Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Jonathon Haidt has actually done some great scientific work on the real differences between liberals and conservatives. This is a shortish version: ▶ this video There's also some more detailed and longer versions if you poke around on YouTube a bit, plus a book you can buy if you're really interested. I don't think your characterization of either side is particularly accurate. Neither side is utilitarian, and both sides are plenty deontological, just with different rule sets. Both sides are rationalizing deeply-held instinctual beliefs, or the lack thereof.

Fair enough, but it wouldn't have made any difference. Disagreement with this particular aspect of the local culture will get you a downvote, not a discussion. Any discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture, to teach you the "facts" of "how things are". Jonathan Haidt has studied this psychological phenomenon quite extensively and in my opinion it does a good job of explaining the recent unusual behavior of the public, it's a shame no one's interested. The moral roots of liberals and conservatives ▶ this video

I think employees could use some training on how liberals and conservatives think very differently. When I became familiar with Jonathan Haidt and his moral foundations theory, I was able to better understand where conservatives are coming from, and even became a lot better at persuading. For example, when talking about confederate statues coming down, a conservative will respond to arguments around why it's traditional and patriotic to remove those statues (along with why it's fair) whereas a liberal will concentrate only on why it's fair. Make an argument that focuses only on the fairness aspect and the conservative will remain unconvinced and the liberal will think the conservative is a horrible person, because the liberal heavily values fairness. Liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness moral foundations and conservatives are equally sensitive to all the first five foundations. I think the sixth foundation was added for libertarians. - Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm. - Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating. - Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal. - Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion. - Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation. A sixth foundation, Liberty or oppression, was theorized by Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind

Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of work on this problem: ▶ this video I would like to see peaceful political secessionism happen, so that as we sort ourselves out ideologically we can also sort ourselves out physically and sovereign-ly.