Special Note:

After studying politics for decades, I have for the first time discovered an approach for finding common ground that is truly promising. It is the work of Jonathan Haidt at the University of Virginia. Regardless of whether you consider yourself a liberal, conservative, a moderate or your own special brand of independent, if you really care about the objective of achieving common ground and lowering the level of contempt in today’s politics I would ask that you take the time to consider Haidt’s work. At the end of this essay there are links to his websites. 

Pugilistic Politics: The Metaphorical
Fight of Left vs. Right
© Charles D. Hayes

Historical evidence suggests that but for a few brief periods of moderation, people have been arguing about politics for generations with every bit as much vitriol as they do today. So, when I suggest that, liberals and conservatives represent the very pillars of morality, many of you, I suspect, will perceive that it sounds out of kilter in one direction or the other. But I will argue that if it were not true, then there would be no morality as we know it today.

Ever since my discovery of Jonathan Haidt and Jessie Graham’s paper “When Morality Opposes Justice” I’ve been thinking about how to expand my understanding of the politics of divisiveness.  They offer a five pillar moral foundation for American culture.  It’s not that Haidt and Graham’s efforts have nailed the truth to the door, but rather that they offer a method for discussing political differences that provides a refreshing sense of clinical objectivity, minus the usual contempt, that frequently comes with polarization. Haidt and Graham propose that the five pillars of concern comprising our moral foundation are:

·         harm/care

·         fairness/reciprocity

·         in-group/loyalty

·         authority/respect

·         purity/sanctity

They argue that liberals are concerned with the first two almost exclusively, but that conservatives are more likely to be concerned about all five, although their main focus is usually the last three (See Liberal vs. Conservative: Peace at Last).

In an essay on Edge.org titled “Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion,” Haidt offers four principles of moral psychology for further consideration.

1. Intuitive primacy but not dictatorship. This is an acknowledgment that more often than not we use the term reason to support lightning quick emotional judgments only to claim we were reasoning all along.

2. Moral thinking is for social doing. In which case, Haidt argues “we did not evolve language and reasoning because they helped us to find truth; we evolved these skills because they were useful to their bearers, and among their greatest benefits were reputation management and manipulation.”

3. Morality binds and builds which means that a communally accepted morality brings people together and binds them collectively in the process.

4. Morality is about more than harm and fairness which is self-explanatory.  There is a concern for the prevention of harm and vigilance for justice and reciprocity. Haidt also raises the subject of group selection as it applies to Darwinian evolution to show how these attributes and the five pillars apply to society.

These ideas become even clearer with the example Haidt uses in his stunningly insightful book The Happiness Hypothesis.  He uses the metaphor of an elephant-rider (with conscious reason being the rider and our emotional self the elephant) to make the point that our emotions represent a very large and powerful force with a mind of their own. He writes, “Reason and emotion must both work together to create intelligent behavior, but emotion (a major part of the elephant) does most of the work. When the neocortex came along, it made the rider possible, but it made the elephant much smarter, too.”

Thinking about all of the above considerations in terms of tribal and social group dynamics is invigorating enough to provoke insightful questions about how, in any given large population, individuals can be found who have a capacity for divergent and often diametrically opposing viewpoints. This is why, for example, during the American Civil War people born of the same families and of the same sense of allegiance and regional identity could still wind up on opposite sides in the conflict.

In the October 2007 issue of The Atlantic, Olivia Judson wrote a short article titled “The Selfless Gene.” Judson too brings up Charles Darwin’s long ignored, but recently revived, notion of “group selection” which is growing rapidly in renewed interest. Darwin postulated that although it would appear contradictory at first glance, there could be a decided positive effect in warring against neighboring groups in that it might actually result in the evolutionary adaptation of creating more caring societies. It sounds counterintuitive until you think it through and realize that a driving force toward battle could result in cohesiveness.  By enabling a predisposition toward conformity, the short-term results may be violent, but in the long run greater cooperation is facilitated. Not to mention the inevitable gene scarcity of those with a propensity for quickly resorting to violence. I believe the evidence suggests that the behavior of individuals is inseparably bound to group behavior and vice versa.

