What is wrong with you people?

[Undertoad]

Jonathan Haidt TED Talk

I just found this today, I'm so glad!

To anyone who enjoyed the guy's essay, here he takes 19 minutes to beautifully lay out his thinking on moral psychology and how it relates to liberal vs. conservative.

If you watch this 19 minutes you will never ask "What is wrong with you people" again. You'll know what's wrong -- and you'll be amazed to find that you are wrong, too, and that every culture in earth's history is proof of it.

Try it, you'll like it!

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Jonathan Haidt TED Talk

I just found this today, I'm so glad!

To anyone who enjoyed the guy's essay, here he takes 19 minutes to beautifully lay out his thinking on moral psychology and how it relates to liberal vs. conservative.

If you watch this 19 minutes you will never ask "What is wrong with you people" again. You'll know what's wrong -- and you'll be amazed to find that you are wrong, too, and that every culture in earth's history is proof of it.

Try it, you'll like it!

Ha! I just saw this post! I followed a TED link to the same talk the day before yesterday. It was alink on the OffTopic section of a gaming site I frequent. I was intending to post a link here, but you've already done it.

Any dwellars who haven't seen this yet, I thoroughly recommend doing so. It's brilliant, truly brilliant. That whole idea of preset proclivities to a particular political mindset is something I find very intriguing. Our Kid* passed me a Stephen Pinker book that dealt with these ideas and I was fascinated. This was about 2 or 3 years go I think. I'd say it fundamentally altered my perceptions about politics and people and made me a lot less hostile towards people who have a different political stance to mine.

* cultural note: Our Kid is northern slang for sibling, used both as a description and as a form of address. I am on a mission to spread this particularly bit of dialect cause I like it :P

I think the part of this TED talk that really struck home with me was the final distinction drawn between the liberals who seek to increase fairness and freedoms even at the risk of chaos, and conservatives who seek to preserve order, even at the risk of unfairness or a loss of freedoms.

The reason that struck home with me relates somewhat to that Churchill quote about being a liberal at 20 and a conservative at 30 (or whatever it was). Despite the fact that, in terms of my political beliefs and my attitudes towards issues like immigration, crime and punishment, taxation and benefits, and so forth, I am pretty left wing, revolution no longer looks fun to me *smiles* the preservation of order means more to me now, than it once did. At 18 I would have welcomed the chaos and disruption of revolution with open arms and a ready fist. Nor, now, do I seek out new experiences. I have my cave, and I stay in it *smiles* unless forced out.

That said...despite my conservatism in this regard, my younger self came gleefully forward when watching the news reports of the financial chaos of the last few weeks. Obviously, I don;t actually want the fincnial system to collapse...I feel greatly saddened knowing how many people are affected (possibly myself, if my landlord's troubles do not improve), but there was something exhilirating in watching Capitalism rock on its heels.

[/threaddrift] anyway, watch that talk, it's wonderful. Speaking from experience, the other side look a lot less other, when you know why we follow the political paths we do.


[eta] trying to put classic and Lookout into the same spectrum as UG is very difficult :P The neo-cons have changed all the rules, they have their own little spectrum going on. I don't think if you took classic's views or Lookout's views and moved rightwards that you'd ever encounter UG on your travels.

I think if you place Lookout and Classic next to UG you'd have a textbook example of the difference between conservative and neo-conservative. I, as a leftwinger can have a conversation with Lookout and Classic in which we disagree totally, but in which we are speaking in some kind of common tongue. There are, and you'll not hear me admit this very often *grins*, more values shared than not between the left and the right of mainstream politics.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I think the part of this TED talk that really struck home with me was the final distinction drawn between the liberals who seek to increase fairness and freedoms even at the risk of chaos, and conservatives who seek to preserve order, even at the risk of unfairness or a loss of freedoms.

I didn't read this before posting, brilliant summary.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Jonathan Haidt TED Talk

I just found this today, I'm so glad!

To anyone who enjoyed the guy's essay, here he takes 19 minutes to beautifully lay out his thinking on moral psychology and how it relates to liberal vs. conservative.

If you watch this 19 minutes you will never ask "What is wrong with you people" again. You'll know what's wrong -- and you'll be amazed to find that you are wrong, too, and that every culture in earth's history is proof of it.

Try it, you'll like it!

That...was...awesome. I've been thinking about social controls a lot lately. At work, I see what happens to kids when their parents slide into the garden of evil, but I also see the result of punishing the underclass. Moral Humility, catch it. I'm ready to take the nonpartisan pledge now.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Griff

That...was...awesome. I've been thinking about social controls a lot lately. At work, I see what happens to kids when their parents slide into the garden of evil, but I also see the result of punishing the underclass. Moral Humility, catch it. I'm ready to take the nonpartisan pledge now.

I'm not *smiles*. I am however ready to step outside of the matrix from time to time to remind myself of the whole. We need both 'sides' active in politics in order to forge the society we've forged. If nobody is prepared to set themselves into one side or the other and fight for their vision of society's future, it will lead to a kind of political stagnation. We need th partisan as we need the nonpartisan.

[Griff]

Right now in America society can't afford the partisanship. Britain has its symbolic center of loyalty in the Royal Family. We had it in the Presidency, but the Clinton / Bush years have dissolved those bonds. Our flag has been missused to the point that it is practically a symbol of GOP loyalty rather than national. Obama gives us a chance to reclaim the office for all Americans, because he is smart enough to recognize the truths buried in the arguments of the other. A highly partisan Congress of his own party may be his biggest anti-unity problem. McCain could do well with a Democratic Congress, but the Palin one heart be away issue is kinda scarey.

A great worry right now is a protracted legal battle after the election. Voting is kind of like a national sacrament. Destroy its sanctity and we've got chaos.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

Right now in America society can't afford the partisanship.

But I have not seen any evidence that it is going to get better soon. As I have said in other threads, I believe this election will be a landslide win by Obama or a thread bare win by McCain. Both results continue to divide the country on many levels. If Pelosi, Obama, Reid, et. al. are able to push through the majority of changes they have proposed we will see a similar backlash in 4 or 8 years and things will most likely swing back the other way again. Wash and repeat. The conservatives and liberals in this country will never see eye-to-eye. And it has been evident to me that with each defeat of one or the other the loser becomes more entrenched and rabid.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

But I have not seen any evidence that it is going to get better soon. As I have said in other threads, I believe this election will be a landslide win by Obama or a thread bare win by McCain. Both results continue to divide the country on many levels. If Pelosi, Obama, Reid, et. al. are able to push through the majority of changes they have proposed we will see a similar backlash in 4 or 8 years and things will most likely swing back the other way again. Wash and repeat. The conservatives and liberals in this country will never see eye-to-eye. And it has been evident to me that with each defeat of one or the other the loser becomes more entrenched and rabid.

The question for me is will Pelosi and Reid take orders? What some folks see as an aloofness or superiority in Obama, I recognize as confidence and understanding. Hopefully, the Dems don't break the magic 60 barrier in the Senate.