A Psychology of Liberals and Conservatives

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents five moral values he claims form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. Haidt isolates the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most. What’s interesting to me are those values we generally share with our opponents (harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity) that we don’t take advantage of to find common cause – our differences have been discussed at length elsewhere. I think you’ll find the talk interesting and entertaining, but if your computer is like mine, the sound comes on very loud at the beginning (you’ve been warned). Haidt has a test you can take to see how you score.

Stuff to Talk About, Seriously

Finally, let’s talk about the word “serious.” There’s a thoughtful post by Peterr at firedoglake about Munib Younan, now the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). Peterr met Bishop Younan 20 years ago, when the bishop was a parish priest in Ramallah, on the West Bank. So the bishop is a man who has been living in the center of the Palestinian-Israeli controversy for many years.

Peterr quotes from a talk given by Bishop Younan in 2007, in which the bishop begins by referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[W]ho would have imagined that less than two decades later we would be back to building walls? I have no doubt that the Separation Wall in the Holy Land will one day fall for the same reasons. The only question is how many lives, how many shattered and demolished villages, how much dehumanization and stigmatization will we tolerate?

This Wall is not a sign of justice or peace, it is a material sign of the walls of hatred that are growing stronger everyday. This wall does not provide security, it breeds despair and a culture of separation. And it cannot contain the hatred and resentment that are building every day.

Yes, sadly, of course that is right. But I want to get back to the word “serious.” McQ of Q and O blog dismisses the Bishop’s comments — “Anyone who can liken a wall erected to keep oppressed citizens in with a wall erected to keep suicidal enemies out simply can’t be taken seriously.”

No, Bishop Younan is only a Christian bishop who has lived his life pastoring and serving the people who live with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict every day. What could he know? We can’t take him seriously. Only people sitting in their living rooms on the other side of the world can possibly be serious about the Middle East.

(Do some people ever stop to think that, maybe, other people may understand the world better than they do?)

But this is a common tactic of the left – attempt to draw parallels between any totalitarian regime and Israel so its attempts at self-defense can then be compared to those oppressive regimes.

I can understand someone taking offense at comparing Israel to the Soviet Union, because it is not a valid comparison. However, the Bishop’s larger point is valid, especially in the second paragraph — the walls of hatred that are growing stronger everyday. This wall does not provide security, it breeds despair and a culture of separation. And it cannot contain the hatred and resentment that are building every day.

I don’t often write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because there are other people writing about it who follow it more closely than I do — I do not, in fact, claim to know everything about everything — and I defer to their knowledge. However, I do follow it closely enough to know that ain’t nobody innocent. There has been enough wrongdoing and stupidity on both sides to fill oceans. This conflict is not going to stop with military victory. It’s going to stop when enough people are damn sick of it and want it to just stop.

Yes, the Israelis have reason to hate the Palestinians. And the Palestinians have reason to hate the Israelis. Somebody show me the practical application of hate. This is just going to keep escalating unless enough people are able to rise above their own emotions and self-indulgent need for revenge and just stop it.

As for oppressed people versus suicidal enemies — the two do seem to arise together, don’t they? People who identify themselves as oppressed give themselves permission to use violence to fight back. People who see other people are dangerous enemies give themselves permission to oppress. They not only can be “likened” to each other; they create each other. They co-exist in a sick symbiosis. Seriously.