[ajmurmann]

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt makes this nicely clear. He claims that liberals mostly value fairness and harm avoidance. More conservatives in addition also value authority, ingroup and purity. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind). To me this rings intuitively true and strongly validates your point. To me ingroup, authority and purity are at best suspect if not actively negative, so there seem to be natural limits to how much over can get on the same page without deep, small group discussion of every topic.

Edit: typo "find" -> "rings"

[ff317]

The labels applied to liberals here are ones with positive connotations, and the labels applied to conservatives have negative ones. One could choose other labels that make for a different obvious outcome.

Most political debates are more about straw-person demonization of the other side rather than understanding each others' underlying rationales, issues, or values. Understanding might not always lead to some great compromise, but it would still be helpful if the debate were elevated to the real issues instead of meaningless attack soundbites. Almost everyone in the media on both sides of any debate does understand the real issues, but chooses to pump ratings with soundbite attacks instead, to all of our detriment.

And to put some balance on your critique of conservatism:

Small-c conservatism has a positive purpose in the government of a nation - it's the impulse to not change things; to value stability. Whatever we're doing now, however stupid it may seem on the surface, is what got us this far. There's no guarantee the latest radical new idea which sounds great on its surface won't cause an unforeseen long-term fallout that wrecks society. The world isn't a science lab or a startup: the lives and happiness of millions are at stake with every decision. There's a liberal impulse to fix everything that looks wrong with bold new ideas, and a balancing conservative impulse to avoid making sweeping changes to the machinery of society without a lot of time and care.

The extremes of both impulses, unchecked, are not healthy. A government which is extremely conservative never rights the wrongs of the past or improves the lives of its citizens, or even reacts to obvious changes in the natural world or other competing societies. It's locked in stasis, and thus is doomed to decline. On the other end of things, a great example of the potential horror of government being too liberally-bold with new ideas would be China's Great Leap Forward, which I would humbly summarize as an attempt to swiftly enact radical changes to a society, which sadly and unintentionally caused a famine which killed millions.

[ajmurmann]

That's true, but besides the point I was trying to emphasize. We all have inherently different values, what they are and how we label then isn't as important. My point might have been clearer if I hadn't used myself as an example.

It's important though to be aware of your own values, as they might lead to biased thinking and problems you so we'll illustrated. While O myself have a tendency to just want to do a "major rewrite" of everything, I ineluctably know that that rarely works and that I want it due to my values but that that won't get me where I want.

[edmcnulty101]

> The labels applied to liberals here are ones with positive connotations, and the labels applied to conservatives have negative ones. One could choose other labels that make for a different obvious outcome.

I thought the exact same thing. I don't think people even realize when they're being rightous.

[glial]

Connotations aren't universal. I think "pure" or even "authority" could be argued to have positive connotations in certain contexts and to certain people.

[edmcnulty101]

fairness and caring for others have zero negative connotations.

those are universally respected and well received attributes across time, culture, and space.

purity and authority have many negative connotations. I don't even need to say them.

I feel like it's disingenuous of you to claim otherwise.

[notacoward]

> fairness and caring for others have zero negative connotations

Nobody has ever accused another of letting sentimentality or "heartstring stuff" interfere with long-term/greater good? A whole lot of "law and order" or "pure reason" types from time immemorial stand as counterexamples.

> purity and authority have many negative connotations

Also many positive ones. You think evangelicals don't prize purity above some of these other values? You think all the "strong leader" rhetoric doesn't play on people placing authority pretty high in the moral pecking order? Are people evil for being amenable to those manipulations? Who's demonizing now?

What you perceive as positive or negative connotations reflects your beliefs. Don't attack others for what you put there.

[edmcnulty101]

You just said it: Sentimentality is different than 'caring for others'.

if you use a different adjective to describe an adjective, maybe the first adjective is the correct one.

The pop science study that these labels are from is pseudoscientific anyway so this conversation is pointless.

[edmcnulty101]

ALL people value fairness and harm avoidance. They just define 'what' or 'to what level' is fair or harmful, differently than you.

It shows the bubble one lives in to think otherwise.

It's very telling that you apply more favorable labels to one group and labels associated with negative outcomes to another.

[notacoward]

Perhaps it's not explicit in the context provided, but Haidt was talking about priorities. Most people believe in all things on the list. The question is which way they'll decide when they encounter a conflict between two (or more) of these values. Which one do they preserve, and which do they suspend? It's the literal definition of a moral dilemma, and people have been pondering these questions for thousands of years. The only "bubble" is the one where someone has never encountered this idea before, and jumps from suspension of a value (in the face of a higher moral imperative) to its absolute negation.

[edmcnulty101]

What's the science behind claiming that conservatives prefer authority over fairness or caring for others?

Sounds like unscientific terms used to demonize an large group by choosing favorable characteristics for one group and unfavorable characteristics for another.

Conservatives do it also by characterizing liberals as emotional and irrational and bleeding heart and impractical and incompetent furry avocado toast eaters.

I don't know how accurate these labels are for large groups of tens of millions of people.

Sounds like the kind of thing people want to hear to feel a moral superiority over a group that they differ from, exactly what the article describes.

It's like saying all Arabs have terroristic tendencies.

I would love to see Book sales of that specific book broken down by political region.

[notacoward]

> What's the science behind claiming that conservatives prefer authority over fairness or caring for others?

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/novemb...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-...

That's just a quick sample. I could spam this discussion with links until the cows come home, but I won't. It's pretty well-known stuff really, and it shouldn't even be surprising. Wouldn't it be weird if such differences in priorities didn't exist, or ran contrary to the obvious and deep antipathy between adherents of those two quasi-religions? Maybe some people are uncomfortable with such results placing them in a category inconsistent with their self-image, but that dissonance is best handled via introspection instead of aggression.

[edmcnulty101]

Here's the actual study from the NYU article that you claim makes this 'well established' science.

> Two hundred and twenty-five NYU students participated in a mass-testing session for course credit

>Two hundred and seventy-two participants filled out our survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

Here's the study for the scientific American article that you claim makes this 'well established' science:

>Haas put 58 people with diverse political views in a brain scanner

You're clearly being manipulated by the media and don't even have the will power to look at the citations in the pop science article to see if the article is valid?

A liberal supreme Court Justice just said that there's 100,000 children in hospitals from Covid.

This cavalier arrogant ignorance towards science that has taken root in the Democratic party, who are highly susceptible to CNN and Media influence, is scary.

[ajmurmann]

Sorry, I didn't apply the labels. This is taken from the book. The book also claims that everyone values fairness and harm avoidance. The difference is that conservatives have additional things they value.

I don't think this model reflects my personal values in their entirety either, but that's not the point. The point is that there are inherent differences in what different people value and that always will be a source of conflict.