Fans of the old sitcom "Seinfeld" will recall Mr. Bookman, the well-named New York Public Library investigator who relentlessly pursues Jerry for failing to return a library book that he checked out two decades before. Jerry borrowed the book, "Tropic of Cancer," in 1971, and when Mr. Bookman finally tracks him down, the mere mention of that year sends the library cop off on a sweeping moral tirade on the degradation of civilized culture:
Yeah, '71 ... Bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards. Abby Hoffman telling everybody to steal books. I don't judge a man by the length of his hair or the kind of music he listens to ... But you put on a pair of shoes when you walk into the New York Public Library, fella.
Mr. Bookman's angry crusade clearly goes beyond library fines. It's personal. He doesn't like Jerry, or anything he represents, which he sums up as "flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention." For him, stealing library books is not an abstract moral violation. It's an insult to all that's sacred and decent about America, and it's disgusting on the most primitive, visceral level.
Mr. Bookman is a parody, of course -- a parody of overly moralistic conservatives. But does the caricature capture some essence of conservative moral reasoning? New research suggests that may be so. Conservative and liberal minds, it appears, may be fundamentally different psychologically, with conservatives much more sensitive to everyday triggers for physical disgust, and much more likely to commingle repulsion and moral judgment.
The new work comes from three psychological scientists at the City University of New York (Kendall Eskine, Natalie Kacinik and Jesse Prinz) who started off exploring a possible connection between morality and taste -- not aesthetic taste, but actual taste, in the mouth. A recent and growing body of research is showing that thinking and judgment can be powerfully influenced by the body and its interaction with the world. Everything from cleanliness to temperature can shape the way we think and feel, and the CUNY scientists wondered if taste might similarly mold our thoughts about right and wrong.
So they did a simple test. They recruited a group of volunteers for a study of arm-hand movements, and as part of that study they asked them to very quickly pick up and drink a "shot" of beverage. In fact, the motion study was a ruse -- a cover for the actual study. For that, some of the volunteers drank water, while others drank a sweet punch, and still others a bitter herbal concoction. The idea was to see if taste influences emotions -- especially disgust -- which in turn shape moral judgment.
They measured moral judgment using several vignettes involving transgressions. One of these vignettes had to do with, yes, unreturned library books. Others focused on corrupt politicians, shoplifters, ambulance-chasing lawyers, a man eating his dead dog and second cousins having sex. In each case, the volunteers rated the acts on a continuum from "extremely morally wrong" to "not at all morally wrong." Finally, the volunteers noted whether they considered themselves politically liberal or conservative.
When they analyzed all the data, the results were unambiguous. As reported online in the journal, Psychological Science, taste dramatically influenced moral judgment, such that physical disgust resulting from the bitter drink led to much harsher moral judgments. What's more, self-identified conservatives who drank the bitter drink were much more judgmental than conservatives who drank sweet punch or water. Liberals' moral judgments were unaffected by what they drank.
Why was this effect more pronounced in people espousing conservative politics? It's not entirely clear, but one possibility is that disgust, as an emotion, is closely connected with one's sense of purity and the violation of that sensibility. Purity norms are more prevalent in conservative than in liberal morality. This also fits well with the fact that most people can't articulate the reasons for their moral positions: When pressed for rationales, most people concede that this or that act simply "feels" right or wrong, just as Jerry's overdue book upset Mr. Bookman at his very core.
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NB all surveys, experiments or studies the results can be skewed to demonstrate either side of the argument.
What I would like to focus on is that one’s mind is definitely affected by the food that we eat as this affects our general wellbeing. I did not 100% subscribe to this until I took 12 months off exercise and what I would consider a healthy diet. I ate what I liked when I liked and naturally put weight on. The interesting elements on my test was when I read back the diary I kept, I made notes of all the silly arguments I had, or the slightly out of character decisions I made.
I couldn’t really empathise with individuals who used their weight or diet as a reason of non-achievement. Having been through the 12 month test I can now fully empathise that food does alter one’s judgement and energy levels. Both of which affect overall passion and wellbeing.
The one aspect I cannot empathise with is that they choose not to do anything about it even though they are aware their diet is not healthy.
Craig Ing
www.craiging.com
www.blog.craiging.com
My goodness that's funny for how untrue it is!
NO ONE gets more morally indignant than the modern liberal.
Who throws pies in people's faces...? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who prevents conservatives from speaking at universities...? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who illegally spray paints fur coats...? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who chains themselves to the White House fences...? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who shuts down State Capitols? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who paints their hands red and screams, "You've got blood on your hands, Secretary Rice!" THE MODERN LIBERAL!
Who is quick to equate their political adversaries to Hitler? THE MODERN LIBERAL!
The list is literally endless....
WANT TO SEE THIS STUDY PROVEN WRONG? POSE DIFFERENT STATEMENTS:
Within a spectrum spanning "Strongly Disagree" to "Very Much Agree" – respond to the following:
Affirmative Action has hurt minorities more than it has helped.
George W. Bush was an outstanding leader and president.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is a hypothesis that has yet to be proven true.
Sarah Palin is a better student of the Constitution than Nancy Pelosi.
Ronald Reagan was a brilliant statesmen.
LBJ's Great Society programs created conditions that pulled black families apart.
THINK YOUR TYPICAL MODERN LIBERAL WOULD BE ANYTHING BUT APOPLECTIC IN THE FACE OF THOSE STATEMENTS? May I suggest you'd be wrong...
