I have been working on finishing “It is Complex; Ergo Goddidit”, which I am excited to present because I have been corresponding with biologists over email on some big questions like the origin of DNA and details absent in Neo-Darwnism.  But I realized I promised to address a comment about J.B. Peterson and related topics in a post.  So I hastily put this together. I really shouldn’t give this individual the spotlight, but I enjoy engaging with people that have different views than I do.  Although these views really come down to a difference in preferences, the concepts that the commentator brings up are hugely important.  If it were not for this point, then I would choose not to engage.  Because there are so many errors and confusion in their understanding, and I don’t have much time.  To be fair, a lot of the points I make are nuanced and require a different perspective, one that they may not be used to. Oh, and to be brutally honest, as I try to refrain from displaying my contempt, this individual confirms why I am not a conservative.

Commentator:

Then. Uh.. Oh… JB Peterson is found to be conservative culturally (he keeps insisting that he is a classical liberal). The horror!!! Conservatism is bad!!! Conservatism is EVIL!!!
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Then. Uh.. Oh… JB Peterson is found to be religious. The horror!!! Religion is bad!!! Religion is EVIL!!! Well, if Religion bends to the diktats of the Left, then Religion is somewhat ok.

Musing:

Notice the shift in the tone of the commentator.  Evil is something we label others with that can do harm to our well-being, which includes those that reject us.  The typical staunch conservative—either literally or symbolically—has not been too friendly to minorities and the LBGTQA+ communities.  If a conservative stays true to their worldview, they can never accept the underrepresented and marginalized.  So you are goddam right many liberals should think of conservatism as evil.  Your mockery either proves your ignorance or indifference to human nature.  Below is the implicit hierarchy that is in the minds of conservatives.  This legitimizes the traditional power structures along with making us believe that the rich are better than the poor. Of course, not all conservatives will have these implicit biases because this is a model!  A model is an ideal type, and real conservatives will vary or deviate in different ways from the ideal type.  But there is enough of the ideal to warrant the model. 

As far as the comment on religion being evil, no I don’t share the same views as the New Atheists do.  Religion can have some value.  I choose to not believe in god nor participate in religion because I made a commitment to realism and science.

Commentator:

The narrator needs to show his Leftist bone fides and has to write some pseudo-objective essay damning JB Peterson with faint praise while implying – giving no specifics -that he is wrong in some undefined aspects.

Musing:

I never damned the guy.  I will say it again.  If we want to be successful, then we should follow Peterson.  My motivations are not to stay true to leftist viewpoints but to insightfully show that there may be some consequences to Peterson’s approach.  I have been writing about status hierarchies for years now.  And to call what I have defined below over and over as “some undefined aspects” either illustrates that they have a comprehension problem, I don’t explain myself well, or they are arguing to win instead of to learn.

I posed a hypothesis that Jordan Peterson’s moral reasoning and teachings are conservative-like through and through.  I then posed another hypothesis that his approach only encourages hyper-competition and contributes to the problem we have with status hierarchy.  Yes, no one has heard of this because it is from the ivory tower.  But over three decades’ worth of research suggests that relatively large disparities in status differences result in a reduction in health and happiness.  This may not make any sense to this individual, but I surely did define my argument.  It won’t make any sense because we need to understand what status hierarchies, relative status, and the conservative worldview are.  This individual obviously did not take the time to read the prerequisites to understanding.  I will get to meritocracy in the next post, which is not in itself evil, but has tradeoffs like any system does.

This individual had a few good points which I acknowledged.  One, they pointed out that my analysis was more of a caricature than an even-handed critique of J.B. Peterson.  I agreed.  Second, they pointed out that Peterson endorses “play”, as in being affable and, well, playful, which eases tensions when relating to others.  I agreed.  But neither of these detracts from the essence of Peterson’s approach which is conservative.  What makes a conservative a conservative?  This has been studied by experts, and I would refer those interested to George Lakoff or Jonathan Haidt.  It is in how they reason and prioritize certain moralities (by Lakoff) which is rooted in their personality (by Haidt).  If we want to know more, then I suggest we read this post.  So unless this individual understands those posts, I will not convince them that conservatism and liberalism are not just political philosophies but rather different ways in which we reason and prioritize our values with.  I doubt they will take the time to research. 

The first hypothesis can be easily shown to be true.  There are four assumptions that drive the reasoning of a conservative.  [If one cares, I would be glad to share.]  These assumptions are radial categories that can vary in different kinds of ways when applied to any particular real-life conservative.  Pick most (not all) lectures Peterson has on YouTube, and we will find evidence of these assumptions.  The stuff that is salient is the stuff that matters.  I know Peterson has more modes of reasoning than the conservative worldview, but conservatism is the stuff that overwhelmingly directs his thoughts and reasoning.  The best evidence we have that his worldview is conservative is that on every single political issue, he is on the side of a conservative.  Jordan Peterson is not stupid; he has a set of well-thought-out values.  These values influence what he chooses to teach and not teach.  As far as being a classical liberal, which libertarians think they came from, they are two steps away from being a conservative.  So it makes no difference.

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Commentator: 

I will address this, which consists of gross misunderstandings and bizarre ramblings, in the next post.

The genesis of all this Peterson-phobia (-phobia as in Hate and/or Fear) is Peterson’s refusal to kowtow to the Leftist imperative on pronouns. Previously Dr Peterson wrote several books, posted 100’s of hours of his lectures on social media. He was relatively unknown until the Leftst kerfuffle about pronouns. Dr Peterson’s fame and fortune exploded because of Leftist hysteria.

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Traditional Marriage: JB Peterson supports it. So what. JB Peterson is not suppressing the gay lifestyle in any way. The pursuit of same-sex marriage to be seen as equivalent to traditional marriage is sign of incompleteness of the gay culture. Ancient Greece where homosexuality was pretty mainstream and yet same-sex marriage was absent. In Ancient Greece, where homosexuality plays a prominent role in its culture, all men are required to marry a woman. Even Alexander had to marry a woman (Roxanne) to strengthen an alliance with another nation. PLATO LAWS 636D : “… He who refuses to marry shall be thus punished in money, and also be deprived of all honour which the younger show to the elder; let no young man voluntarily obey him, and if he attempt to punish any one, let every one come to the rescue and defend the injured person, and he who is present and does not come to the rescue, shall be pronounced by the law to be a coward and a bad citizen.”
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Traditional Marriage. Cultures, subcultures evolve with time, with institutions being created, destroyed, modified on some rational basis. The gay community says “Love is Love”. So why the opposition by the Gay Community to polygyny, polyandry, human-animal marriage which are embodiments of the “Love is love” principle? Can a community experiment with same-sex marriage? Yes! Why not? We will see the state of same-sex marriage in, say, 75 yrs from now. Traditional Marriage lasted thousands of years.
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More on Plato. PLATO LAW, BOOK 8:”But how can we take precautions against the unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come upon individuals and cities? How shall we devise a remedy and way of escape out of so great a danger? … in what degree will they contribute to virtue? Will such passions implant in the soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance? Who will ever believe this?-or rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures and is unable to hold out against them? ”
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Transgenderism. JB Peterson’s stance on this issue is very much based on atheist – not christian – foundation. “Gender-Affirming” care. What gender is being affirmed? The spiritual gender? The material gender? Why do atheists abandon their faith on the transgenderism issue by embracing the spiritual gender over the material gender? I thought atheists do not believe in spirits, souls, ghosts, gods, and such silly stuff. The atheist’s stance on transgenderism is akin to Cargo Plane Cults where wooden planes were built as inducements for actual planes to come back with modern material goods.
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“When you exclude people, then you will arouse animosity.” Excluding from what? Excluding for what reason? The politics of the American Left is politics of J.E.A.R. (Jealousy, Envy, Anger, Resentment). Animosity brings about Resentment. The politics of the Left is not so much one of Inclusion but one of Intrusion. The American Left is not comfortable, not interested in multi-cultural societies. Multiple cultures in the same physical space invariably implies that some aspects of one culture are excluded from other cultures; otherwise all cultures are one and the same resulting in a mono-cultrue society. For a harmonious multi-cultural society there should be a set of overlapping interests common to all participating cultures while – naturally – each culture maintaining exclusive aspects : the basis of federalism. And yet the American Left is bothered by “cultural appropriation”.
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Is same-sex marriage just cultural appropriation from heterosexual culture? Why does gay culture want to imitate heterosexual culture? Is gay culture parasitic?
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Is transgenderism just cultural appropriation from female culture? Why does transgender culture want to imitate female culture? Is transgender culture parasitic?
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Mr Rogers as transphobe. Check YouTube (Mr Rogers on gender orientation — The Tonight Show 09-04-1980).
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“I began to like the guy despite his beliefs.” Who cares. I doubt very much JB Peterson cares. Play the pieces on the board, not the person across the board. Facts do not care about your feelings.