I find it deeply ironic that Richard Dawkins, a scientist whom I very much admire, has focused almost exclusively on the biological self-interest of the individual over that of the group, but that he would coin the term “meme” which I suspect might be a reflection of grouping tendencies by subterfuge. Is it inconceivable to imagine that the ubiquity of meme contagion is in part a grouping propensity? And is not religion the social embodiment of grouping? I have yet to make up my mind about these possibilities, but I find the concept of memes as a grouping mechanism fascinating. Indeed, in the November 2007 issue of New Scientist, socio-biologist Edward O. Wilson admits science has made a historical mistake by not taking group selection more seriously.  

Henceforth accepting some validity in group selection theories changes the whole landscape of evolutionary psychology as effectively as if an eighteen-wheeler were to broadside a giant kaleidoscope. Add theoretical physicist Mark Buchanan’s insights into social behavior from his book The Social Atom, and the experience for me was like Roman candles going off in my head. All of a sudden myriad peculiar human behavioral characteristics start to make sense in a whole new light.

Neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and the modeling of patterns of human social behavior by state of the art computers, is wreaking havoc with what we’ve always assumed were common sense notions of cause and effect. In The Social Atom, Mark Buchanan reminds us that as repulsed as we are by the use of labels, prejudice and ethnocentrism, in past primitive settings these attitudes have been very effective in garnering greater cooperation. In the present, our primal Stone Age tendencies are easily used against us by savvy individuals. Buchanan writes, “So the lesson of social physics, if you will, is that ethnic hatred is a primitive ‘mode’ of human collective behavior, akin to the natural vibrations of a guitar string or the swinging of a pendulum. If this weren’t the case, stoking ethnic hatred would never be an effective political strategy, as it would push against human tendency and inclination. Politicians play to ethnic fears because they know fear motivates, perhaps, more basically and immediately than any other emotion. And, in the right setting, the opportunistic intelligence of a power-hungry individual can control the actions of millions.”

Now, I caution that there are likely to be many fascinating and enthralling conclusions to come that will in time be proved wrong. But these new possibilities are exciting, especially in the realm of offering a greater understanding of human behavior and of politics in particular with the ultimate goal of bettering human relations.  

In my forthcoming book, September University: Rediscover the Wonder of Existence and Help Shape the Future, I discuss in detail how our evolutionary past of living in small groups has predisposed us to viewing the world in terms of us and them and to resorting to a truth by association posture in which our respective group identity shields us from the need to think through issues that question our veracity in cases of conflict, simply because of the tendency to see ourselves as being right by nature of who we are.

When I consider the main liberal concern of harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity, I’m reminded of the conclusion I had reached before I was aware of the five pillar theory.  In effect, to regard the differences between those working for justice as opposed to those protecting their group’s identity as an issue of reasoning vs. relating breaks down as an argument. Relating is nothing more than responding to another’s dialogue emotionally because of its effect at some level on one’s sense of identity instead of reasoning a reply. People of all political persuasions relate using the emotional signs and symbols of their particular identity that often make little sense to outsiders. Sometimes the result is the use of code words particular to their group or circumstance. For example, Christian fundamentalists will often use the word truth not as in determining that snow is white if and only if snow is white, but as a code word for “God’s love.” Relating, as such, performs a very useful social function for conforming and inspiring collective behavior, but if one’s group hijacks the meaning of words so as to communicate only to each other, then the opportunity for democratic dialogue is lost. Imagine the perplexity and confusion involved if a particular group were to apply private meaning to Haidt’s five pillars. The result would be a closed society incapable of practicing democracy. Given the historic difficulty with political dialogue, it’s not surprising to learn that George Lakoff argues liberals and conservatives derive different meaning from words as simple as freedom and justice. My personal experience with political discourse bears him out.

Internalizing values as a part of growing up is a process in which what we come to believe about the world is likely to be confirmed countless times through our families and peer cultures using the whole range of our emotions. The result is that when we learn prejudice or racial bias as part of our upbringing, these beliefs are ingrained deep within our brains.  It’s so forceful that these learned beliefs are analogous to the internalized certainty that if we throw a ball into the air gravity will return it to the earth.

The conservative ethos of in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity are such powerful forces that in most cases they trump the two liberal pillars. Think about this quandary as a boxing metaphor and a question of ring generalship. (A more desirable metaphor might be a dance or a sewing circle, but we are still far removed from that level of harmony, not to mention the frequent media references to taking the gloves off politics.) The conservative triad of concern amounts to an over-hand right, a knockout punch. Moreover, the reasons for bringing people together would seem to require this kind of force or they would likely be ineffective.

