{"id":17785,"date":"2018-05-24T19:16:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T02:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17785"},"modified":"2018-05-25T13:11:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T20:11:28","slug":"sacredness-of-liberty-and-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/sacredness-of-liberty-and-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacredness of Liberty and Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Author Haidt’s statement, ” We’re born to be righteous, but we have to learn what, exactly, people like us should be righteous about” (13) took me to the Christian view on \u2018Righteous’.\u00a0 David said in Psalms 51:5, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The Book of Proverbs speaks of what righteous is, as well as other scriptures. Is Haidt’s statement on righteous correct?<\/p>\n

Haidt discusses many theories on the Democratic Party, for example, the Republican Party, riders, elephants, selfish, groupish, and foundation categories, to name a few.\u00a0 I will cover these in this blog. He spoke on the essay he wrote titled ‘What Makes People Vote Republican?’\u00a0 In the essay, he began with stereotype comments: “Conservatives are this way because of overly strict parents raised them, or afraid of change, etc. or because they suffer from existential fears and therefore cling to a simple worldview with no shades of gray.” (17) He then followed those comments with a fresh viewpoint. He stated, “conservatives are just as sincere as liberals, and then use Moral Foundations Theory to understand the moral matrices of both sides.” (190) Haidt’s essay was thought-provoking and encouraged my inquisitiveness to learn more why one vote Republican, especially in this current climate of one’s personality and political conflicts. America always has been a field of conflicts due based on differences in politics, religion, ethnicities, economic status, etc. For years, these differences were like sleeping dogs, but now they were awakened during the 2008 presidential election of President Barack Obama. Now since the 2016 election of President Donald Trump there are public dogfights between black citizens and white police officers, non-caucasian people and Caucasian people, Republicans and Democrats, Trump supporters and Trump challengers, Christian denominations against one another, and many others\u00a0 These public display of anger are more prevalent due to the climate of the current president. These fights bring me to a reference in the scriptures.\u00a0 James 4:1 says, “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.”\u00a0 Heid spoke on something similar to this last few lines.<\/p>\n

“Sociologist Emile Durkheim warned in 1987 of the dangers of anomie that \u2018man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above `him to which he belongs. To free himself from all social pressure is to abandon it, himself and demoralize him.” (192) Demoralization seems to be the theme of America’s leadership. Haidt suggested “Democrats end the dismissing of conservatism as pathology and start thinking about morality beyond care and fairness. He urged them to close the sacredness gap between the two parties by making greater use of the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations, not just in their “messaging,” but in how they think about public policy and the best interests of the nation.” (193). I agree that the Democrats need to revamp, revise and reposition themselves in the political arena if they want to be effective in the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n

In his book, Haidt used the mythology from his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, \u201cthe rider (the reasoner) and the elephant (intuition)” (53) to explain intuition and moral psychology. “The rider acts as the spokesman for the elephant, skilled at fabricating post hoc explanations for whatever the elephant has just done, and it is good at finding reasons to justify whatever the elephant wants to do next.” (54) This reminds me of, oh yeah, the White House press secretary and the Oval Office. Haidt shares that the intuition comes first then the strategic reasoning. The social intuitionist makes the ‘Hume modes’ more social. The moral reasoner seeks a long-term effort to make friends and influence people (reminds me of Dale Carnegie). “So, to change someone’s mind about a moral or political issue one must talk to the elephant first. If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch\u2014a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion. They will almost always succeed.” (59) This is noteworthy when having discussions with whom you believe to be confrontational or puts up a wall to your position. John Gray believed that Haidt was on point with his theories were “an attempt at a Darwinian explanation of morality, contending that moral behavior emerges from a natural process of competition among human groups.” [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Haidt shared the responses he received from the readers of his essay. He admits some of the response gave him cause to revise his study. “For example, one reader said that he agreed with his diagnosis but thought that narcissism was an additional factor. The reader believes that he should have mentioned: “Lack of compassion fits them [Republicans], and narcissists are also lacking this important human trait.” He thought it was “sad that Republican narcissism would prevent them from understanding his perspective on their “illness.” (193) From the new studies, he added the sixth foundation named liberty\/oppression and he decided for the conservatives to place more emphasis on proportionality versus equality. \u00a0“Liberals seem to sacralize equality whereas Conservative sacralize liberty. Liberals fight for equality of rights and outcome. Conservatives are more parochial and fight for their groups.” (204)<\/p>\n

According to Haidt, “Republicans better understand the social intuitionist model and therefore speak more directly to the elephant than the Democrats.” (214) Democrats believe the Republicans have scammed the “people into voting against their economic self-interest and they don’t want their nation to devote itself primarily to the care of victims and the pursuit of social justice.” (215) He believes until the “Democrats understand the difference between a six-foundation morality and a three-foundation morality, they will not understand what makes people vote Republican.” (216)<\/p>\n

In another area in his book, Haidt states that “human nature is selfish, meaning we adept at promoting our interests, in competition with our peers. Human nature is also groupish, meaning we adept at promoting our group’s interests, in competition with other groups.” (220) I believe this statement reveal conflicts with the statement presented in the first paragraph. Consequently, we are not born righteous.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> John Gray, The Knowns and the Unknowns<\/em>, The New Republic Magazine, 2012, accessed May 24, 2018, https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/102760\/righteous-mind-haidt-morality-politics-scientism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Author Haidt’s statement, ” We’re born to be righteous, but we have to learn what, exactly, people like us should be righteous about” (13) took me to the Christian view on \u2018Righteous’.\u00a0 David said in Psalms 51:5, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The Book of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"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":[1272],"class_list":["post-17785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heidt-righteous-mind","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785","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\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17807,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions\/17807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}