Leftism encourages fear, not respect. Leftism encourages J.E.A.R. (Jealousy, Envy, Anger, Resentment).  The Left fears the competent.  The Left resents the competent.

Yes, I believe in many but not all cases envy and indignation can be at the root of a liberal worldview.

According to the dictionary, FORMIDABLE = inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable. Fear (aka intimidation) versus Respect. Fear is not Respect. Fear is a reaction; respect is a decision. Going back to the subject of play, no one gets invited to play through intimidation. Peterson definitely advocates people to strive to be capable, competent, and (IMPORTANTLY) playful. Formidable and playful inspires much more respect than fear. Fear and Respect are functions of the beholder more than of said formidable person.
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According to the dictionary, RESPECT = a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Respect opens one to improve oneself, to educate oneself. Fear closes one to improvement and education. Leftism encourages fear, not respect. Leftism encourages J.E.A.R. (Jealousy, Envy, Anger, Resentment). The Left fears the competent. The Left resents the competent.

 

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Sources recommended for the commentator to help them get up to speed:

[1] Anonymous. The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics. Federalist Publications.

[2] Boehm, Christopher. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Harvard University

[3] Deaton, Angus. The Great Escape. Princeton University Press.

[4] Greene, Joshua. Moral Tribes. Penguin Publishing Group.

[5] Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

[6] Kling, Arnold. The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides. Cato Institute.

[7] Lakoff, George. Moral Politics. University of Chicago Press.

[8] Lakoff, George. The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant! . Chelsea Green Publishing.

[9] Lakoff, George. Philosophy In The Flesh.

[10] Lakoff, George. The Political Mind. Penguin Publishing Group.

[11] Lakoff, George. Your Brain’s Politics. Societas.

[12] Ryan, Christopher. Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster.

[13] Tuschman, Avi. Our Political Nature. Prometheus.

[14] Waal, Frans de. The Age of Empathy. Random House LLC

[15] Westen, Drew. The Political Brain. PublicAffairs.

I have to take a break from JB Peterson, and I will not be posting the next section for some time.  Here is a recent argument I got into regarding design and God.  I thought Richard Dawkin’s sledgehammer approach converted all the believers years ago, at least persuaded them that we cannot possibly be designed.  Of course, he did not since people believe what they want to believe.  This may not be new stuff for most of us, but I want someone special to read it because they believe in the design argument.  

I have not thought about God for a long while.  However, a recent conversation that I had reminded me that I can still get agitated when someone does not see it as I see it.  That is interesting in itself and worthy of its own post.  I get especially perturbed when someone is unfamiliar with the topic and doggedly persists without considering my points.  But my points were not articulated well, and I have forgotten what my favorite authors’ names and arguments were.  This post will revisit this topic as well as ask an important question.  Are we too hard on believers?  I think so.  The argument from complexity is not that bad, yet I am still an atheist.

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Those Stubborn Beliefs

Two things said by my opponent were that we do not all use the same criteria when evaluating arguments and that the theory of evolution cannot account for all of life’s complexity are good points. For the former point, our myside bias, which is what we want to believe, will make us weigh evidence in favor of our belief more heavily.  Our belief becomes a hypothesis which is a kind of confirmation bias.  That is, we seek evidence that supports our belief and discount other evidence.  But all of science works this way because that is how the mind works.  We cannot imagine two beliefs and simultaneously filter two different kinds of evidence.  But what if our belief is not the right explanation?  Obviously, we must always challenge our beliefs, despite how stubborn they can be.

Beliefs are stubborn things because we probably show an emotional commitment to them, and our identities may be tied to them. What I mean is that these beliefs become “etched” over time in our brains and become reinforced the more we access them.  The more emotion that is tied to them, then the more difficult it is to “rewire” them [1].  These beliefs or “frames” become filters for how we view the world and can create much meaning in our lives.  Beliefs are reinforcing because when we find that something fits our beliefs, then we do not feel dissonance.  What my opponent said, however, was misleading because although we may not all accept the same evidence because of our bias, there are objective ways and criteria for determining which explanation is better.

The best way of determining the strength of our explanations within an argument is by ABE or Argument to the Best Explanation*. In fact, this can be framed in terms of Bayes’ theorem which is just a mathematical way of expressing ABE.  ABE tells us a lot of obvious but important things.  One, our explanation needs to be plausible, which is a measure of how typical our explanation is. Two, it must have explanatory power which means that it must fare better than other hypotheses.   Three, the explanation must have explanatory fitness and not contradict our background knowledge.  Four, it must have explanatory scope and be able to explain a wide range of observations.  Lastly, we cannot add a bunch of other arguments (ad hocness) to make our argument work.

I do not wish to bash anyone for their beliefs unless they are harmful to others.  Believing in God is mostly innocuous, so I respect this person’s belief.  But if we are posing it as a hypothesis to explain phenomena, then it is open to criticism as much as the next one.  We cannot just throw our hands in the air and say that this is a matter of opinion.  Our preference for believing in God is subjective, but the claim of whether or not God caused complexity has an answer.  Let us look at the evidence and reasoning used. Note, for those who say that God works in mysterious ways and that evidence and reasoning are irrelevant, then their beliefs are nothing more than beliefs.  They forfeit any rights that they may have had to have any sort of intellectual conversation.

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It’s Complex; Ergo Godditit

Argument: Life is complex, therefore God designed it.

Evidence: consciousness is too complex; science is not the only way to understand; it hasn’t explained everything

The argument that was given is shown above.  This is the God of the gaps fallacy which says that if there is a gap in our scientific understanding, therefore God did it.  The God of the gaps argument has historically been the wrong position to take.  It would be incorrect, however, for me to say since it has been wrong in the past, then it is wrong now.  This is the problem of induction, for which there exists no solution.  But this type of reasoning works nevertheless.  It probably works because nature over time seems to be uniform and predictable.  In any event, I will not rely on this type of reasoning.  The argument as it stands is circular, and it does not tell us anything new.  It is missing premises and is a last-ditch effort to save God.  I suspect that it is also a somewhat more acceptable way of smuggling in a personal God.  Science easily explains why we may have a belief in an intimate God, so unless God operates against all reason and logic, we have no reason to give credence to the idea that there is a personal God.

To help my opponent, we can easily change any circular argument into a valid argument by adding premises.  In fact, Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute did just that.  Meyer says that since our experiences tell us that many complex things are designed, then we can make the inference that life was designed.  This is a perfectly reasonable argument.  Atheists use this same type of argument to illustrate that Jesus Christ, like all the Gods before him, is just another God.  We do not believe in any of those dozens of other Gods, so why should we believe in this God?  No, you see because this God is special.  As true as this reasoning probably is, we cannot just dismiss the divinity of Jesus (ii).  Jesus may be a “special” God and defy our analogous reasoning (iii).  But the same thing is true then for Meyer’s reasoning.  Meyer could say that just because major gaps have been filled by science, it does not mean that the inference that life was designed will also be filled.  In both cases, we must appeal to the actual evidence at hand.

