questioned about as well as less accurate about conservative positions) are what you’d expect if the axes chosen were ones that simply tended to be more salient for conservatives.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  I recommend watching his TED talk. It goes into more detail, and expounds on the abstract underpinnings of both liberal and conservative morals. They're very different. The axes apply even outside America, consistently.
  - mariodiana 5y ago
    I'm a fan of Haidt and think his moral "tastebuds" (I think he makes that analogy somewhere) is an interesting model. I largely buy into it, but I found a really perceptive take in this short blog post that came out a few years back that's a bit more skeptical. https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/05/26/trump-as-desecration/ https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/05/26/trump-as-...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      I think this piece, referenced in one of the comments to the one you reference, is particularly on point: https://crookedtimber.org/2017/01/22/protestandpolarization/ https://crookedtimber.org/2017/01/22/protestandpolarization/
dlp211 5y ago
Now how closely do the "What Conservatives believe" responses align with FoxNews, Limbaugh, InfoWars, etc. and how closely do the "What Liberal believe" align with the NYTimes, WaPo, etc. This study says something, it just doesn't necessarily say what you all think it says. It's also wildly outdated. Because we now live in this reality: Significant majority of Republicans don’t believe Biden’s win was fair[1] [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1261306#blogHeader https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-pr...

mariodiana 5y ago

Thank you. I have a friend I haven't seen since high school, though I'm connected with him on Facebook. He will outright tell you himself that he's a communist—familiar with the writings of Marx, etc. We could not be more diametrically opposed. However, he's as clear-eyed as you seem to be. I suspect that most people simply aren't all that intellectually curious. I don't remember if Haidt explicitly mentioned this, but I think somewhere either he or someone commenting on his study asserted that it is much easier to pick up the party line of liberals through osmosis, since those in education, the media, and so forth tend to be liberal. So, even conservatives are more readily exposed to the liberal take on things. Liberals on the other hand are not. But the point I'm making by mentioning my friend and thanking you is that I suspect that people who are intellectually curious are more or less inoculated against mischaracterizing the side they disagree with, since they don't learn almost exclusively through osmosis. I appreciate your contribution to this thread.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> But I'm totally unsurprised to see this downvoted here only 18 minutes in. I am unsurprised as well. Aside from any other concerns about the comment, its relevance, or the study and its methodology, the upthread post, like the popular right-leaning media articles on the study, lies about the results: Upthread post: “What he found was that conservatives had no trouble answering the way liberals do. However, liberals could not do likewise.” Actual article abstract: “Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated the ideological extremity of moral concerns for the ingroup as well as the outgroup. Liberals were least accurate about both groups.” (It also misleads about provenance, saying “Jonathan Haidt [...] did a study”, when Haidt was third author.) The actual results (especially liberals being less right about typical liberal positions on the axes questioned about as well as less accurate about conservative positions) are what you’d expect if the axes chosen were ones that simply tended to be more salient for conservatives.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
I recommend watching his TED talk. It goes into more detail, and expounds on the abstract underpinnings of both liberal and conservative morals. They're very different. The axes apply even outside America, consistently.
- mariodiana 5y ago
  I'm a fan of Haidt and think his moral "tastebuds" (I think he makes that analogy somewhere) is an interesting model. I largely buy into it, but I found a really perceptive take in this short blog post that came out a few years back that's a bit more skeptical. https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/05/26/trump-as-desecration/ https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/05/26/trump-as-...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    I think this piece, referenced in one of the comments to the one you reference, is particularly on point: https://crookedtimber.org/2017/01/22/protestandpolarization/ https://crookedtimber.org/2017/01/22/protestandpolarization/

dlp211 5y ago

Now how closely do the "What Conservatives believe" responses align with FoxNews, Limbaugh, InfoWars, etc. and how closely do the "What Liberal believe" align with the NYTimes, WaPo, etc. This study says something, it just doesn't necessarily say what you all think it says. It's also wildly outdated. Because we now live in this reality: Significant majority of Republicans don’t believe Biden’s win was fair[1] [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1261306#blogHeader https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-pr...