

Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal - yan
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28kristof.html?_r=1
Yes, I realize the title is very politically-charged, but it's an actual interesting article about dealing with ideas and people you don't agree with.
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dustmop
My current favorite political thinker, George Lakoff, has a whole body of work
related to this subject. Conservations are focused on authority, while
liberals are focused on empathy, and his theories conclude that the difference
is based on different mental metaphors for the how families and family figures
correspond to roles in government. His Wikipedia page has a decent enough
introduction to his ideas: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff>

~~~
absconditus
It's a good thing we can all be easily classified into two groups.

~~~
yalurker
Exactly. Words like "liberal" and "conservative" have become incredibly loaded
terms, and the notion that they describe everyone is absurd
oversimplification.

At a very basic level, the combination of social and economic issues is silly.
The politicalcompass.org site/method is not without bias, but at least they
break it into a two dimensional problem.

I've found that a great number of hackers/engineers skew towards more
libertarian beliefs, where they may be "liberal" on one issue and then
"conservative" on the next, but overall maintain a perfectly rational &
consistent basis for their beliefs. These types of people don't fit well on a
simplified 1-dimensional line between left & right.

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byrneseyeview
_For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm._

How very neutral! I often forget how pro-unfairness, and pro-harm
conservatives are! I think a better way to understand it is that conservatives
are political Darwinists, who believe in gradual adaptation to circumstances,
undertaken at different rates by different groups. Liberals are political
creationists, who hope to dissolve traditions and create a better society.
It's a question of means, not ends: conservatives would probably argue that
expropriating wealth someone has earned in order to give it to a third party
is both unfair and an infliction of harm, whereas letting people keep what
they make, and protecting them from criminals, is both fair and anti-harm.

~~~
olefoo
Actually, the current definitions of liberal and conservative:

Liberals: think it's OK to spend your money on government programs they hope
will be useful.

Conservatives: think it's OK to give your money to rich bankers so long as
there are no strings attached.

Entrepreneurs: think it's OK if you spend your money with them.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The fact that you threw the word "entrepreneurs" in there makes this an HN-
worthy comment.

~~~
olefoo
I was actually trying to make a point about how the one-dimensional nature of
most political discourse (Us!, Them!!) ignores most of the complexity that
actually matters. And also acknowledge the reality that our political
structures are corrupt, counterproductive and irrational. This may be one of
those things you just can't say in polite society.

~~~
philwelch
Generally, it's better to phrase that point something like this:

"The one dimensional nature of most political discourse (Us!, Them!!) ignores
most of the complexity that actually matters. And our political structures are
corrupt, counterproductive and irrational."

Expecting us to extract that meaning out of some vague witticism was probably
your mistake.

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AndrewO
Jonathan Haidt (quoted in the article) gave an interesting TEDTalk along
similar lines:

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_mor...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html)

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lallysingh
For the specialized research in this area, <http://neuropolitics.org/> is a
good reference. The site took a bit of time to load for me, but they've done a
lot of work in the area of behavior, preference, biology, and political
beliefs.

The most relevant stuff is in the archives: circa 2006 +/- a year.

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philwelch
So people choose their political beliefs based upon their personality. That's
old news to me, but a more interesting question might be how many people buck
these trends, because that might indicate how many people think critically
about politics rather than embracing and trying to rationalize their first
intuition.

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kirse
_For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm.
For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty_

Interesting how liberal morality is vague and needs defined (i.e. how do we
define what is "fair" and what is "harmful"), while the conservative morality
is rooted in unchanging, definitive principles that are intuitively
identifiable.

Authority and loyalty aren't something that needs defined, you know them when
you see them and instantly recognize it when there's a lack of them. On the
other hand, what is "fair" or "least harmful" among a given set of decisions
is always up for huge debate.

~~~
jibiki
No, it's a spectrum. There are no conservatives who believe that authority is
always right, and no liberals (at least, very few liberals) who believe that
it is never right.

> Authority and loyalty aren't something that needs defined, you know them
> when you see them and instantly recognize it when there's a lack of them. On
> the other hand, what is "fair" or "least harmful" among a given set of
> decisions is always up for huge debate.

It is impossible to base your decisions on authority and loyalty alone,
because you might end up being loyal to an authority who enjoys genocide. As
noted above, conservatives also take fairness into account. Think about
abortion, for instance...

~~~
philwelch
"There are no conservatives who believe that authority is always right, and no
liberals (at least, very few liberals) who believe that it is never right."

If only because believing that authority is always right is a decent
characterization of fascism, while believing that authority is never right is
a descent characterization of anarchism, which are respectively more right-
wing/left-wing than conservatism and liberalism. This just maintains the
spectrum while showing that conservatism and liberalism are not at the
extremes.

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yan
Yes, I realize the title is very politically-charged, but it's an interesting
article on dealing with ideas and people you don't agree with and open-
mindedness.

~~~
novum
I wouldn't say it's politically-charged as much as it's linkbait and a bit of
an overgeneralization.

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swombat
Hey, I have a great idea... why don't we most more polarising, political fluff
pieces to HN? That way, we might turn it into Reddit.

~~~
dschobel
It's actually an interesting (and scientific!) article saddled with a terrible
title.

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jonknee
I'd slap dad and also avoid having to touch faucets in public restrooms. Guess
I'm a registered independent for a reason.

