Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
#People Haven't Turned to the Right, They Just Don't Vote
1 view
Skip to first unread message
3026 Dead
Jun 13, 2012, 9:48:47 AM6/13/12
to
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/11886-people-havent-turned-
to-the-right-they-just-dont-vote
People Haven't Turned to the Right, They Just Don't Vote
By George Monbiot, Guardian UK
12 June 12
A new theory of choice isn't useful to politicians. The left is
losing because it isn't offering policies of care and economic justice.
t's an unlikely match, I know, but I have a friend who is a Jehovah's
Witness. One day, after overcoming a certain amount of embarrassment on
both sides, he asked whether he could try to persuade me to let Jesus
into my life. I promised him a fair hearing. Some of what he said made
sense, but the story fell apart for me when he claimed that in biblical
times "people were a lot more moral than they are today". I argued that
half the Old Testament appears to be a record of divinely inspired
genocide, as God's people sought to exterminate the other tribes they
encountered. "Ah yes," said my friend, "but there was a lot less
fornication."
This was the point at which I understood that people of the same
neighbourhood can entertain very different conceptions of morality. It is
a theme on which the psychologist Jonathan Haidt expands, fascinatingly
and persuasively, in his book The Righteous Mind. And it is the theme on
which he stumbles, stupidly and disastrously, when seeking to apply his
findings to politics, as he did in the Guardian last week, and as he has
done to great effect within the Democratic party.
Drawing on a wealth of experimental evidence, Haidt argues that we tend
to make moral decisions on the basis of intuition, rather than strategic
reasoning. We then use our capacity for reason to find justifications for
the decisions we have already made. "Our moral thinking," he says, "is
much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist
searching for truth."
Our intuitions are shaped by, and help to bind, the groups or tribes to
which we belong. The moral codes of progressives in the west are built,
Haidt says, on just three foundations: the pursuit of care rather than
harm, of liberty rather than oppression, and of fairness rather than
cheating.
Conservative politicians, by contrast, have "a broader variety of ways to
connect with voters", as their moral narrative is built on these
foundations plus three more: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and
sanctity/degradation. "Most Americans", he tells us, "don't want to live
in a nation based primarily on caring."
Rather than voting on economic issues, working-class people have been
"voting for their moral interests". He argues that "when people fear the
collapse of their society, they want order and national greatness, not a
more nurturing government". This helps to explain, he says, why "working-
class people vote conservative, as most do in the US".
Haidt's analysis has been taken up enthusiastically on both sides of the
Atlantic. But his admirers appear to have missed something. While the
psychological findings he presents are well-attested and thoroughly
referenced, he offers not a shred of evidence to support his political
contentions, either in the article or in his book. His claims are
unsourced, unsubstantiated and plain wrong.
As Larry Bartels, professor of political science at Vanderbilt,
Nashville, points out, the political views of white working-class voters
in the US "have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years".
Voting for the Democrats by those on low incomes has in fact increased.
Political decisions in this class are still shaped overwhelmingly by
economics. On what Haidt calls "moral" values, there is "no evidence of
any shift" in this group. It is only among more affluent voters that the
Democrats have lost support. "Economic status has become more important,
not less important, in structuring the presidential voting behaviour."
The real issue is surely turnout. In the US it has been low for a long
time: between 50% and 60% for presidential elections and 30% to 45% for
mid-term congressionals since the second world war. In the UK it has
slipped dramatically, from 84% in 1950 to 65% in 2010. An analysis by the
Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the collapse has occurred
largely among younger and poorer people. "Older people and richer or
better educated people … are now much more influential at the ballot box".
The major reason, the institute says, is the "'low-stakes' character of
recent elections": the major parties "fought on quite similar platforms".
The biggest decline in recent political history - from 1997 to 2001 -
lends weight to this contention. In 1997 the young and the poor believed
they faced a real political and economic choice. By 2001, Blair had moved
Labour so far to the right that there was scarcely a choice to be made.
If Haidt and his admirers were right, the correct strategy would be for
Labour, the Democrats and other once progressive parties to swing even
further to the right, triangulate even more furiously, and - by seeking
to satisfy an apparent appetite for loyalty, authority and sanctity - to
join the opposing tribe. But if the real problem is not that working-
class voters have switched their voting preferences but that they are not
voting at all because there's too little at stake, the correct political
prescription is to do the opposite: to swing further to the left and to
emphasise not "order and national greatness" but care and economic
justice.
Haidt's unsupported assertions suggest that he, too, is using reasoning
to justify his intuitions. I am sure he is right when he claims that we
all have this tendency. But we might have expected him, of all people, to
try to think like "a scientist searching for truth".
--
Subscribe:
zepps_essay...@yahoogroups.com
zepps_news...@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:
zepps_essays...@yahoogroups.com
zepps_news-...@yahoogroups.com
Not dead, in jail or a slave? Thank a liberal!
to-the-right-they-just-dont-vote
People Haven't Turned to the Right, They Just Don't Vote
By George Monbiot, Guardian UK
12 June 12
A new theory of choice isn't useful to politicians. The left is
losing because it isn't offering policies of care and economic justice.
t's an unlikely match, I know, but I have a friend who is a Jehovah's
Witness. One day, after overcoming a certain amount of embarrassment on
both sides, he asked whether he could try to persuade me to let Jesus
into my life. I promised him a fair hearing. Some of what he said made
sense, but the story fell apart for me when he claimed that in biblical
times "people were a lot more moral than they are today". I argued that
half the Old Testament appears to be a record of divinely inspired
genocide, as God's people sought to exterminate the other tribes they
encountered. "Ah yes," said my friend, "but there was a lot less
fornication."