It is very intuitive for us to think that things are designed because they often are—technology obviously is one such thing.  But not all things that we observe have a designer other than nature.  I could give an exhaustive list, but for many, this will not suffice.  It will not suffice because comparing snowflakes to human cells is not believable.  This is why we must turn to natural selection as a force of nature that is guided by a species’ environment and random mutation.  But to some scientists, like Marc Kirschner who wrote “The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma”, Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not the complete picture.  I plan on using this evidence to at least show that life is, as the book states, very plausibly not designed…

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References 

[1] The Bias That Divides Us.  Stanovich, Keith E.

Opposing Comments: Leftism encourages fear, not respect. Leftism encourages J.E.A.R. (Jealousy, Envy, Anger, Resentment).  The Left fears the competent.  The Left resents the competent.

[This is actually a good point, but I can’t get to it until the next post…]

I am glad that someone challenged my review of Jordan Peterson, where I used hasty generalizations.  I picked out a few distinctive vignettes and created a caricature.  But is Peterson’s philosophy more than this?  This reviewer had what follows to say about this post which at a cursory glance may seem like good points.  But they nevertheless miss my point.  My point, however, was too nuanced and not developed enough for anyone to get it.  If I were to summarize my point, it would be that Petersonism reinforces hyper-competition.  The inevitable result of hyper-competition is status hierarchies.  It makes zero difference if these hierarchies are based on competence or intimidation from other forms.  Decades worth of epidemiological studies show the deleterious effects of status hierarchies.  We weren’t always this competitive because we were egalitarian before the advent of the agricultural revolution.  Since competition and status striving are here to stay, should we take Petersonism to heart or rebuke it?

None of this means that the alternative to hyper-competition is a system of socialism.  This post is not about other options although many authors have proposed ways to at least buffer the costs of unbridled capitalism.  My thoughts on conservatism, which is the essence of Peterson’s approach, is that it is a preference mainly based on personality differences.  But it also can be dangerous because it can lead to demonizing the Other.  In fact, the conservative mode of reasoning leads to conclusions like the following.

If he has not worked hard enough, he is slothful and hence morally weak.  If he is not talented enough, then he ranks lower than others in the natural order…The rich (who are talented enough and who have worked hard enough to become rich) deserve their wealth and the poor (either through lack of industry or talent) deserve their poverty [1].

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Response to Commetator 

Opposing Comments: Seeing no actual JB Peterson quotes in this essay, I doubt the author has read or listened to JB Peterson. There are citations from people who opined about JB Peterson but no citations of JB Peterson himself. The books and lectures of JB Peterson cover a very wide array of subjects and the author demonstrates a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of JB Peterson’s philosophy.

Opposing Comments:  Evidently the author is ignorant about JB Peterson’s work on play. The author claims that Peterson’s advice “boils down to intimidating others”. The author is just being prejudicial.

The commentator does not convince me that I have a profound misunderstanding of his philosophy.  If by philosophy they mean his approach, then I think even my caricature captures the “flavor” of his brand.   He is for an extreme form of meritocracy, and I am not even touching upon his other conservative beliefs.  Conservatism has been identified to be a mode of thought that gives direction and form to our arguments.  Conservatism is the essence of his philosophy despite the occasional appeal to “play”.  Although I do not agree with this, many have labeled Peterson as a “pseudo-intellectual” because of his brand permeating his reasoning.

Play is what we do when we want to ease tension in our social interactions, and hence we can say that it is a good thing for the functioning of social hierarchies.  When I say Petersonism is more about “getting ahead” than “getting along”, I mean that the unintended consequence of his focus results in this.  Jordan Peterson must work within the confines of meritocracy.  Although he may very well be for “getting along” within this context, the inevitable result of his approach is contributing to meritocracy.  Although we participate in this system, we do not have a choice because we are indoctrinated into it.  And status hierarchies work by who submits to who.  This hardly qualifies as getting along.  Understanding this will require a deeper explanation of status hierarchies.

We are so used to the point that competition is good for us that I do not expect anyone to see the perils of meritocracy.  Meritocracy rewards the competent and punishes the incompetent.  There may be some good things that come out of meritocracies such as high-quality services and products.  But carrots and sticks are not the only way to motivate people.  It is also an efficient way to implement an economic system, but is it the best way to configure a society?  I am not claiming to have the answers to this, but we do know the costs of this system.  Epidemiological research has been conducted over decades with robust and conclusive results.

If we want to learn about the effects of status hierarchies, I have written about this here and here.  To summarize an effect, those who make an income of $40k have a relative risk of death of three times that of the group that makes $140k.  This has nothing to do with absolute status, which is how much education and income we have in absolute terms.  It is about what education and income bring relative to the next guy.  Relative status gives us more control and social benefits in life.  This means that even if we make a handsome $200k a year, if the people we compete with are more capable, intelligent, and earn more, we will not be better off.

I must also add that I am not prejudiced against Jordon Peterson.  I began to like the guy despite his beliefs.  And I think if we want to be successful in this system, most of his advice is spot on.  The last comment on the alpha males is not something I even discussed.  I do not think the commentator understands what exactly a status hierarchy is and relies on the dictionary to assist with concepts that are better left for social and evolutionary psychologists to sort out.  In the next post, I will explain what I mean by a status hierarchy by relying on real models.  This will give us a better understanding of the differences between fear, respect, admiration, deference, submission, and more.  Lastly, I will also address the comment at the top of the page because the commentator is right.  But it turns out that those feelings have assisted the downtrodden to be successful over millions of years.

Opposing Commemts: ccording to the dictionary, FORMIDABLE = inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable. Fear (aka intimidation) versus Respect. Fear is not Respect. Fear is a reaction; respect is a decision. Going back to the subject of play, no one gets invited to play through intimidation. Peterson definitely advocates people to strive to be capable, competent, and (IMPORTANTLY) playful. Formidable and playful inspires much more respect than fear. Fear and Respect are functions of the beholder more than of said formidable person.

According to the dictionary, RESPECT = a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Respect opens one to improve oneself, to educate oneself. Fear closes one to improvement and education.

The author confuses JB Peterson with Andrew Tate who stated that the main goal of the alpha male is status.

To be fair, Peterson is more than just my caricature.  This can easily be proven by looking at his 12 Rules for Life which touch upon relationships, personal growth, finding meaning in life, and more.  But none of this negates that his overwhelming approach utilizes conservative concepts.  Take a look at what George Lakoff calls the conservative constellation of concepts.  Peterson uses these to teach us lessons.  Of course, Peterson also tells us to question the rules if they are stupid.  He is more than my caricature.  But at the core, since we need a worldview to organize our thoughts and feelings, he must rely on something to give his thoughts direction.

character, virtue, discipline, tough it out, get tough, tough love, strong, self-reliance, individual responsibility, backbone, standards, authority, heritage, competition, earn, hard work, enterprise, property rights, reward, freedom, intrusion, interference, meddling, punishment, human nature, traditional, common sense, dependency, self-indulgent, elite, quotas, breakdown, corrupt, decay, rot, degenerate, deviant, lifestyle. [1]

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Notes

i).  I do not think, however, that our liberal bias is not somewhat warranted.  For those who fall into the categories of the underrepresented, e.g., the LBGTQA+ community, Peterson is quite frankly not that supportive.  He supports traditional marriage and other conservative beliefs which are obviously not a plus for those who are not traditional.  When you exclude people, then you will arouse animosity.  I am trying to put aside those beliefs in order to focus on a single belief of meritocracy.

[1] Lakoff, George. Moral Politics. University of Chicago Press.