Appeals for justice are more like a left jab and, as in a boxing match, the jab has to be used constantly to stay even and especially to win. Stretching this metaphor further, America scored three resounding, though imperfect, left-hooks with our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.  Yet throughout our history, the left jabs thrown for a caring society with reciprocity and justice for all have still proven insufficient to protect those who are considered to fall into out-group categories. And unfortunately this is easy to explain. Identity groups serve as powerful cultural filters that distort reality in favor of their own ends. When the perception of one’s own identity is such that it is believed that their uniqueness trumps that of another’s in terms of literal value, then the result is a worldview in which inequality is not only justified but is in effect inevitable, possibly ordained and just by design. In effect the documents establishing America’s sovereignty gave dramatic expansion to the traditional triad by providing an intellectual template for relating on the basis of ideas and ideals in addition to identity. And thus we have expected immigrants to leave their former identities at the border and buy into our ready-made ideological template.

History suggests that negotiating differences with people consumed with loyalty in a narrow sense of identity is very nearly impossible. But if one accepts the idea of America as an ideal based upon ideas then democracy has a chance to function if the dynamics are properly understood and accepted by most citizens. Any chance for genuine democracy requires that all triadic factions have to reason and relate together. The dialogue has to be “rider to rider” or “elephant to elephant” or there is no hope for progress. A rider on either side cannot dialogue with an elephant on the other. This becomes readily apparent when it's attempted as the dialogue becomes increasingly irrational.

In general I use the term relating figuratively, but in actual practice the result is often literal in that people who let the group they identify with speak for them are in fact relating and not reasoning. 

Consider this: The triad of the conservative right provides the ethos that binds a group as Haidt argues while the liberal left appeal for caring and justice resembles a perpetual petition for justice, which by its very nature moves to expand the group by putting ideological principals above identity.  This inevitably results in the ability to include more and more people: left, right, left, left, left, right and so on into infinity. Could the difference between liberals and conservatives be explained in terms of neurological circuitry? For example, could evolution have equipped a significant number of people with a conservative orientation to bring groups together in a pro-group capacity comparable to the roles of tribal chiefs, coaches and members for group activities as a means of ensuring a better chance of survival? Could the drive toward greater cooperation and innovation have resulted in a similar demand for people with a liberal orientation as a need for novelty and to keep the rightward conforming tendencies from imploding into group destruction? To my thinking the whole scenario begs the question: are we liberal and conservative because of the way our brains are wired or are our brains wired the way they are because we are liberals and conservatives? Or, could it be a little of both?

Our emotions reflect our passion for relating as individuals. Look around the planet at every conservative culture the world over and similar conditions apply. Cultural conservatism, when taken to extreme as a politics of identity, trumps appeals for caring and justice. In a tightly knit group, the ideological welfare of the group can easily evolve into an identity that takes precedence over the rights of individuals. Worse, some group members are likely to be seen as incapable of doing wrong, their transgressions forgivable by nature of who they are while those belonging to out-groups can seem to do nothing right, no matter how virtuous their deeds actually are. The more highly a group esteems itself, the more sensitive and hypervigilant its members will be to insult and signs of disrespect on the part of those outside the group. If a particular group believes they are the only nationality or religion worthy of salvation then all who oppose them in any way are likely to be viewed as wicked.

A strong sense of identity is important to individual well-being, but when taken to ethnocentric-like extremes identity trumps all laws and moral values through feelings that anything one does is justified by nature of group allegiance. Examples abound: Sieg Heil! Banzai! America: Right or Wrong! To oppose a conservative triad that has congealed is to face a group that views the world as us against them or stated more simply as good vs. evil. Moreover, the triad represents a hypersensitive triangle of self-reinforcing sentiment that ratchets up protective behavior when threatened. Expressions of paternalistically approved behavior stand in as expressions of purity and sanctity and as such they reinforce in-group loyalty and respect for authority. And thus conservative talk radio plays directly to the themes that congeal in the triad in precisely the same fashion as a percussion triangle vibrates musically when struck with a metal bar. Strike the triad, and appeals for justice are drowned in chords of self-congratulatory harmony of us against them.

In my earlier essay “Liberal vs. Conservative: Peace at Last” I suggested that liberals and conservatives need each other and that both have our best interests at heart, even if unintentionally. But because of our tribal tendencies, a completely balanced society is so unlikely and so improbable that even to imagine it is said to be embracing utopia. We may never know how or why people show a political inclination toward being a liberal or conservative, but what should be crystal clear as our history, suggests, is that a society that veers too far in either direction awaits disaster.

