The real difference between liberals and conservatives

Jonathan Haidt gave an incredible talk for TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) in March entitled “The Moral Mind.” It’s about five foundations for morality necessary to make society work, rooted in our innate genetic makeup, gathered by Haidt and his colleagues from many places, including their web site.

Haidt is a liberal caught on the horns of a dilemma.  Here are the five foundations of morality that he and his colleagues identify in their research:

1. harm/care
2. fairness/reciprocity
3. ingroup/loyalty
4. authority/respect
5. purity/sanctity

Haidt points out that the last three are conservative values.  Liberals propose that we “celebrate diversity” contra 3, propose that we “question authority” contra 4, and propose that we “keep your laws off my body” contra 5.  The intellectually honest thing to do upon discovering these findings about the foundations of morality would be to champion the benefits of conservatism.

Haidt concludes instead that we rise above the liberal-conservative divide, beyond “us and them,” beyond “right and wrong,” even beyond “true and false.”  These sound like an oriental world view beyond all dichotomies, but they also sound strangely like the big tent of liberalism in contrast to the very foundation of values that Haidt’s research identifies as essential to a well-functioning society.

Noam Chomsky of MIT (political über-liberal as well as a world-class linguist) faced a similar problem.  He originally believed in a Lockean blank slate mind, but the more he studied children’s language acquisition, the more he rejected that in favor of his “innateness hypothesis.”

To say that language or morality is innate is not to say that it is God-given, but you shouldn’t miss Haidt’s use of the word “miracle” in describing the moral mind.  Haidt says that evolution led to this genetic situation.  Which is to say, Haidt has no idea what led to this genetic situation.

I applaud Haidt’s call to reject self-righteousness, which is a common failing of conservatives like me.  I also applaud Haidt’s providing another example of the self-defeating nature of liberalism, apparently unintended.