I am a little late to talk about Jordan Peterson, but he does not seem like he is going anywhere and his popularity is growing.  I have been analyzing him for months now, and he most definitely poses a challenge to liberals.  Here are just a few thoughts I have.

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On Liking Jordan Peterson

If you like Jordan Peterson, then this means that you are more concerned about “getting ahead” than “getting along”.  This is my conclusion after listening to him for about a year now.  Since he is a religious conservative, can we conclude that he is not friendly to the interests of minorities, the poor, and the LBGTQA+ community?  I do not think that he denies that gender differences exist nor that  LBGTQA+’s interests have been unfairly represented if at all in our culture**, but he believes that we should not subvert categorization.  He talks about how there is variation in personalities and temperaments within sexes.  For example, a female can vary in her masculinity-femininity to the point of appearing “masculine”.  But this is the exception and not the rule, so we should not be too concerned about this.  In other words, we have no need to recategorize or cater to their interests.

On the other hand, if we are more concerned about competing and being successful, then Peterson does have some good advice. He believes that we need to be articulate to fight this “war”, which is what life is to him.  Being articulate is our weapon and means for becoming formidable.  If we are not strong, then we are weak.  And who wants to be weak. It is hard to argue with these types of arguments if we are concerned about striving and status.  He does seem to be a genuinely compassionate*** person.  Most people within the field of clinical psychology are.  Despite how knowledgeable he is on religious matters and his ability to relate biblical truths to our everyday struggles, he is nevertheless mistaken on the big issues.  I am curious what take others have on Peterson.

I know many on ftb have written about him, but I haven’t had the chance to read them.  I will do some searching and get updated.

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What Does Peterson Challenge?

There are a few challenges that he poses. If we are interested in status striving, like being successful in this world, then his advice is not that bad. So one challenge would be to like him enough to listen to his advice.  Another challenge is that he legitimizes the conservative worldview.  People believe that he, like a typical pundit, is uncovering the veneer that hides the truth.  There are also a lot of people that don’t like the “woke*” culture, and he offers an alternative.  These are not his only appeal though.  A lot of people strive to achieve a certain status in life and have been blocked, for whatever reasons.  Peterson whacks them over the head with a sense of urgency that speaks to them.  Hey, “you have to be tough in this world and that means being a realist, formidable, dogged, and smart.”  In other words, self-interested.  Many will be persuaded by this kind of talk, liberals and conservatives because it appeals to the “tough guy/gal/them” in all of us.  We all have this side in us because we all need to compete and survive.

The core of liberalism, however, is about empathy or putting oneself in the shoes of another.  Everything Peterson is about is the exact opposite.  Of course, he will claim that empathy is still utilized in his teachings, but he calls this “tough love”.  We are preparing our children to be “warriors” not “snowflakes”, and we won’t let people take advantage of us.  Take a look at what “formidable” means.  If we break it down, it boils down to intimidating others.  This implies that we must be “better” than others.  We no longer intimidate people by our physical strength but by our capabilities and accomplishments, i.e., our status and prestige.  To me, this is a realist approach that works well for our capitalistic and overly competitive society, but it is only reinforcing a culture of self-interest.

If everyone believes and practices this stuff, then this only increases competition and ups the ante.  Think it through.  There will be inevitable losers to the game.  A person-to-person face-off, which is what he is acknowledging and promoting, cannot have two winners.  Either one defers and submits to the other with inferiority or dominates with superiority.  Where is the empathy and assistance to these people?  Put aside his refusal to help or acknowledge the oppressed with any empathy, my personal opinion is that his approach is too aggressive and his references to the Bible annoy me.  But that is exactly why most people like him.

* This of course is a dysphemism for having a heightened concern about others that most had little concern for in the past.

** I am not one-hundred percent positive on this one.

*** Is his compassion feigned or real is anyone’s guess.  But his compassion is exclusive to those “hardworking” folks that are trying to compete in this world.

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References

• https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/why-we-love-and-hate-jordan-peterson-20210324-p57djw
• https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/why-the-left-is-so-afraid-of-jordan-peterson/567110/
• https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest
• a year’s worth of listening to him on Facebook and Instagram.

If anyone is interested in philosophy, then this may be a worthwhile read.  I know, for many this may just be common knowledge.   I am putting up a blog that I have created from scratch, no cookie-cutter Wix for me, that will hone in on concepts that I believe all critical thinkers should know.  This may be included.  It has a liberal bias of course, but that is because liberals have the science more often than not correct, oh, and they seem to care a little more about things.  The first part is truth in brief, while the latter part deals with it in depth.  A discussion on truth matters because conservatives, religious fanatics, and pundits label liberals relativists.

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A Brief Overview of Truth

Truth is an important topic. In fact, without a notion of truth, which is what conforms to reality, we would not be able to function very well. It is also important to the world of politics since everyone believes they are right. Is truth relative as in “what is true for you may not be true for me”, or are truths absolute as in everywhere and always true and independent of what we believe? It depends upon what type of truths we are considering. I, however, reject the notion of absolute objective truth because even facts about nature are dependent upon our understanding. This makes every fact relative to at the very least our minds. After all, without our conceptual systems (how we categorize and understand our reality) nature would just be stuff that does stuff with stuff. But if I, for example, claim that a cup is on the table, then the cup’s existence is absolute. The claim, however, that the cup is on the table, as expressed in language, is always relative to our understanding. That is, in order to understand it, we must have the same language and concepts. This does not mean that everything is open to interpretation or is relative. Things instead can be objectively true within a framework. This means that we must settle on relative objective truths. [If you still don’t get it, then read the in-depth discussion.]

Truth is a kind of illusory rule-following, the purpose of which has long been forgotten; it’s a “mobile army of metaphors” that become “enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically” by people in charge.

Was Nietzsche Right?

If something is a matter of fact, then there is some consensus on how to determine its truth. Does the senate have 100 seats? Does demand increase when prices decrease all else equal? These issues can be settled, and these facts obviously do not care what we believe. Facts can be established by definition or by observing a phenomena, and we can determine the truth of a fact by either observation or reasoning. Opinions, by contrast, are subjective because they are based on our preferences. Is a dog a good pet? There is no way to settle the issue and only the person making the claim has access to the things that make it true. We should not, however, claim that objective truth is more important than subjective truth since it depends upon the situation.

Nietzsche is referring to mostly definitional facts that we create. These truths are often called intersubjective by postmodernists because the definitions are based on people’s perception which go on to form a consensus. As much as postmodernism gets wrong since they do not believe any truth should be given priority over another truth, they are correct in that all truth is relative to a framework. Our language and concepts, for example, form a unique framework in how to view the world. As far as science is concerned, I reject the postmodernist’s claims that it is but one of many narratives. There is a reality that is independent of us, and we can know this reality. In fact, we would not be able to survive if our concepts were not a reflection of reality’s important attributes.

We Prove Morals True

What is important for the world of politics are beliefs, values, and morals. These types of truths are difficult to prove. They are important, however, because they can shape our reality just as much as the facts of nature do. Since we operate as if our beliefs are true, then they can be thought of as facts. Morals are not facts about the natural world that we observe of course. For example, the claim that abortion is immoral becomes a fact to the believer. They then try to show how it is immoral by way of argument. All moral systems believe that morality is about human wellbeing, so we could argue that morality is absolute. But it depends on who gets to define it. If we frame abortion as a baby instead of as a cluster of cells, then conservatives are correct when they claim abortion is immoral. Conversely, liberals are also correct that abortion is moral because destroying cells is not killing a person. It is framing differences that cause truth to seem like it is up for grabs. When it comes to certain kinds of truths, Nietzsche may be correct.

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For those who demand an in depth treatment of truth, namely on objectivism and absolutism.  