Based on my own experience and continuous study, I believe that the principle concerns of in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity fit the profile of relating over reasoning for conservatives. While harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity, represent the primary mode of relating for liberals. Of course, nothing is really this simple, and I don’t mean to imply that liberals and conservatives don’t both reason and relate. It would seem to be a matter of degree and priority,and it’s a bit more complicated than the way I have presented it.

The conservative triad of in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity reflect tribalistic tendencies for coming together and they tend to harden in some type of association: national, regional, religion, ideology, group, family or cause. These affiliations often derive from noble aspirations and stand as respected institutions. But when these identities congeal and fester in isolation, groups experience conflict at their borders and they very often begin to perceive of all others as outsiders. If they feel their identity is threatened by the actions of out-groups the stage is set to become hypervigilant for detecting disrespectful conduct. Given time, these actions gradually evolve into a perception of the other as a force of evil. Moreover, evolution has made us experts at keeping track of social grievances. Acts of aggression are frequently met with an ethos of “we will never forget,” in effect making an ideological down payment in escrow for a future act of retaliation. And thus forthcoming acts of violence are automatically self-justified. The result is endless conflict as demonstrated by an example of the war-torn Middle East. People who imagine that they have been wronged equate justice with revenge.

Liberals come together around ideas with an emphasis on care and justice that can be compared to the scales of justice with harm and care on one side and fairness and reciprocity to achieve equilibrium on the other. But when the idea of fairness is taken to extreme we need look no further than the failed efforts of Marxism. Absolute equality would result in unconditional oppression. The same pitfalls await both political parties when they venture too far to the left or right without sufficient restraining stability from some degree by the other side. Communism brought such political certitude to bear that merely to disagree with its doctrine was enough to be suspected of being mentally ill. And hard-right conservatives frequently accuse those who disagree with them about anything as being egregiously unpatriotic. Moreover, deeply imbedded in religious fundamentalism and the notion of Divine Providence is a diminished importance attributed to harm/care, fairness and reciprocity from the simple conclusion that pretty much what happens in life is what should happen, is therefore just and the inequities will be worked out in the next life. 

Unfortunately both liberals and conservatives tend to receive the vast majority of their news and information about the world from sources that reinforce the views they already hold. Entertainment may be the best chance for a crosspollination of ideas, but even here there are imprecise boundaries of group identity with regard to high-, low-, and middle-brow culture.

My argument, in a nutshell, is that for any society to thrive, especially one built upon democratic ideals, both liberals and conservatives are needed or the society will spiral out of control with its unchecked strength becoming a destructive weakness that ends in oppression or calamity. Witness, for example the plight of women in Afghanistan, virtual prisoners of a conservative and patriarchal society run amok, where cries for care and justice go unheard and where women are treated like property. (See Honor: What is It? Who Has It? Who Doesn't?What Is It?)

When I ask myself why I’m a liberal I can only rationalize from my own life experience and my own politics. I perceive that I identify first and foremost with ideas, which means I suspect that I relate to ideas emotionally and mix my emotions with my reasoning in the same manner that conservatives do with matters of a more specific group identity. There is no greater ideal, to my thinking, than to aspire to Socrates’ notion of becoming “a citizen of the world.” That kind of aim, however, doesn’t go over well with the America First crowd. But consider this. Would not both Socrates and Darwin be vindicated if human beings progressed civilly to the point of viewing all of the people of the world as belonging to the same group with the same rights and responsibilities without regard to any other sense of identity? Would not real civilization bring an end to most violent human conflict? And wouldn’t real civilization achieve Darwin’s evolutionary trajectory for a peaceful society and Socrates’ aspiration for global citizenship at the same time? It would seem so to me and it would require a measure of left jabs and hooks with enough consistency to equalize the forceful right-hand efforts that bind us together. Because one thing history reveals with the reliability of the sunrise is that if a significant number of citizens do not clamor for justice it will not prevail.

As I see it, when we engage in political dialogue both liberals and conservatives react to confrontation neurologically with an emotional default of relating to that which we most identify with most strongly. For liberals it’s the realm of ideas and for conservatives it’s more often a literal kind of relating, specific in some enigmatic way to group identity. It would seem that liberals might be able to claim a shorter path to reason by identifying emotionally with ideas but this notion may be more apparent than real.