Is there anyone who isn't "APOPLECTIC" at that assertion? Why not throw in "and a really intelligent man" and you may have found the long sought "anti-Liberal WMD" cus I'm pretty sure you would cause the heads of every intelligent (aka "Liberal") person in America to explode.
But thank you for your careful unbiased examination of liberals; you did however leave out the well known fact that liberals sell their children for liquor.
However, I think you missed the point, which seems like one worth exploring. A valid criticism of the study described in the article is that the questions were skewed toward subjects of traditional morality.
If instead, you skewed the questions to illicit strong responses from liberals instead of conservatives, you might generate the exact opposite results...thus undermining the credibility of the study's conclusion.
Now take a really bitter drink and ask yourself to rate the statement, "George W. Bush was an outstanding leader and president...and a really intelligent man."
Alternatively, you could interpret the study to mean that liberals have no taste.
If you're referring to the statements in my revised experiment, you've missed the point (while demonstrating it). The thrust of the article (and the study) that we are commenting on is that the conservative mind is much more affected by external stimulus when it comes to issues of moral judgment. In essence, the study's conclusion is that the conservative brain is more reactive and "Pavlovian" than the evolved lobes of the modern liberal. In my thought experiment, I simply demonstrated how narrow and limited the parameters of the study were. Since your reaction to the statement "George W. Bush was an outstanding leader and president" is strong and pronounced, one could reasonably conclude that you are voicing a "harsh moral judgment." Of course, to you, your judgment is purely intellectual. That's my whole point: there ARE intellectual bases for being outraged by shoplifting, just as there ARE intellectual bases for being outraged by George W. Bush. But to search for biological reasons for our intellectual differences inevitably mis-focuses our debate on the phantasms of personality and motivation. This is unhealthy. Ideally, the focus of our debates should always be aimed at the arguments, themselves.
You just can't make that kind of stuff up!
Nature abhors uniformity. If we saw everything in the same way, there would be no incentive to invent questions. Thus we couldn’t even ask ourselves, where would we all be then?
“a man eating his dead dogâ€
Itsn't intrinsically wrong. But it may leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
“When they analyzed all the data, the results were unambiguousâ€
Let's hope that the questions were too. Since consuming something to sustain life is not necessarily the same call, as consuming something just to see what it tastes like.
“Liberals' moral judgments were unaffected by what they drankâ€.
Just how much they drank?
Most people can't articulate the reasons for their moral positions:
Convinced and confident they know the correct answer to the calculation. But for the life of them, unable to produce the workings.
The subjects in the test were shown minor even petty transgressions when compared to the heavy duty sins of war, poverty, hunger, pollution, corporate malfeasance, - you know the stuff that actually hurts people and cause them pain. For me this is where the conservatives fail the morality test over & over again. They'll harangue & endlessly harrass you about an issue like abortion on one hand while on the other back political measures that defund or eradicate programs that help young children. In other words conservatives makes no sense; there seems to be an intellectual disconnect between them caring about an issue and actually caring about people. Theirs is not a biblical morality but a capitalist morality.
If you think I'm wrong look at religion per se, or more specifically with the need for control. This is especially of "their" women. They have and are trying desperately now to control women psychologically, physically and spiritually.
What makes it so remarkable today, in the 21st Century, is it is no longer confined to their own group or cult. Conversion has been replaced with the adaptation in some states of insanely restrictive laws. with no regard to a woman's intelligence and ability to make her own decisions.
Conservatives are essentially emotionally immature.
"Conversion has been replaced with the adaptation in some states of insanely restrictivÂe laws. with no regard to a woman's intelligenÂce and ability to make her own decisions."
I think you have Conservatism mixed up with Islam.
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/03/conservative-who-got-muggedby-gov.html
For me it has to do with luck.......... and experience.
People who have never experienced bad luck are totally convinced that they have earned every thing they have accumulated, and others, not so well off, have made their own bed and should lie in it. Those "others" suffer from lack of intelligence, work ethic, or ambition.
I equate that outlook with insurance.
The vast majority of people who like their insurance companies, have never had to file a claim, at least not a major one. It isn't until things go wrong that you find out just how the system works, or fails to.
J. Michael Straczynski wrote perhaps the best line I have ever seen regarding this issue.
"“We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much, the best of us is washed away."
The most judgmental people I know, have experienced very little in the way of adversity. Empathy comes from experience. Painful experience. That's unfortunate for us all.
Fascinating to me that these are the exact opposite traits of the old time original conservatives, whatever their faults and mistakes.
Joe McCarthy was the first neo-con.
I find there is an indestructible essence inside each of us that aspires to something greater than riches, fame or power. Something that is not self centered. We bring this essence into focus as we come to recognize our heart, our soul. Most people in the West lost contact with their soul when they left childhood, if not before. Yet it remains. It is indestructible. It is free of ego. It is not owned by some religion or ideology, or thought process. It is within, not without. We want to return to it. We want to go home.
We will get beyond that when people calling themselves "conservative", but in fact radically revolutionary, are stopped, or maybe victorious, in their bid to dismantle everything that has made the USA great in the past, and everything the Founders worked for, in order to create an Oligarchic theocracy, ruled by corporate overlords and kept in line by a fiercely authoritative religious conformity.
Not a good place for the exercise of the spirit within, though that would be the only freedom left.
1. Sour things make people conservatives conservative.
2. Therefore sweet things must make conservatives liberal.
3. Kool-Aid is sweet.
4. Therefore Kool-Aide makes consrvatives liberal.