The "morality" of the Tea Party, and why the Left will never understand it.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

"For the first time in our history," says Haidt, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, "the parties are not agglomerations of financial or material interest groups, they're agglomerations of personality styles and lifestyles. And this is really dangerous. Because if it's just that you have different interests, that doesn't mean I'm going to hate you. It just means that we've got to negotiate, I want to win, but we can negotiate. If it's now that 'You people on the other side, you're really different from me, you live in a different way, you pray in a different way, you eat different foods than I do,' it's much easier to hate those people. And that's where we are." 

Haidt is best known for his "moral foundations" theory, an evolutionary account of the deep-seated emotions that that guide how we feel (not think) about what is right and wrong, in life and also in politics. Haidt likens these moral foundations to "taste buds," and that's where the problem begins: While we all have the same foundations, they are experienced to different degrees on the left and the right. And because the foundations refer to visceral feelings that precede and guide our subsequent thoughts, this has a huge consequence for polarization and political dysfunction. "It's just hard for you to understand the moral motives of your enemy," Haidt says. "And it's so much easier to listen to your favorite talk radio station, which gives you all the moral ammunition you need to damn them to hell." 

Here's an illustration of the seven moral foundations identified by Haidt, and how they differ among liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, from a recent paper by Haidt and his colleagues.

To unpack a bit more what this means, consider "harm." This moral foundation, which involves having compassion and feeling empathy for the suffering of others, is measured by asking people how much considerations of "whether someone cared for someone weak and vulnerable" and "whether or not someone suffered emotionally" factor into their decisions about what is right and wrong. As you can see, liberals score considerably higher on such questions. But now consider another foundation, "purity," which is measured by asking people how much their moral judgments involve "whether or not someone did something disgusting" and "whether or not someone violated standards of purity or decency." Conservatives score dramatically higher on this foundation. 

How does this play into politics? Very directly: Research by one of Haidt's colleagues has shown, for instance, that Republicans whose districts were "particularly low on the Care/Harm foundation" were most likely to support shutting down the government over Obamacare. Why? 

Simply put, if you feel a great deal of compassion for those who lack health care, passing and enacting a law that provides it to them will be an overriding moral concern to you. But if you don't feel this so strongly, different moral concerns can easily become paramount. "On the right, it's not that they don't have compassion," says Haidt, "but their morality is not based on compassion. Their morality is based much more on a sense of who's cheating, who's slacking.” 

"My analysis is that the Tea Party really wants [the] Indian law of Karma, which says that if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you, if you do something good, something good will happen to you," says Haidt. "And if the government interferes and breaks that link, it is evil. That I think is much of the passion of the Tea Party.” 

In other words, while you may think your political opponents are immoral—and while they probably think the same of you—Haidt's analysis shows that the problem instead is that they are too moral, albeit in a visceral rather than an intellectual sense.

This may be one of the most stunning, and unsettling arguments that I have ever read. made more so by the fact that what Professor Haidt says feel very true.

I have often found myself wondering just HOW some of these people can fight so hard against something that I personally consider the morally correct way of treating my fellow man.

I think that as a society we are all connected, and that what is good for one segment of our population is ultimately good for all of us.

Sure I want to find and punish those who take advantage of social programs, but I also believe they are a small segment of our communities and that punishing everybody for the sins of the few is morally abhorrent.

And the funny thing, the thing that always bewilders me, is that I'M the Atheist. And yet it seems that my views on caring for others, and putting their needs before my own, seems much more in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ than those embraced by the groups who claim ownership of Christianity and use it to belittle and oppress the rest of us.

Another indication of how the Republicans despise the poor and disadvantaged.

Courtesy of Michigan Radio:

Foster children in Michigan would use their state-funded clothing allowance only in thrift stores under a plan suggested by State Senator Bruce Caswell.

Caswell says he wants to make sure that state money set aside to buy clothes for foster children and kids of the working poor is actually used for that purpose.

He says they should get "gift cards" to be used only at Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift stores.

"I never had anything new," Caswell says. "I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was -- and quite frankly it's true -- once you're out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes."

I almost don't know what to say about this.  I am stunned at this man's complete lack of compassion and empathy for the foster children in his state.

I don't like to talk about what I do for a living, but let me just say that I often work with disadvantaged children, including some in the foster care system, and I know first hand what kind of stigma these kids deal with every single day.

They are ripped from their families, often through no fault of their own, and find themselves bouncing from one foster home to another for years, feeling unwanted and unloved. They can suffer from a crippling lack of self esteem, and find themselves on the outside of EVERY social clique in their school, knowing full well they simply are not like the other children sitting their classrooms.

Why would you make children who already feel like cast offs themselves, walk around in cast off clothing?

Does this sorry excuse for a human being have ANY idea what kind of self esteem boost one of these kids gets from having the opportunity to go to a regular store like Old Navy, or Nordstroms, or even Wal-Mart, and pick the clothes that THEY want to wear? To know that those clothes were purchased JUST for them, and are NOT just something a wealthier kid had no more use for?

Well I have. And I have seen them wear those clothes as often as they can until they have literally grown right out of them. I have seen them crying with concern that their foster parent will not have the money to buy anything so "cool" the next shopping trip. And I have also witnessed the sense of pride they feel as they fold them up carefully and take them to the Salvation Army, so that somebody in a worse situation than they are will have the opportunity to wear the clothes that they took such pride in wearing, and that they took such pains to keep in near perfect condition.

I would suggest that this gentleman go along on a shopping trip with a foster family and see for himself how it can light up a child's face to pick a beautiful dress and know that, unlike most of the things in their lives, it is just for them.  Perhaps it is hard for those of us who can get in our car and buy ourselves a new pair of pants anytime we want, to understand the joy these children feel at such a simple opportunity. But have no doubt that it can do wonders in making them feel special, and loved, and wanted.

(H/T to Rachel Maddow.)

Update: For those who want to e-mail the Senator, and express your thoughts, you may do so here: SenBCaswell@senate.michigan.gov