My objective in focusing on the seemingly natural but sharp differences between liberals and conservatives is to show that without these opposing ways of relating to the world, we cannot survive as any form of government resembling a democracy. Conservative political consultant Mary Matlin and liberal operative James Carville seem to have figured this out better than most. Championing democracy while hating one another for having opposing worldviews, though understandable, is absurd in the extreme. Of course, knowing that both liberals and conservatives are necessary for our general well-being may not help in a significant way in negotiating our differences, but it should help us in reducing the hatred and contempt that often results from sustained tit-for-tat arguments, and this would not be a small achievement.

As a cautionary measure, I would add to Haidt’s rider/elephant metaphor and point out that deep beneath the elephant rests a primordial beast representing the very worst of our capacity for evil as human beings. Henceforth, I suggest adding a dragon to the rider/elephant metaphor. If the elephant stands its ground and doesn’t hide, remain indifferent, or rampage or stampede, its weight keeps the dragon beneath the surface. If not, the dragon shows its ugly head most frequently with ethnocentric fire breathing exhibited by racial bias and overt acts of prejudice ranging from insult to genocide. It’s vital to understand that the rider is no match for the elephant, let alone the dragon, and yet the rider is still ultimately responsible for the cessation of fire-breathing. Both the rider and the elephant are required to battle the dragon knowing that regardless of the forcefulness of their efforts they can never be sure the dragon is dead. The dragon will likely lie in slumber until the elephant hides in fear, looks the other way, or loses control. So long as we come together as rider to rider or elephant to elephant, we have a chance to negotiate our differences, but never dragon to dragon. When we torture combatants, dragons surface; in war-time, dragons run freely; when genocide occurs, dragons rule. Moreover, it’s the rule of dragons arising from chilling indifference throughout history that have left the darkest stain on humanity. As Roy F. Baumeister points out in Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, passion can be too disruptive to efficient killing as demonstrated by the “just following orders” efforts of the Nazis who industrialized mass murder. It is my view that one of the greatest lessons to be learned from the dark side of human nature is that dragons reside in all of us given the right conditions and that frequently acknowledging this reality is helpful in keeping them at bay. 

Perhaps the mass of liberals and conservatives in America can be forgiven for not having made more progress in understanding the moral dynamics of what would constitute a genuine democracy in a republic. It does seem certain that our penchant to perceive social class differences appears to reside in the depths of our genes. But with all that has been learned about human psychology and human behavior in the past century it seems incredulous that our legislative bodies of government still act like children with each party imagining the other as evil instead of as a necessary component for governing. Moreover, not to appreciate the balance necessary to achieve an authentic democracy is to be so deluded about what one is doing as to lack the ability to solve problems when real solutions are presented. One punch does not a match make, nor will it slay a dragon.

It would be naïve to imagine that we will ever come up with a way to stop the perpetual pugilistic match between the left and right, but then it would also be unwise to wish to do so, since this constant struggle is what makes our survival possible. It is desirable to lower the levels of contempt, keep a steady jab in the face of authority, tame the elephant and keep all dragons beneath the surface. Convincing each side that it truly needs the other may be half the battle. But perhaps much of our fascination with reason is misplaced in that if emotionally based relating is such a powerful force in our psychic makeup then perhaps we should focus on relating and reasoning whenever appropriate so long as both parties use the same method at the same time. That which is worthy of the pillar of authority and respect should be examined while striving for a consensus of what it should be, along with how sanctity and purity apply and how and why the realization of these concerns is sufficient to earn our in-group loyalty, and finally that the concerns of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity bring a sense of balance to our efforts. Maybe with such a level of maturity we can substitute the need for a common enemy with a common purpose. The crux of our inability to get along stems from the fact that the cultural diversity which imbues us with the creativity to form a nation also yields a surplus of contempt for the very otherness that constitutes diversity. And thus fire-breathing dragons from our Stone-Age hardwiring continuously threaten social harmony. I suspect that if in David Hume’s time we had known about the existence of mirror neurons, today’s rider/elephant/dragon experience would be thought of as radically different from the most common ways we do today.    

In typical liberal fashion, I am inclined to value the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity pillars of concern above the others. But I do not want to live in a society where authority and respect are values that don’t exist with enough force to foster our aspirations toward those ends. Nor do I want to live in a society without a strong sense of loyalty or where the social hygiene of human behavior cannot be judged in the context of purity and sanctity. I trust that thoughtful  conservatives will likewise care enough to seek fairness as justice.

