{"id":17408,"date":"2018-04-07T06:54:04","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T13:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17408"},"modified":"2018-04-07T06:54:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T13:54:04","slug":"diffusing-disgust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/diffusing-disgust\/","title":{"rendered":"Diffusing Disgust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Haidt\u2019s text, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion <\/em>is a societally relevant and thought provoking read. His text is also highly controversial \u201che\u2019s at his worst, his cringe-inducing worst, when he tries to be polemical.\u00a0 He succumbs to his most embarrassingly hypocritical impulses in what are transparently intended to be concessions to the religious and conservative.\u201d[1]<\/a> The topic of morality is certainly significant to my research on refugee resettlement and resilience in the United States (ie. the three basic principles of moral psychology \u2013 our (human) evolution from tribalism \u201cme against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 As I seek to understand barriers to refugee resilience via attitudes\/biases of individuals and communities, and policies of local, state and federal government, Haidt\u2019s insight and theory on morality and conservatism vs. liberalism is applicable.\u00a0 \u201cTo explain this we turn to psychologist Jonathan Haidt from the University of Virginia who came up with the Social Intuitionist Model. It claims that moral judgements (accepting migrants who are fleeing persecution) are based on instantaneous, moral intuitions and then are backed up ex post facto by moral reasoning. In essence, our snap moral decisions have more influence than our reasoning; a tail wagging the dog.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In the TED Talk\/Podcast \u201cCan A Divided America Heal?\u201d<\/em> Haidt speaks specifically to immigration and morality.\u00a0 He connects the political divide to each party\u2019s current state of \u201cdisgust\u201d with each other \u2013 an attitude far beyond disagreement and verging on demonizing. Haidt goes on to say the \u201cpolitical divide in this country\u201d is \u201ceven greater than racism in this country.\u201d[4]<\/a> \u00a0\u201cSo this is, I think,\u00a0where we’re getting at what’s possibly the new left-right distinction.\u00a0I mean, the left-right as we’ve all inherited it,\u00a0comes out of the labor versus capital distinction and the working class, and Marx.\u00a0But I think what we’re seeing now, increasingly,\u00a0is a divide in all the Western democracies\u00a0between the people who want to stop at nation,\u00a0the people who are more parochial —\u00a0and I don’t mean that in a bad way —\u00a0people who have much more of a sense of being rooted,\u00a0they care about their town, their community and their nation.\u00a0And then those who are anti-parochial and who —\u00a0whenever I get confused, I just think of the John Lennon song “Imagine.”\u00a0“Imagine there’s no countries, nothing to kill or die for.”\u00a0And so these are the people who want more global governance,\u00a0they don’t like nation states, they don’t like borders.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Essentially Haidt believes that both conservatives and liberals are right in their thinking.\u00a0 Each party\u2019s belief system has value and merit.\u00a0 He speaks of a time when it was socially acceptable to have conservative viewpoints as a liberal or liberal viewpoints as a conservative.\u00a0 \u201cFor some reason, that divide became deep and it\u2019s no longer safe or appropriate\u201d to crossover in your thinking.\u00a0 Haidt proposes having intentional conversation with someone from your opposite political party \u2013 starting the conversation with acknowledgement and compliment of a value or belief of their party that is good.\u00a0 This exercise builds a bridge of empathy towards \u201cother\u201d and breaks down the \u201cus vs. them\u201d thinking.<\/p>\n

Circling back to morality towards refugees, Haidt asserts that Americans aren\u2019t struggling to accept different races in this country, but are struggling to accept different \u201ccultures\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cMorality in a psychological sense is not about being a \u201cgood person\u201d.\u00a0 It is about being a good group member.\u201d[6]<\/a> Conservatives rate moral characteristics of fairness, compassion, loyalty, authority, and purity as very important.\u00a0 Liberals rate only fairness and compassion as \u201cvery important.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 An example of a conservative view on identity is this – \u201clocking our doors to the outside does not mean we hate what is on the outside.\u00a0 It just means we love what\u2019s on the inside.\u201d\u00a0 There is a fear that \u201cliberals are exposing\u201d the group on the inside to outsiders who will degrade the purity of the group. Perhaps one of Haidt\u2019s best statements on the influences of today\u2019s culture by the internet is this \u2013 \u201call the internet creates is porn and racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, if purity and loyalty is taken too far it becomes racism (the group is defined narrower, for example as \u201cwhite Christian Americans\u201d).\u00a0 The group is literally threatened by \u201cpeople with darker skin or a different religion.\u201d Parochialism is the idea that you have great loyalty and belief in your community, your neighborhood, your state and your country. If you identify with these values, you might be labeled a nationalist. Because of fear of society collapsing, nationalists become more racist, more homophobic and want to \u201ckick out anybody\u201d who’s deviant or different.<\/p>\n

On the other extreme is the valuable idea of globalism. Globalism speaks to acceptance and value of not race, but cultures. And in order to build unity from patriarchal individuals, Haidt believes you need to show or develop a sense of commonality in our humanness and\/or commonality in our culture.[8]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Because of such divergent belief systems at home and abroad, \u201cwe will never have world peace.\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Haidt asserts if you value a generalist welfare state then you’ve \u201cgot to have an opinion that were all the same.\u201d\u00a0 He goes on to discuss the idea that assimilation in immigration would work because the \u201cright\u201d sees common culture as valuable.<\/p>\n

In addition to attempting critical conversations with those who are different politically from us, Haidt suggests diffusing disgust with love. As Christians, we have a tested guidebook with practical steps on loving others.\u00a0 Even Haidt acknowledges that diversity and immigration create creativity within the country and the economy grows. \u201cIt produces a lot of good things.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSocieties with high trust, or high social capital, produce many beneficial outcomes for their citizens: lower crime rates, lower transaction costs for businesses, higher levels of prosperity, and a propensity toward generosity, among others.\u00a0 A liberal nationalist can reasonably argue that the debate over immigration policy in Europe is not a case of what is moral versus what is base, but a case of two classing moral visions, incommensurate.\u00a0 The trick, from this point of view, is figuring out how to balance reasonable concerns about the integrity of one\u2019s own community with the obligation to welcome strangers, particularly strangers in dire need.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a>[1] https:\/\/readingsubtly.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/enlightened-hypocrisy-of-jonathan.html<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/tedtalks-audio\/can-a-divided-america-heal-jonathan-haidt<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> www.gulfinstitute.org\/moral-intuition-and-the-migration-crisis-a-tail-wagging-the-dog\/<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/tedtalks-audio\/can-a-divided-america-heal-jonathan-haidt<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jonathan_haidt_can_a_divided_america_heal\/transcript<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> www.jafree.net\/human-rights\/why-we-cant-understand-each-other-about-refugees<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> www.jafree.net\/human-rights\/why-we-cant-understand-each-other-about-refugees<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/tedtalks-audio\/can-a-divided-america-heal-jonathan-haidt<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/tedtalks-audio\/can-a-divided-america-heal-jonathan-haidt<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/tedtalks-audio\/can-a-divided-america-heal-jonathan-haidt<\/p>\n

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[11]<\/a> www.the-american-interest.com\/2016\/07\/10\/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-gloablism\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Haidt\u2019s text, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion is a societally relevant and thought provoking read. His text is also highly controversial \u201che\u2019s at his worst, his cringe-inducing worst, when he tries to be polemical.\u00a0 He succumbs to his most embarrassingly hypocritical impulses in what are transparently intended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1214],"class_list":["post-17408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-haidt","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17409,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17408\/revisions\/17409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}