OCT 28

18: OCT 28

Assigned

• Haidt, Chapter 12, "Can't We all Disagree More Constructively?" (189-221) (32)

In Class

• Forming your Political Ideology

Forming your Political Ideology

• Political Ideology -- the set of ideas and narratives that you use to navigate political discourse, especially your narrative of political opponents.

• Traditional ideologies are based on convictions about ultimate truths about human beings and the ideal social contract or political system. What we have called in the course, a "contest of ideas"
• Examples of Traditional Ideological Patterns (United States):

• Conservative/libertarians tend to see governments as incapable and as wanting increasing power over individuals. Sceptical that governments can help people with their problems. (Recall famous Reagan quote)
• Liberals tends to stick up for underdogs and the oppressed and view conservatives as hard hearted at best and complicit in racism and oppression at worst.
• The negative politic rhetoric of highly partisan conservatives (Tucker Carlson, et al) tend toward conspiracy about liberals' intentions and goals in favoring government solutions to problems.
• The negative politic rhetoric of highly partisan liberal (Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, et al) tends toward condescension toward conservatives as informed, insufficiently moved by science.
• Both highly partisan conservatives and liberals use political rhetoric that accuses opponents of being stupid.

• Our challenge today is to formulate an approach to politics that takes into account the theory we have been studying.

• Political polarization and ideology -- 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]

• Small group discussion: 1. Recall stories in which you have observed highly polarized discussion, discussion in which people seem to lose respect for each other or feel deep frustration. (e.g. "If this is how you feel, I don't want to talk to you." "There's something wrong with these people."); 2. Then try to recall people in your life how are good at navigating political difference and having good political discussions. What are the conversational practices of these "exemplars"?

Haidt, Ch 12, "Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?"

• 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 focused on evidence of persistent traits, especially in adults.
• 2. Fixing the specific fusion of issue-position and label acceptance. (As in narrative warm up exercise above.)

• "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. Note the complexity here. You can tailor your narrative to you.

• Political narratives of Republicans and Democrats.

• 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.

• Liberals

• 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 and limited church influence of government.

• 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)

• Social Conservatives

• 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.

Small Group Discussion: Acknowledging Blindspots and Wisdom in your account of political "others"

• Let's try to personalize Haidt's discussion at the end of of the chapter, by finding more detailed examples of "blindspots" and "wisdom" across the political spectrum. What positive attributes should we include in our narratives of our political "others" (people who don't share our political orientation)? Try to identify specific things you do, or could do, to include acknowledge the "wisdom of others". What do you think you should acknowledge as a blindspot about your own orientation. Use the "I have a friend" strategy, if necessary. Examples.

Disciplinary Knowledge and Social Media Political Polarization, Conflict, and Partisanship

• Examples of current research found on Ethics wiki page from Fall 2020 students. Ethics_Research_on_Politics,_Conflict,_and_Partisanship