So, after obsessing and dreaming about this subject for months, and with all that I’ve said above, I suspect that the triad that I’ve characterized as a template for conservatism may in practice be a metaphorical pattern for relating, period. Each of us experiences multiple identities: gender, geographical, social class, economic class, political, professional, even sports affiliations. Moreover, I believe the triad serves as a process in which our efforts of demonstrating purity and sanctity in a metaphoric sense reinforce our in-group loyalty and engender authority and respect at the same time. This is easiest to imagine with conservatives because their sense of identity is more likely to be to a specific group of readily identifiable members who place great value on authority, conformity and the kind of behavior that validates both. I suspect it’s true for both liberals and conservatives that when we reminisce, we engage a kind of triadic relating in that we recall that which we relate to using our sense of loyalty, conference of respect and the purity and sanctity with which we hold on to the memories.

When liberals relate to ideas, however, the effect is that the ideas we care about so obscure the triad that it’s analogous to a roof burglar who pulls his ladder up after use to hide his presence. There is no trace that the relating triad was ever there. And thus when liberals experience the triad of in-group loyalty, of relating to ideas and then demonstrate their purity and sanctity by upholding these ideals and by simultaneously respecting the authority of those who do likewise, they leave no sign of the relating triad even though they have used it too. But change the context of identity, say in an event like 9/11, and many liberals will switch from a posture based upon ideals to a politically based identity – in this instance, to one of national identity as that of an America under attack. The same would apply to conservatives if they were to awaken one morning and find themselves in a dictatorship. Of course, these identities are likely to be felt only as long as the circumstances that caused them prevail. It didn’t take long for actions by the Bush administration in Iraq to use up the goodwill from 9/11 and return liberal attention to the pillars of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity.

We are never going to fully resolve the issues of left and right politics, but we can achieve a greater accord simply through the realization that both the left and right are necessary for the existence of American democracy. So the boxing match continues.  But let’s make sure that the standing eight-count and three-knockdown rules will apply in all future bouts and that we won’t allow dragons in the ring. In Experiments in Ethics, philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah sums up the quest for understanding moral valuations by demonstrating that, regardless of our political persuasion, brain science is making it clear that what we’ve long thought was the bedrock of human character is in reality a murky swamp that is much more subject to situation and circumstance than we ever dreamed possible. Some serious reflection is in order regarding our personal politics to make sure that we are not just shadowboxing and that we know what we are talking about. 

I have one final comment about the serious nature of political divisiveness. A strong case can be made that a majority of Americans have naive views about what democracy actually is and the notion of what free markets portend globally. In her book World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, Amy Chua shows in graphic detail how our egregious misunderstanding of human behavior is ratcheting up ethnic hatred the world over.  And thus, expanding this discussion about moral values into a methodology to encourage peaceful relations among ethnocentric factions globally is, I will argue, as urgent an enterprise as addressing global warming. And while a boxing metaphor may be applicable to America, it is not useful where ethnocentrism exists as dragon-seated hatred. Boxers may hate one another, but as pugilists they view one another with a measure of respect simply from having been a worthy opponent. But when respect is absent, genocide is possible. Figuring out how pillars of moral value can neutralize hatred may be psychology’s greatest challenge.

In an essay titled “The Moral Instinct” in the New York Times in January 2008, psychologist Steven Pinker discusses Jonathan Haidt’s work and notes that there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that morality is embedded in our genes. He reminds us of Immanuel Kant’s notion of “the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” It seems such a shame that humanity has been on the right track for understanding our self-destructiveness for centuries and yet we are still unable to articulate morality to the degree necessary to achieve civilization. It also seems clear to me that we are getting very close to achieving the kind of knowledge that will enhance the ability of people from diverse political perspectives to get along when they really want to.

In another recent New York Times column piece “When ‘Identity Politics’ is Rational,” Stanley Fish pointed out that there are times when identity politics really is rational, as when it is informed, for example, not by skin color, ethnicity, or religion, but by a reasoned vision of what the world should be like. The greatest difficulty in resolving our differences remains, however, in our inability to discern between our feelings and our faculties for reasoning. Until we address this fundamental problem, achieving common ground will never rise above aspiration.       

(If you found the color coding in this text irritating, think of it as an opportunity for being made aware of the ubiquity of hot button words we encounter that beg an emotional response when a reasoned reply is called for. Think of it as a reminder that one has to train the elephant to keep the dragon in its place.)                                         

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