I. Are We Absolutely Sure?

The political and religious right hate the word relativism. I suspect that they would score low on personality assessments that test for openness to experience but high for a need for order, structure, and closure. Because not liking relativism suggests a difficulty in dealing with nuance. The world is complex and things depend on other things. What can we say for certain is absolute—that is, what is always and everywhere true (universal) and not dependent upon things to make it true (unconditional)? Not much unless we restrict what counts as making the fact conditional. Is one and one always and everywhere two? This seems to be the case. We made up mathematics, so this should not be surprising. Does the fact that we have to understand the fact count as the fact being dependent on something else? It all depends. All triangles have three sides. I concede that this is an absolute objective fact. But, again, are we being too restrictive in what counts as a relation to the fact since we cannot have a conversation without understanding the fact in the first place?

What about the idea that relativism refutes itself because if it is not absolutely true, then how can everything be relative? The statement is not meant to be self-referential. Language is a tool to communicate ideas and that is what the statement does. This is where things get tricky. Take the true proposition that “the cup is on the table.” This is known as a true truth bearer. The claim, which is itself true, is referring to (or bearing) a truth. What the claim refers to, not the claim itself, is an absolute fact because its existence is independent of our minds and is always and everywhere true. But the linguistic claim itself cannot be absolute because it depends upon our understanding. And some cultures, for example, may not have a concept for cup. For the statement one and one is two, if we believe that math is neither an objective nor transcedent part of the universe, which cognitive science shows easily, then it is only a universal fact because of humans. Although math may reveal objective features of the universe, it itself is not an objective feature of the world.

The words absolute and objective are often used interchangeably. If we define absolute as independent of only the mind (unconditional) and everywhere and always (universal) true, then our analysis becomes easier. Objectivism, which is a model on how to perceive the world, makes an ontological split between “objects,” which are “out there,” and subjectivity, which is “in here”. Objectivity translates to “things themselves”. It is when we fit the world to words as it “actuallly” is, minimizing subjectivity (bias). When scientists say that we can know the objective world, they only mean it in the sense that there is a world independent of our subjectivity. With science’s advanced instrumentation, we would have to agree that we can characterize reality in many ways. They cannot say though that their version of reality will be universal in all possible worlds.

Objects, however, do not come with descriptions in themselves; we must make descriptions with our conceptual systems. As we will find out, our conceptual systems (how we categorize and understand) shapes the world in unique ways. Since we are involved in the conceptualization of reality, then the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity begin to lose their boundaries. The best we can say is that science is observing a stable reality both in its form and function. We know this to be the case because we have indpendent people with different equipment measuring the same reality up against a common standard. If the results converge, then we know we are measuring some type of stable reality. This is because using different equipment minimizes the possibility that one is introducing a biased interpretation. Reality though is still dependent upon our understanding, which means we cannot have absolute truth. Realty’s existence is absolute but its description and conceptualization are not.

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II. Objectivism As A Model

The problem with scientific realism is that it takes two intertwined and inseparable dimensions of all experience—the awareness of the experiencing organism and the stable entities and structures it encounters—and erects them as separate and distinct entities called subjects and objects. What “external” realism misses is that, as embodied, imaginative creatures, we never were separated or divorced from reality in the first place. What has always made science possible is our embodiment, not our transcendence of it, and our imagination, not our avoidance of it.  George Lakoff  

Truths are either verifiable by observation or reason. Postmodernists, who subscribe to subjectivism, claim that objectivity is an intersubjective consensus of shared truths amongst people. Truth does seem to take on the role of being a consensus because of conformity. But observational truths are grounded in reality because we were designed to sucsessfully interact with our enviornment. Our brains, via perceptual and motor systems, categorize the world by forming certain kinds of categories, such as color, basic-level, spatial-relation, and aspectual (event-structuring) concepts. When we form basic-level categories, such as identifying an object, we use mental-imagery, motor movement, and gestalt perception to conceptualize them. Once we categorize reality, we then form various prototypes, instances of the category, which allows us to do “some sort of inferential or imaginative task relative to a category.” This forms the basis of reasoning, which involves inference, entailment, and metaphor.

We understand concepts by how we interact with the world. Objectivists, however, define concepts by their inherit properties and apply necessary and sufficienet conditions in accordance with set theory. For basic-level and spatial-relation concepts, which would be objects in space, objectivism’s account of reality converges with ours. We will soon find out though that it gives false predictions and is restrictive. Objectivism, for example, would tell us that green is an inherit property of the green grass. But physics tells us that green is not inheritly “in the grass” since it is reflected and interpreted by our brains as being green. There is no reason to reject a first-person ontology. A person’s phenomenological experience is every bit as valid as the neural level (color cones). Objectivism, however, has no way of dealing with conflicing levels of truth. It is supposed to represent a single level-indepedent or neutral perspective. Disciplines necessarily conceptualize phenomena differently. In fact, there are three levels within cognitive science: phenomenolgoical, cognitive unconsious, and neural. Each level is real because they predict how real phenomena behaves.

Although objectivism is adhered to for science, with the exception of color, it is a myth nevertheless. It is a myth because it is a narrative that tells us how to understand reality. It runs into problems because its theory of truth is supposed to be indepedent of human understanding. Since meaning is depedent upon understanding, meaning, say of a sentence, cannot exist in itself. Objectivism believes it can give a theory of truth in itself, where the theory of meaning will be based on it as well. The key to understanding truth, however, is that it is a phenomena. Truth is when things make sense to us, relative to our conceptual systems, and happens when we successfuly interact with the world. To objectivim, truth is a matter of fitting words to the world. This approach leaves a chasm where meaning is either found glued to the world itself or in the words themselves. But meaning cannot be in the world itself. It cannot be in the words either because of formalism’s influence on linguistics, which says that language is the manipulation of meaningless symbols or words by formal rules. This leaves objectivism with trying to fill in the gaps with the correspondence theory of truth, but it gives false predictions on language and understanding.

I have so much I would like to write about but have not had the time lately.  I appreciate those who take the time to read and comment because that is how I learn.  This research article got my attention, so I must post it.  For those doubters that political correctness and raising consciousnesses to our biases do not change anything, perhaps a study conducted over 14 years may.

Many conservatives believe that racism does not exist.  It is nothing more than a conspiracy—a way for liberal politicians to exploit our mistaken beliefs.  But implicit and explicit biases, which this study measured in 7.1 million tests, are a real thing.  When we automatically make judgments without being aware of it, say old is bad and young is good, then this is implicit.  By contrast, when we consciously and deliberately make negative judgments toward others, these are explicit biases.  Researchers have devised clever tests that can reliably distinguish between the two.  If we read the abstract below, we will see that biases in almost every category decreased with the exception of “age, disability, and body-weight attitudes.”

I am always appalled when I learn that a co-worker believes that there is no such thing as bias and racism.  There has been a concerted effort by the political right to spread this propaganda for decades now.   This goes back to the 1970s when anti-PC propaganda often originated from think tanks, such as the Cato Institute.  Many myths about political correctness have been born as a result.  I will post these myths in the next post.

I do not know how much the study hypothesizes that changes in attitudes come from the concerted efforts of political correctness in our culture versus other causes.  But where else would it come from other than our culture raising awareness?  I suppose we can reason that equality is just and then start equal treatment ourselves.  In any event, here is the abstract from the article.  I do not have access to it, so I have not read it yet and cannot attest to its significance.  If we like to appeal to authority, Steven Pinker, like him or hate him, did post this as evidence as well on Twitter.  I will soon get my hands on a copy of it and report back.

