4 ms·
> The intellectual left loves to pump out articles and books trying to explain right-wing thought: ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind https://
by AS37 5y ago
> The intellectual left loves to pump out articles and books trying to explain right-wing thought: ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
> Every time liberals lose elections, there is hand-wringing about understanding the other side. But I've never seen the equivalent worry about how conservatives can understand liberals.
One of the big theories in The Righteous Mind can be used to explain this. The Moral Foundations Theory lists 5 drivers of moral judgments, 5 reasons why people may feel things are 'right'. Then it gives data showing that liberals feel 2 of these strongly and 3 weakly, while conservatives feel all 5 about as equally strongly.
By that theory, the reason that conservatives need not work as hard to understand liberals is that they feel all the same moral impulses liberals do, and more, while liberals only feel 2/5ths of the conservatives' impulses.
The same theory suggests that conservative persuasion will be more effective on liberals than liberal persuasion on conservatives. This then leads to election losses, which leads to hand wringing about how liberals don't understand conservatives, so they can't convince them to vote liberal.
- majormajor 5y ago> By that theory, the reason that conservatives need not work as hard to understand liberals is that they feel all the same moral impulses liberals do, and more, while liberals only feel 2/5ths of the conservatives' impulses. > The same theory suggests that conservative persuasion will be more effective on liberals than liberal persuasion on conservatives. This then leads to election losses, which leads to hand wringing about how liberals don't understand conservatives, so they can't convince them to vote liberal. How so? My impression would be that then 2 out of 2 liberal arguments would then have appeal to conservatives, but only 2 out of 5 conservative arguments would work the other way.