What is the difference between a right-winger and a left-winger (conservative and liberal in US parlance)? Why is it that right-wingers in many different countries and at many different times seems to embrace a similar set of policies that, on the surface, have little in common? Why do right-wingers tend to:
- Dislike immigrants and racial/ethnic/religious minorities
- Oppose equal rights for women
- Support strong law enforcement and harsh penalties for criminals
- Support business / oppose unions
- Support the criminalization of 'vice' and the establishment of religion
Could you not support the interest of wealthy business owners and women's rights? Could you not want powerful law enforcement but still welcome immigrants and minorities? In theory you could of course, but in practice few do. Compared to the relative philosophical consistency of, say, US libertarianism, most right wing factions and parties appear to have just selected a grab-bag of random policies and positions. Yet right-wingers across the world have largely selected the same grab-bag, so there must be some unifying driver behind it.
My theory on what the unifying driver is, has long been what I called 'groupishness'. Selfishness is putting one's own needs ahead of anyone else's and that isn't an accurate description of right-wing thought since many right-wingers willingly sacrifice their own interests to protect or advance their family's, extended family's or affinity group's. But the sphere of sacrifice ends quite abruptly at the edge of whatever the right-winger feels is their group (although the definition of group can be quite fluid). Outsiders are expected to look after themselves, the right-winger will 'take care of his own first'. Thus 'groupishness' as the defining characteristic of what makes a right-winger. There's probably a better word for it.
This theory aligned very well with the moral pillars concept described in http://www.yourmorals.org/. The idea that conservatives value group loyalty, authority, and purity to a much greater degree than left wingers is both confirmation of and expansion upon my primitive 'groupishness' theory. So it seems I was right, and now there is academic backing for my interpretation. It's great to be proven smart!
But was I right? (note that I don't doubt the 'smart' bit). The idea of heuristics and biases in cognition seems to arise from a discipline closely related to the moral pillars theorists and gives me reason to doubt them. The idea that right-wingers are motivated by group loyalty, deference to authority, and purity - values that I consider mostly counter to morality - is pleasing to me, confirms my earlier unproven theory, and makes me feel good about myself. So I should be extremely suspicious of it.
Another pitfall is the danger of applying a description to people that they themselves don't recognise or remotely accept. Reading right-wing blogs you find a pervasive image of left-wingers that is completely unrecognisable to me. Apparently we hate our country, want to control everyone's lives, want to steal from hardworking people to give handouts to the lazy and so forth. These are not descriptions that are debated or discussed on right wing blogs, they are taken as read, understood as the plain truth by all participants. And no doubt this view of left-wingers makes the right wing authors and commenters feel good about themselves, confirms their world-views, and justifies their hatred and suspicion of all things left-wing.
So, am I correct in thinking that 'groupishness' is the unifying factor for right-wingers, that it is the unacknowledged driving force behind their policy positions and their self-stated principles? Or am I falling into the trap of defining a group of people by a criterion that makes me feel comfortable but that they themselves would correctly point out is complete bullshit?
Of course the solution to determining whether increased "groupishness" is characteristic of conservatism is to design a suitable experiment.
ReplyDeleteHave people identify as either liberal or conservative, and then test their response to both arbitrary and meaningful groups using techniques such as the dictator game.
Ideally you would want to compare "groupishness" with alternate theories of conservative/liberal fault lines. What other theories are there? Maybe conservative are more likely to use cognitive shortcuts, or perhaps they are more prone to the endowment effect.
Yes. Such an experiment would be interesting. Here's a dictator game study for republicans and democrats (not an exact proxy for conservative/liberal, admittedly) that seems to show no particular in-group loyalty amongst republicans http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/beyond_the_self.pdf
ReplyDeleteOther theories advanced for a unified theory of conservativeness are opposition to government involvement in people's lives and a suspicion of innovation (the "stand athwart history shouting 'stop'" concept). The first is hardly compelling for me, given conservative positions on defence, law & order, and women's rights. The second might have some merit. Something like the endowment effect you talk about on a public policy scale. They are afraid of losing what they have if things change, so they resist change. This would be perhaps a more charitable interpretation of the causes of conservatism than mine. Conservatives do not oppose rights for women or for racial, ethnic, or sexual minorities because of group loyalty to straight, white, christian men, but because they recognise that granting equal rights to such minorities is a change and change may cause them to lose what they have. A subtle distinction but one worth teasing out in experimental form.
Can you expand on the cognitive shortcuts idea. Why do you think conservatives may be more prone to that, and how would it lead to conservatism?
It took more than a comment reply to expand on cognitive shortcuts, so I made it into a new post.
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