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Research Article’s Abstract

Using more than 7.1 million implicit and explicit attitude tests drawn from U.S. participants to the Project Implicit website, we examined long-term trends across 14 years (2007–2020). Despite tumultuous sociopolitical events, trends from 2017 to 2020 persisted largely as forecasted from past data (2007–2016). Since 2007, all explicit attitudes decreased in bias between 22% (age attitudes) and 98% (race attitudes). Implicit sexuality, race, and skin-tone attitudes also continued to decrease in bias, by 65%, 26%, and 25%, respectively. Implicit age, disability, and body-weight attitudes, however, continued to show little to no long-term change. Patterns of change and stability were generally consistent across demographic groups (e.g., men and women), indicating widespread, macrolevel change. Ultimately, the data magnify evidence that (some) implicit attitudes reveal persistent, long-term change toward neutrality. The data also newly reveal the potential for short-term influence from sociopolitical events that temporarily disrupt progress toward neutrality, although attitudes eventually return to long-term homeostasis in trends.

Charlesworth, T. E. S., & Banaji, M. R. (2022). Patterns of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes: IV. Change and Stability From 2007 to 2020. Psychological Science, 33(9), 1347–1371. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221084257

I have been incredibly busy, so I am way behind on my posts.  This one is not even done, so I have to break it up into portions.  This is a breakdown courtesy of the latest scientific research on how we respond to signals that we “aren’t enough” or are “less than”.  It is fascinating how we evolved to actually care what others think.  I will save the why we care what others think for the next post.

This is a follow-up to my posts on criticisms and on Jonathan Haidt’s analysis of microaggressions.  Haidt believes that we should desensitize ourselves to criticisms and insults and not be a part of the callout culture.  I agree with his advice that it is better to learn how to cope with criticism than shield ourselves from it.  However, there are groups of people that are vulnerable to pervasive insults and shaming, like minorities, LBGTQ+, or undesirable others, who may benefit from protection in hopes that they can rise in political and cultural status.  This becomes a challenge since many believe it is a fundamental right of freedom of speech to be able to put down others.  If a criticism bears truth, then it is our right to disparage others, especially if they or their attributes are inferior or inadequate.  This can be settled by one question.  Is our goal in life to be right or to get along with others?

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How We Respond to Criticisms and Insults

Criticisms are when we “find fault” in something or someone.  Everything else is a variation on the criticism but expressed with various intentions, emotions, subtleties, and body language.  It becomes abusive if we want to inflict emotional harm (i), which is a form of emotional abuse.  Abusive criticisms can be formed as insults, humiliation, epithets, disparage, ridicule, contempt, mocking, teasing, innuendo, slur, and sarcasm.  A stipulation is that the attack must be on our appearance, abilities, character, intelligence, or affiliations.  These areas are vulnerable because we do not want to be exposed as “less than” or “not good enough” to some desirable standard.  We do not like to deviate from desirable standards because we can feel shame, hurt feelings, and anger.

Take an insult that Donald Trump has said to Robert Denerio and Mika Brzezinski, “You are a low IQ individual.”  This is an abusive criticism, namely an insult, because it is meant to inflict emotional harm, but it may not be a criticism in the strict sense.  It is criticism if there is truth to it, which lies within the perception of others.  Knowing Trump, this insult was uttered with the emotion of contempt to add to its effect.  Contempt signals that we are not worthy of consideration since we or are attributes are inferior.  What about the insult that those are “shithole countries?  Since our place of origin and culture are tied to our identity, then we should be offended.  Even though this is not a direct criticism, we can feel shame by virtue of identifying with an inferior place or group.

Let us say we made a mistake at work and someone said that we were “careless and dumb”.  This is a clear insult but could also be a legitimate criticism if that is how we are perceived.  If it is something that we hear a lot, there may be some truth to it.  But how do we process this?  Initially, we may not process the threat entirely.  The brain will realize,  however, that it is a threat to our self-worth, and we will feel anger because we externalize the event—that is, it is coming from a source that is not us.  Anger is the emotion of self-preservation, and it tells others that we won’t be pushed around.  But responding to a perceived slight with anger is unacceptable at work, and we know this unconsciously.  The only other option is to attribute the slight to internal causes.

If we attribute it to our abilities or intelligence, things out of our control that cannot be changed, we will feel shame.  If we attribute it to us not trying hard enough, things within our control, then we feel guilt.  That is not all.  If we process this as the person no longer holds us in high esteem or values us, then we can feel hurt feelings.  Narcissists, on the other hand, deflect criticism with hubristic pride.

1. Does the criticism threaten who I am supposed to be— e.g., a capable, smart, and attractive person?
   1. If yes, then go to 2.  If no, then stop.
2. Is the threat internal (caused by me) or external (not caused by me)?
   1. If we attribute the threat coming from someone else, then we can display anger.  go to 4.
   2. If we internalize the threat, which is an unconscious process, then go to 3.
3. Is the threat something that is out of my control or within my control (ii)?
   1. If out of our control, then we feel shame.  If within our control, then we feel guilt.
4. Do we imagine ourselves as the criticism portrays us or ruminate over our feelings of being mistreated?
   1. If so, this can lead to anger or rage.  We can have the thoughts of “who do they think they are” and retaliate.

What if it is generally believed that we are ugly, stupid, inadequate, or undesirable?  People of course fall on a continuum within these categories, but we think categorically and stereotypically.  We are either in or out of a category.  He is attractive.  He is not attractive.  He is smart.  He is not smart.  There must be some threshold within the continuum that allows us to make these black or white appraisals.  Therapists, however, warn of global or black-and-white words because they can induce the emotion of shame.  Why do they induce shame?  Because if it is us, which global words necessarily imply, then we are forced to make a global attribution and feel shame as a consequence.  If we instead said that certain aspects of us are ugly or dumb, then we may not trigger shame.  It is the extent to which the internal attribution is stable, controllable, and global.  And “the degree to which shame becomes spread to a global sense of self depends on the meaning and values of the roles and attributes that are deemed important for self-definition and identity [1]”.

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[1] The Self-Conscious Emotions.  Tracy, Jessica.

Quirks of nature happen all the time.  When we pay attention to an inconsistency, our motivation is usually to delegitimize a person, idea, or movement.  Hopefully, these quirks are not fatal.  Inconsistencies may not matter if there is a net benefit or if the purpose is achieved.  The above is no more inconsistent than the idea that we want to minimize murder through capital punishment.  What about a doctor who is treating us for cancer but has never had cancer, the drug addict preaching to us not to use drugs, or conservatives hating their government but loving their country?  Although it feels like hypocrisy or inconsistency, which we are good at detecting, none of this matters for the purpose of treating a patient, giving good advice, or following the dictums of an ideology.

The cartoon says that in liberals’ efforts to increase the inclusion of marginalized others, we end up excluding those who do not want to participate.  We can view this as irony or as pragmatism.  It is a punitive mechanism to improve the status of a group of people by creating acceptable speech and behavior.  We may lose some people along the way, but as was the case for women and gays, the net effect is that these people rise in political and cultural status (i).  The two complaints of political correctness are, one, it robs us of our freedom of expression and, two, it privileges one group at the expense of other groups.  There is confusion regarding these two points, which deserve a separate post.  Especially since the left is characterized as follows in the event of Salman Rushdie’s death.

The first group (liberals) believes they are motivated by inclusion and tolerance—that it’s possible to create something even better than liberalism, a utopian society where no one is ever offended.  But it is the indulgence and cowardice of the words are violence crowd (liberals) that has empowered the fundamentalists and allowed us to reach this moment, when a fanatic rushes the stage of a literary conference with a knife and plunges it into one of the bravest writers alive.

There are five cases to look at that demonstrate inconsistencies.  The first case is compromising morality in order to produce a net positive effect.  Typically these compromises are not deleterious.  If we want to increase the status of the LGBTQ+ community, then there must be consequences for behaving poorly towards them.  Even though we want to minimize exclusion, the exclusion of detractors is used as a tool because it is effective.  The second case is when two things are inextricably tied together.  In abortion, if we do one thing (woman), then it affects another thing (baby), and vice versa.  The third case is hypocrisy.  A drug addict telling us to not use drugs is good advice.  This only becomes hypocrisy if the addict were to cast judgment on us.  The fourth case involves empathy.  A doctor would understand how to treat cancer regardless if he had it, but he may not be sympathetic towards us.  A fifth reason why inconsistencies appear is that worldviews have an underlying logic that dictates how political issues are handled.