This was the point at which I understood that people of the same
neighbourhood can entertain very different conceptions of morality. It is
a theme on which the psychologist Jonathan Haidt expands, fascinatingly
and persuasively, in his book The Righteous Mind. And it is the theme on
which he stumbles, stupidly and disastrously, when seeking to apply his
findings to politics, as he did in the Guardian last week, and as he has
done to great effect within the Democratic party.
Drawing on a wealth of experimental evidence, Haidt argues that we tend
to make moral decisions on the basis of intuition, rather than strategic
reasoning. We then use our capacity for reason to find justifications for
the decisions we have already made. "Our moral thinking," he says, "is
much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist
searching for truth."
Our intuitions are shaped by, and help to bind, the groups or tribes to
which we belong. The moral codes of progressives in the west are built,
Haidt says, on just three foundations: the pursuit of care rather than
harm, of liberty rather than oppression, and of fairness rather than
cheating.
Conservative politicians, by contrast, have "a broader variety of ways to
connect with voters", as their moral narrative is built on these
foundations plus three more: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and
sanctity/degradation. "Most Americans", he tells us, "don't want to live
in a nation based primarily on caring."
Rather than voting on economic issues, working-class people have been
"voting for their moral interests". He argues that "when people fear the
collapse of their society, they want order and national greatness, not a
more nurturing government". This helps to explain, he says, why "working-
class people vote conservative, as most do in the US".
Haidt's analysis has been taken up enthusiastically on both sides of the
Atlantic. But his admirers appear to have missed something. While the
psychological findings he presents are well-attested and thoroughly
referenced, he offers not a shred of evidence to support his political
contentions, either in the article or in his book. His claims are
unsourced, unsubstantiated and plain wrong.
As Larry Bartels, professor of political science at Vanderbilt,
Nashville, points out, the political views of white working-class voters
in the US "have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years".
Voting for the Democrats by those on low incomes has in fact increased.
Political decisions in this class are still shaped overwhelmingly by
economics. On what Haidt calls "moral" values, there is "no evidence of
any shift" in this group. It is only among more affluent voters that the
Democrats have lost support. "Economic status has become more important,
not less important, in structuring the presidential voting behaviour."
The real issue is surely turnout. In the US it has been low for a long
time: between 50% and 60% for presidential elections and 30% to 45% for
mid-term congressionals since the second world war. In the UK it has
slipped dramatically, from 84% in 1950 to 65% in 2010. An analysis by the
Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the collapse has occurred
largely among younger and poorer people. "Older people and richer or
better educated people … are now much more influential at the ballot box".
The major reason, the institute says, is the "'low-stakes' character of
recent elections": the major parties "fought on quite similar platforms".
The biggest decline in recent political history - from 1997 to 2001 -
lends weight to this contention. In 1997 the young and the poor believed
they faced a real political and economic choice. By 2001, Blair had moved
Labour so far to the right that there was scarcely a choice to be made.
If Haidt and his admirers were right, the correct strategy would be for
Labour, the Democrats and other once progressive parties to swing even
further to the right, triangulate even more furiously, and - by seeking
to satisfy an apparent appetite for loyalty, authority and sanctity - to
join the opposing tribe. But if the real problem is not that working-
class voters have switched their voting preferences but that they are not
voting at all because there's too little at stake, the correct political
prescription is to do the opposite: to swing further to the left and to
emphasise not "order and national greatness" but care and economic
justice.
Haidt's unsupported assertions suggest that he, too, is using reasoning
to justify his intuitions. I am sure he is right when he claims that we
all have this tendency. But we might have expected him, of all people, to
try to think like "a scientist searching for truth".
--
Subscribe:
zepps_essay...@yahoogroups.com
zepps_news...@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:
zepps_essays...@yahoogroups.com
zepps_news-...@yahoogroups.com
Not dead, in jail or a slave? Thank a liberal!
*us*
Jun 13, 2012, 10:10:16 AM6/13/12
to
The people can't vote. Ban the blackbox.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2012-04-30.htm
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2012-04-30.htm
Dänk 42Ø
Jun 13, 2012, 12:34:06 PM6/13/12
to
On Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:48:47 +0000, 3026 Dead quacked:
> http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/11886-people-havent-
apathy is a leftist trait?
> http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/11886-people-havent-
turned-
> to-the-right-they-just-dont-vote
>
> People Haven't Turned to the Right, They Just Don't Vote
I'm not sure how to interpret this. Does the writer mean to say that
> to-the-right-they-just-dont-vote
>
> People Haven't Turned to the Right, They Just Don't Vote
apathy is a leftist trait?
jane
Jun 13, 2012, 12:37:52 PM6/13/12
to
3026 Dead
Jun 13, 2012, 2:14:50 PM6/13/12
to
Message has been deleted
Foxtrot
Jun 15, 2012, 4:43:36 AM6/15/12
to
vote ergo they're relatively stupid.
Ever notice how it's the Dems who always try to get out the vote? They
know fellow libs tend to sit on their couches, pick their noses and watch
American Idol. Those are the idiots that Dems are prodding to vote.
0 new messages