OCT 29

18: OCT 29

evidence of polarization in American politics; changes in political culture. compromise less valued.
looking for a theory of ideologies, which might be thought to drive political identity formation. [Two senses: 1. fixing orientation (all of the "big" theories we've studied have posted disclaimers about determinism while focusing on evidence of persistent traits, especially in adults. 2. Fixing the specific fusion of issue-position and label acceptance.]
"right" and "left", simplifications, but basis of study and comparative to Europe in some ways, historical origins in French Assembly of 1789, basis in heritable traits - twins studies. L/R don't map wealth exclusively.
Old answers: people choose ideologies based on interests. blank-state theories.

One more time through the modern genetic/epigenetic/phenotype explanation pattern (note what's at stake: if you misunderstand the determinism here, you'll misunderstand the whole theory):

1: Genes make brains - Australian study: diff responses to new experiences: threat and fear for conservative, dopamine for liberal. (recall first draft metaphor)
2: Dispositional traits lead to different experiences, which lead to "characteristic adaptations" (story about how we differentiate ourselves through our first person experience. mention feedback loops). (Lots of parents would corroborate this.) Does the story of the twins seem plausible?
3: Life narratives; McAdams study using Moral Foundations Theory to analyze narratives, found MFs in stories people tell about religious experience. Thesis: different paths to religious faith. We "map" our moral foundations onto our faith commitment to some extent.

So, an ideology can be thought of as the political version of a narrative that fits with a personal narrative you tell about your experience.

Haidt, Graham, and Nosek study: Liberals worse at predicting conservatives responses. Interesting point: the distortion of seeing things as a liberal makes liberals more likely to believe that conservatives really don't care about harm. But conservatives may be better at understanding (predicting) liberal responses because they use all of the foundations. (File this with Hibbing Chs. 5 and 6)

Muller on difference bt conservative and orthodox. Post-enlightenment conservatives: want to critique liberalism from Enlightenment premise of promoting human well being. follow conservative description of human nature. 290. - humans imperfect, need accountability, reasoning has flaws so we might do well to give weight to past experience, institutions are social facts that need to be respected, even sacralized. (Consider countries in which judges are abducted or blown up.)
Moral and Social Capital -- moral capital: resources that sustain a moral community (including those that promote accountability and authority.). moral capital not always straightforward good (293), also, less trusting places, like cities, can be more interesting. Social capital more about the ties we have through our social networks which maintain trust and cooperation relationships.

blindspot: not valuing moral capital, social capital, tends to over reach, change too many things too quickly. Bertrand Russell: tension between ossification and dissolution..
strength: 1) regulating super-organisms (mention theory of "regulatory capture"); 2)solving soluble problems (getting the lead out - might have had big effect on well-being. note this was a bipartisan push back against a Reagan reversal of Carter's policy).

Libertarians. Today's political libertarian started out as a "classic liberal" prioritizing limited gov/church influence.

Note research suggesting how libertarians diverge from liberals and conservatives on the MFs.
libertarian wisdom: 1) markets are powerful -- track details -- often self-organizing, self-policing, entrepreneurial)

wisdom: understanding threats to social capital (can't help bees if you destroy the hive)

Putnam's research on diversity and social capital : bridging and bonding capital both decline with diversity. sometimes well intentioned efforts to promote ethnic identity and respect can exacerbate this.

Some philosophizing from our research study. This might be an late semester essay topic.

What is ideology (in terms of the theories we have discussed) and is it possible to imagine a post-ideological politics?

1) the specific fusion of issues and labels you accept;
2) the deeper story or narrative you tell (about...) or accept about these views (see example in Haidt. This varies on a scale of several election cycles in US.; and
3) your deep moral/political orientation (how you inhabit the MFs or BSDs)

Note that only 3 is relatively fixed in adult life.
Some good and bad things about 1 and 2. Packaging issues under labels has a kind of efficiency, given that our views are connected. Makes voting easier (though parties are not original to the US and might come from a time when literacy rates were lower). Parties "prove" their validity by the fact that people follow them. (Not so sure about this.) People do find it quite natural to have an abstract theory about each other (such as you find in the deep narratives of party labels).
But: (slogan of the day) "We didn't use to have abstract theories about each other." To be sure, we had (have) lots of concrete chauvanist, xenophobic, racist theories about each other. But not abstract theories. How cultural evolutionist explains this. .

Cannot mean: 3 is no longer true.
Might mean that we re-assess our narratives. Examples of this. Mention Lincoln Project - Pizza ad. Current situation for Republicans provides a natural experiment. Lot's of evidence that the party narrative is going to pivot. Look for narratives that continue to do justice to our orientations, but avoid various "moves", such as disparaging diagnoses of one's political "other".
Let's use this recent radio story on political polarization as a listening lesson. Can you identify distinctive features of the way polarized people recount their experiences? [1]
Examples of current discussion: [2]
Great optional research topic!