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Inconsistencies of Worldviews

As another example, libertarians condemn altruism as immoral but say by the way helping others is alright.  This is more than an inconsistency since it negates the purpose of their goals, which are to maximize self-interest and condemn altruism.  It only shows their desperation and failure in reconciling real-life morality with their dogmatism.  Most people believe that extreme selfishness is immoral and altruism is moral.  To make their philosophy work, they would have to say that altruism as sacrificing ourselves to our own detriment or being forced to sacrifice is immoral.  Despite this, coercion may help the common good.  This shows that the real purpose of their condemning altruism is to prevent providing for the common good.  But wait another inconsistency shows its face.

How can liberals believe that providing for the common good is a moral act if we have to force many to do so?  Libertarians rightfully say that taking from someone’s income to give to another person through coercion is theft and immoral.  If it is involuntary, then we would have to agree.  But there is often a net benefit because it serves the purpose of lifting many out of poverty and reducing the corrosive effects of status inequality.  So we compromise morality in order to serve the greater good.  It is called deep pragmatism. Besides being the moral thing to do, which is to help those in need, there are good selfish reasons to subscribe to serving the common good.  The second post on “Libertarians Don’t Get a Lot” will explain in detail how the common good is in our best interest.

How about conservatives who are pro-life but endorse the death penalty?  There is a perfectly good reason why they are this way and it has to do with the logic of their worldview.  It is just a consequence of the way things work out.  The logic follows from their morality of rewards and punishment.  They punish those who murder with consequences that fit the crime.  What about the origin behind forcing women to have an unwanted pregnancy?  There is a hierarchy for their worldview: men above women, white men above minorities, …, and straight above gay.  The female is supposed to raise the children and not seek out a professional career. She is in violation of their hierarchy, which brings resentment.  Since she ranks lower than the male, she must be submissive.

This only explains how they can force females to give birth but not why they are pro-life.  The Bible is silent on abortion.  Abortion evades self-discipline and personal responsibility, which are staples of their worldview.  A teenage girl, for example, should not be indulging in sex and should be practicing self-restraint.  She deserves to be punished not coddled; she deserves to pay the consequences of her actions.  But why then are conservatives against funding programs to reduce infant mortality through pre and postnatal care if they want to save the baby?  Because it has nothing to do with saving the baby and everything to do with personal accountability.  Furthermore, to a conservative, government handouts prevent people from becoming self-reliant and self-disciplined.

Why do liberals side with the mother during an abortion and not the unborn child?  Why do they choose to nurture the woman with empathy and support but not the baby?  Liberals tend to care a lot about the harm done to the marginalized, the environment, and animals and endorse protectionism as a result.  But why does the unborn child not deserve any protection? This is an inconsistency in the application of values.  They claim it has to do with liberty which is the freedom to do as we wish as long as we do not interfere with the freedom of others.  What about the baby’s freedom from being killed?  Liberals overcome this by claiming supremacy of the woman’s right to her own body.  But whose rights win, the babies or the women?  They are tied together, so it is an either-or result.

Why do conservatives love their country but hate their government?  If we view the government as a metaphor for the father of a family (the populace), then conservatives do not want their father to interfere with their own family.  The father does not know what is best for our own family.  He is a meddler and interferes on issues (local state issues) in which he is no expert.  His meddling brings resentment and interferes with our liberty.  The government’s forefathers represent the country and are to be mystically admired.

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Notes:

i) For millions of years, we lived within homogeneous tribes of no more than one hundred people with the same beliefs, values, race, and ethnicity.  We are now forced to tolerate people from all walks of life.  No one is asking anyone to wholeheartedly embrace LGBTQ+, minorities, and women but at the very least be respectful and tolerable.  We cannot force acceptance, but we can create social norms to create tolerance.  Hopefully with time tolerance leads to acceptance.  The best way to breed acceptance with people that are different than us is to look for what we have in common.  This leads to empathy instead of hate, contempt, and fear.  For a lot of people, however, it appears that hate and fear are the default positions.  This means political correctness has an integral role.

I did not want to put this post up because it seems like a minor issue.  But it is actually a major one.  A lot of political psychologists and cognitive scientists are claiming that Democrats will continue to be unsuccessful at changing minds because they try to appeal to facts and figures.  This simply does not resonate with people.  The claim is that we need to start appealing to people’s moral intuitions, feelings, and values.  This is the real reason why we vote anyhow, whether we are aware of it or not.  We vote because of how the candidate makes us feel, which is tied to their values.  The contemplation of any policies that serve our interests likely happened after we liked or disliked them.  See notes (i).  There is nothing to be ashamed of; voting is not like purchasing a mutual fund.  In fact, there are lots of good reasons why voting based on our feelings towards the candidate and party affiliation is desirable.

Democrats put themselves in a precarious—and I think ultimately hopeless—position when they are really motivated by empathy, but wind up reasoning and arguing from interests—when they promote programs and tax policies to serve the “interests” of the middle class, or the uninsured, or victims of discrimination, or immigrants. They set themselves up for attacks as being unfair to ordinary Americans and promoting “special interests.” They set themselves up as being a special interest themselves, for courting voting blocs. And worse, they never argue on the basis of empathy, the real motivator of the policies. They fail in two ways: they fail to activate empathy—their own moral foundation—in the brains of voters, while they succeed in activating self-interest, which conservatives specialize in. [1]

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A Summary For Those Short on Time

First, all the evidence suggests that our feelings towards a candidate, particularly from the values that they hold, predict voting behavior better than us sitting down and reasoning. Not that we didn’t use any reasoning at all, but it was the feelings that the candidate triggered in us that made us vote. Even when voters were torn between their reasons and feelings, 80% of them went with their gut. Second, if this is true, then Democrats would be more successful if they started to frame the issues in a way that would trigger our emotions, which means they should be more about our values, for example, caring for others. They have to be slogans like the conservatives use. Conservatives came up with the slogan “welfare queen”, which triggers a conservative into thinking that welfare is bad. This is because it is against their values of self-reliance etc. It is this that drives them to the voting booth, not facts and figures. Third, there is nothing wrong with voting based on party affiliation or with our feelings since it is a shortcut. It is a shortcut because we know democrats stand for our values and interests.

Caveat: Studies pick up our positive or negative associations with the candidate, presumably this is equivalent to us liking or not liking them.  Although voting like this is a good heuristic because they will likely carry out our values and interests, once we like or dislike someone our objectivity for their performance goes out the window.  This is one of the many costs of being partisan.

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Why I’m a Semi-Ideologue

One of my first posts here was on “Why I’m Not an Ideologue”.  What do we think was my motivation for writing this?  Was it because I was an aspiring intellectual that despised emotions or because people judge us if we are not rational?  Probably a little bit of both.  I went through a stage where I studied bias and thought ideologues were victims of groupthink and tribalism.  They often are.  But I was smart enough to hedge the post.  Because I said by not being an ideologue or partisan that we will be politically impotent.  Then I read a few books on how we actually vote.  I started to study what rationality actually means.  I learned that our culture, which relies on Western philosophy, has been plagued with the idea that reason is separate from emotion.  It is not.  So this pristine idea of a true intellectual divorced from feelings was fiction.  And if I am honest, I have morphed into a semi-ideologue.

