Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

If you are like me, most of the friends you choose share your general religious and poltical beliefs.  That's what makes family gatherings so treacherous.  Every time my wife's family gets together I look forward to tormenting and being tormented by her libertarian Uncle John.  Have you ever tried to offer a Thanksgiving or Christmas Day prayer that would satisfy your born-again brother-in-law who has been holding forth on the evils of clerks who say "Happy Holidays" and your rationalistic brother-in-law who thinks religion is for wimps?  And I have to admit that most of my liberal friends are more close-minded and judgemental about their conservative counterparts than vice versa.  We'll tolerate just about anyone but a convicted, Evangelical Republican.

Now Jonathan Haidt has written a book (with the same title as this blog post) trying to convince liberals to extend their tolerance and understanding to conservatives.  Haidt argues that most of us base our beliefs and positions on moral intuition developed over thousands of generations, moral habits that he boils down to six norms: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.  Liberals focus heavily on care, conservatives--to varying degrees, of course--on all six.  Hence liberals lose a lot of elections even when their policies are more sensible and speak to the majority's self interest.

Haidt is not arguing that conservatives are more moral than liberals.  People have traditionally not cared much about people different from or distant from themselves, for example.  Caring for people different from ourselves--certainly a great virtue in our modern, shrinking world--does not come naturally.

Haidt is trying hard to break liberals of their reflexive belief that conservatives are cruel, stupid, or both--and to get both sides to listen more to each other.  Here is a site he's developed: civilpolitics.org.

Horse-Slaughter Plants and Nature Loving

OPB had a heated debate the other morning about the proposed horse-slaughter plant in Hermiston.  Though those for and against the plant disagree on some facts (whether or not the slaughter methods are humane and whether or not the meat is safe for human consumption, for example), much of the disagreement boiled down to the classic "head versus heart" division that characterizes so much of modern environmentalism.  Those in favor of the plant point out that thousands of unwanted horses are causing a number of economic and environmental problems and that the rational solution is to let a business make a profit from killing the excess.  Those who oppose the slaughterhouse argue that horses are an integral part of American history and have become loyal pets, so submitting them to mechanized slaughter and eating them are brutal and unAmerican.  The debate is somewhat reminiscent of the Cape Cod debate over wind power that I used to open my book on Environmentalism.  Some argued that wind farms constituted the industrialization of a beautiful area that should be a refuge from industrialization.  Supporters argued that wind farms are a relatively clean form of energy and we simply can't afford to declare every scenic area off limits to energy production--unless we are willing to decrease our consumption of energy dramatically by, say, not having vacation homes on Cape Cod.  Are enough people devoted enough to horses to ensure that each will be humanely cared for?  If not, what should be done wit the rest?  How we answer such questions depends a great deal upon whether or not we approach nature as a place to find love and inspiration or as a relationship to be maintained in a logical, sustainable manner.

Kony 2012 Update

The "Kony 2012" video is now up to 80 million hits, but criticism of it is also growing.  The story took a new, tragic twist Thursday when San Diego police detained the film's creator, Jason Russell, after claiming that he was obstructing traffic in his underwear.  Russell's wife attributes the irrational act to the stress and criticism that the co-founder of Invisible Children has been recently under.

As I noted last week, many Africans and other critics argue that the viral video, though very effective at conveying its message (warlord Joseph Kony must be brought to justice), oversimplifies a complex problem.  They are also troubled that the video may contribute to the "White Savior Industrial Complex," as writer Teju Cole puts it.  A showing of the film in Northern Uganda had to be halted when audience members threw rocks at the screen, as they felt that the movie was about white people rather than their suffering.  The purpose of the video is indeed to mobilize American opinion to care and do something about the suffering of Africans.  But it is troubling that Invisible Children's board is all white and that they apparently did not anticipate the criticisms that the video would provoke.

The Thorny Business of Doing Good in Africa

A recent story in The Guardian reveals, in dizzying detail, the many challenges of offering quick solutions from the West to African problems: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-story .  The story chronicles the story behind a youtube video created by an American nonprofit that has generated some 21 million hits.  The video is calculated to put pressure on politicians across the world to take action against warlord Joseph Kony's actions in Uganda, for Kony has routinely recruited child soldiers for many years.  The story points out several complicating factors, however: Kony has evidently not operated in Uganda for for some years; demonizing him may create retaliatory violence and make negotiation impossible; the film simplifies a complex situation and understates the degree to which Ugandans have improved their country; a very large share of donations to the organization are devoted to staff salaries and travel rather than directly improving the lives of Ugandans.  Many experts believe that the video is at the very least raising the awareness of many millions of people outside Africa about an important problem.  But, as usual, it is much easier to raise awareness if one neglects complexity.

Affirmative Action for Whom?

The recent announcement that the Supreme Court will likely overturn the remnants of affirmative action for students of color applying to universities has prompted me to do some research on the subject.  The last big court case in 2003 allowed public colleges to take race into account.  What is less known is that public and private colleges routinely take many other variables into account.  Scholars estimate that a gender-blind admissions system would produce a student body that would be roughly 80 percent female at elite institutions.  Such colleges routinely privilege male applicants to keep that from happening.  They also privilege legacy students, children of alumni.  Of these three groups (people of color, males, and legacy applicants), people of color are both the most disadvantaged (are more likely to have gone to poorer schools and to have parents who cannot afford to high private tutors who will boost their SAT scores and help them to write their entrance essays) and the most likely to perform well at an elite college (male college students, like their high school counterparts, spend more time playing and less time studying than do their female counterparts, and if legacy students from privileged backgrounds have not taken full advantage of their privileged background in high school, they are not likely to do so in college).  But despite occasional grumbling about the advantages offered to male and legacy applicants, public opinion and the Supreme Court focus on the modest and largely successful attempts to improve access to top colleges for black and Latino applicants where they constitute just 10 percent of the student body.  That percentage is likely to fall in the coming years, even as access to elite colleges becomes the gateway to the top jobs in law, medicine, and finance.