Letter to Jonathan Haidt in his TED presentation of liberals and conservatives.

Thought you might appreciate a non-academic view of your presentation on TED. Many years ago I wrote a thesis based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I found his ideas very useful in understanding the differences between conventional and post-conventional thinkers which equate to liberal and conservative according to Charles Hampden-Turner.

Thought your TED presentation was a big improvements of your earlier work which tired to explain liberalism and conservatism in terms of a long list of attributes.. You now relate the differences between liberal and conservatives in in terms of harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and purity.

Was happy to see someone after Lawrence Kohlberg working on the issues of morlaity and ethics. Kohlberg's work was built upon the foundations of Piaget and Erik Erikson. Not clear what the intellectual basis your ideas on liberal and conservative is. The terms 'liberal and “conservative” are more often used in political science rather than social science or psychology.

Found Kohlberg's work to be valuable because it was based on developmental psychology and each his stages of moral development. Kohlberg's would probably see lower Tea Party and citizen militia members as lower small group (stage 3) conservatives. Would guess that libertarianism would fit better into a pre-conventional stage where there is an emphasis on individualism rather than cooperation within a group.

It is possible thee is some genetic components of liberalism. About 20% of humans possess the Explorer Gene. Those with it are more curious, restless, and take more risks. In addition , a study of the UK show people on the extreme right who have larger amygdalas than liberals. Democrats show greater activity in their left insula, an area associated with self and social awareness. People who identified themselves as liberals generally had a larger anterior cingulate cortex.

Kohlberg made some profound observation about stage 5 post-conventional thought. First few people who did not get a college education develop stage 5 thinking. College students are exposed to post-conventional thinking in college, but most of the graduates do not develop the post-conventional thought process until they are in their mid-thirties.

More important, Kohlberg noticed that post-conventional thinkers understand conventional thought, but the reverse is not true. Conservatives have a difficult and few grasp post-conventional ideas. This may be why our political process in this nation is in disarray.

In my view the big difference between liberals (post-conventionals) and conservatives (conventionals) is their view of the law. Conservatives want a static unchanging world with religion and law in concrete. Conservatives are the defenders of the status quo. Post-conventionals see the law as a social contract that is negotiated and frequently changed.

My own view is that liberals have a more pragmatic outlook while conservatives are far more ideological, a term you refer to as purity. Purity can be a dangerous in politics and religion. We can look back to the fascist movements in Italy and Germany prior to WW2 to see where purity can take you.

Glad to see a psychologist working on the important issues of ethics an morality In my view liberalism and conservatism are not opposite sides on different sides the same coin. Don't think that a dialectal conversation between liberals and conservatives will produce much positive outcome because as Kohlberg observed, few conservatives can grasp post-conventional thinking.

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Bay of Fundie: The difference between liberals and conservatives.

Bill Moyers interviewed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt has a yet unpublished book titled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. 

Moyers’ intro sums up Haidt’s premise:

Haidt thinks that liberals misunderstand conservatives more than the other way around, and that while conservatives see self-sufficiency as a profound moral value for individuals, liberals are more focused on a public code of care and equity.

Lawrence Kohberg was also a psychologist who developed a theory  of moral development. Kohlberg followed in the footsteps of developmental psychologists like Piaget and Eric Erickson. Kohlberg classified people within three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Each level has two stages.

Charles Hampden-Turner, in his book, Radical Man, equated Kolberg's conventional level with conservatism and post-conventional thinking with liberal thought.

Kohlberg noticed that stage 4 conventionals had problems understanding Stage 5 post-conventional thought. Post-conventional thinkers understand conventional thought but reject many of the ideas as rigid and authoritarian,

Haidt's book describes six foundations. These foundations  are valued differently by liberals and conservatives.

Haidt's Foundations as valued by liberals and conservatives

Stage 4 conventionals have an authority and social-order maintaining orientation based on a law and order morality. Conservatives tends to look at the world as black and white with moral absolutes on homosexuality, abortion and the Bible. This explains why conservatives value loyalty, authority and sanctity more so than post-conventionals.

Because conventionals don't really understand post-conventional thought, they tend to see post-conventional thinkers as pre-conventional Stage 3 instrumentals egoists. Rightardia suspects Haidt is probably a stage 4 conservative.

This is why conservatives often view liberals as thugs, anarchists  trouble-makers. The Occupy movement is a good example. Yet more than half of the demonstrators are independents.

When Andrew Breitbart encountered some of the Occupy demonstrators, he became highly agitated and kept yelling, "you behave" over and over. This is because conservatives expect people to be conformist and adhere to their their pre-conceived nations of behavior.

Rightardia thinks Kohlberg offers a better explanation for the political divide in the US because he provides developmental approach. Haidt's moral concerns are arbitrary laundry list of abstract terms that he uses to contrast liberals and conservatives.

Rightrdia has mentioned scientists have discovered cognitive differences in liberals and conservatives. Liberals have larger corpus callosums. The corpus callosum is the largest white matter structure in the brain,

Self-proclaimed right-wingers have a more pronounced amygdala. This is a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion.

Haidt seems to fall into the trap that liberals and conservatives are just different sides of the same coin. Rightardia thinks there are intellectual differences between liberal and conservatives and this may be caused by brain structure and strikingly different intellects.

source: http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/

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