Then I come across Gad Saad who is criticizing liberals for voting against Trump because of their visceral hate and contempt.  Five years ago this would have made me want to mount a defense on how I carefully chose my candidate by looking at their stance on essential policies, voting records, and so forth.  Because I wanted to show that I made smart decisions.  But that is not how the mind works.  We feel first which biases us to go in one direction.  It takes practice to separate our feelings from a political candidate (i). This is because we care about values not just our interests.  The former evokes more emotion while the latter would take conscious thought or rationality.  We want to identify with the candidate, which means we want them to hold the same attitudes, beliefs, and values as we do.  We like people who are similar to us.  There is absolutely no reason to apologize or mount a counterdefense.

If interests were important to us, say economic interests, we better use conscious reasoning to choose a candidate.  If we did not and interests were important to us, then that would be irrational.  Take the value of how we treat others.  If this is important to us, then not liking Trump is arguably rational. Take the fact that sharing similar values and beliefs with others allows us to collectively press our group’s interests.  The idea of being tribal is not looking that bad anymore.  Even if we blindly voted against Trump based on gut feelings, which eighty percent of us do when torn between our reasons and feelings, it still would be rational to vote based on partisanship because it is a heuristic.  It is a shortcut that increases the likelihood that our values and interests will be carried out.

To be clear, I am not saying that ideologues are rational because we often are not.  This is because of the myside bias and strong emotional commitment to beliefs and values.  We mistake our beliefs to be scientific facts, and we will always favor evidence that conforms to our beliefs.  But being tribal does not require scientific rigor.  We value tribalism for other reasons, like sharing identities and beliefs with others, which yields group cohesion.  What I am saying is that deciding to be ideological and voting based on party affiliation is a rational choice.  I am certainly not saying that this puts us in a good position to objectively evaluate arguments.  Because it does not.  If anyone wants to understand why in more detail, I recommend the book “The Bias that Divides Us” by Keith E. Stanovich.  It is startling how irrational we are when it comes to accepting facts that are contrary to our beliefs.

When we get emotional over a candidate or politics in general, then this means that either their personality, behavior, or values affected us. We have a rich set of emotions that get triggered over values.  See Jonathan Haidt’s work if interested.  Values are how we view the world, we think people ought to behave, and typically reflects our interests.  Once values are accepted as norms in society, then they become morals.  But the moralities of conservatives and liberals are distinctly different.  Which one we prefer is based on what we think an ideal world should be like, which in turn is influenced by our personality.   For example, the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility are heightened in the conservative worldview.  So much so that they believe that a teenager who had an unwanted pregnancy should pay the consequence of her actions.  So the teenager should not have been indulging in sex in the first place and should have been practicing self-restraint.  Conservatives believe that punishment leads to self-discipline.

There are further values that influence why they are against abortion.  Regardless, it does not matter if we do not like this reasoning. In fact, there probably is no reason that we can offer them to change their mind.  This is because they have an emotional attachment to their values.  In political or moral reasoning, emotion guides the way and reasons are after the fact.  What are the reasons for?  At least in politics, to back up our values and beliefs, which are formed by our feelings.  Conservatives can use these shared values as a collective force to press their values which become their interests.  Likewise, liberals use the emotion of compassion (or resentment) to press upon their value of equality, whether it be through race, gender, nationality, or socioeconomic status. Conservatives do not share this value since they are proponents of hierarchy and meritocracy (iii).  But how do we ever make a difference without voting based on values?  We must sometimes go with our feelings which tell us what we value or not.

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What Does Rational Mean

In the everyday sense, rational means that we consider our long-term interests and do not let our emotions get the better of us.  It also means that which is agreeable to reason.  We give reasons to justify our position in order to persuade others that we are right. There is good reason to believe that we evolved the capacity to argue in order to persuade others of our worth and positions.  But not to find the truth.  A desire to find the truth must be some byproduct of evolution.  This explains why we have strong biases that are quite stubborn to facts that contradict them.  Biases thus may be a feature and not a bug.  They help us to stick with our point of view in order to persuade others.  Think of the survival advantage that we possess if we can influence others to get what we want.

When we say that we vote purely on the issues and separate personalities, it is because we want to convince others that we are rational.  Why would we need to do this?  Because we have a strong drive to conform with a payoff of approval.  But where did this definition of rationality come from?  It came from the Enlightenment era which places an emphasis on maximizing our self-interest or, in economics language, “utility”.  The Enlightenment era assumed that reason is both conscious and emotion-free.  Most reason is not though.  This is so deeply ingrained in our worldviews that it may be difficult to accept that this is just a definition.  It has heavily influenced both evolutionary theory and economics.  We are self-interested, but we can also be empathetic and altruistic.

Let me give an example of the unconscious reasoning that conservatives use from “The Political Mind”.  This type of reasoning does not fit the definition of Enlightenment rationality.  Many conservatives often vote against their interests because they prefer to vote based on values.  Why did so many impoverished blacks in the South vote for Reagan in the 80s?  Because they got nothing from Reagan.  What Reagan did was introduce the stereotype of welfare recipients as being lazy and immoral.  In a conservative’s morality, if we are not wealthy enough, then that means that we are not self-disciplined enough.  These two facts made it easy to appeal to blacks, and they believed that they did not deserve it.  The reasoning that they carried out was unconscious and activated the conservative values within their mind.  Although liberals would have seen a handout as empowering them to be successful (iii).

We may criticize the voters that go against their interests as being stupid.  On the other hand, maybe there is some value to be had in earning everything on our own.  And does everything need to conform to maximizing our self-interest?  In the end, I am justified in voting based on how I feel towards the candidate since how I feel will coincide with my values.

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Notes

i). We vote based on how we feel towards a candidate, values they represent, and our interests.   But feelings predicted our voting behavior better than either our judgments about the candidate’s competence or personality or our reasons why we like or dislike a candidate.  In fact, gut-level feelings are three times better at predicting a candidate than “rationality”.  We can predict who we will vote for based on two things: our partisan feelings and how we feel toward the candidate. Even when we are torn between reasons and emotions over a candidate, eighty percent of us will go with our gut.  Since voting on feelings is more associated with values than interests, interests being candidates’ foreign policy and stance on fiscal policy, etc., then it is values that get us to be tribal [2].

ii) For those that insist that they found reasons for not wanting to vote for Trump, these would have in all probability come after the fact—that is, after your feelings made you dislike him.  This bias can easily pick out policies that Trump has that are not aligned with liberals’ values and interests.  If we liked him, then his transgressions would have been excused or downplayed.  In not liking him, we may have missed some things that would have worked in our favor or that we could have compromised with.  That is the cost of being partisan.  Although I tried to stay neutral, I disliked Trump from the beginning because he was a bully.  Gad Saad would argue that Trump is an alpha male.  Narcissists have a survival advantage over non-narcissists because they seek loyal people and exploit them.  I agree with him on alpha but with caveats which I will discuss in an upcoming post.  Abusive alpha males usually get ousted.

iii) As one justification for welfare: Income disparities and social class differences reflect those that have earned it, the “winners”, and those that have not, the “losers”.  They do not care if the system is not fair in that not everyone has the same abilities and privileges to achieve relative success.  I have consistently said that I have an argument based on the epidemiological studies which have proven that relative socioeconomic status differences result in reductions in health and happiness for those lower in status.  In any social milieu, those who are higher up in status have an increased lifespan and more happiness than anyone that sits below them.  In fact, those that make a household income of 40k relative to those who make 140k are at three times the relative risk for death.  So we do not have to hold the value that hierarchies are immoral all by themselves because we can appeal to science.  The objection I commonly receive is that we are hierarchical by nature.  This is true as status hierarchies form quickly based on ability, appearances, intelligence, and so forth.  But we are also cooperative by nature.  In fact, many anthropologists have hypothesized that we lived in egalitarian tribes before the agricultural revolution.  We would keep a check on both the bully and free rider under the values of egalitarianism.

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References

[1] Lakoff, George.  “The Political Mind”

[2] Westin, Drew.  “The Political Brain”