East and West. Believer and Non-believer. Liberal and Conservative.
One of the themes of our weblog, peregrinari, is that over the last year and a half of traveling and living abroad, Jenny and I have encountered many quite foreign and different ways of life and thought. Each (mis)adventure has affected us by either softening our previous perspective or hardening our past resolve. This is the great truth of any journey: the scenery is not all that changes.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few days since listening to Jonathan Haidt’s TED talk on the real difference between liberals and conservatives:
Haidt proposes there are five principles that form a natural, biological, moral foundation for humans:
- Harm/care
- Fairness/reciprocity
- Ingroup/loyalty
- Authority/respect
- Purity/sanctity
He goes on to show correlations between political positions and how individuals weigh these principles. The result is not merely amusing and timely given the US political climate, but important in how such an understanding might assist social and political dialogue.
The goal of that dialogue isn’t to finally end the left-right clash of ideologies. More often that not there is no best, no ideal, only choices with attendant consequences. So the key point of Haidt’s talk, for me at least, isn’t that either liberal or conservative is more moral, but instead they are simply different. And that the interplay between these differences, between the forces of change and the forces of stability, is critical for a successfully functioning civilization. The answer is therefore neither at the extremes nor at some static moderate middle, but in the complex and dynamic center of balance – life at the edge of chaos.
Finally, Haidt has uncovered what is now a favorite quote of mine:
if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind’s worst disease.
- Seng Ts’an, 700 C.E.
This sort of objective clarity is in short supply. Again, as Haidt points out, this is not to say that one should not endeavor in life, but that if one is looking for the truth of the situation, bias and preconception must be put aside. Accepting and understanding that bias, as revealed by Jonathan Haidt in this case, is the first step.
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