CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2019/05/on-this-day-in-1992-rodney-king-asked-cant-we-all-just-get-along.html

Rodney King was an imperfect human being, just like me. His question resonates today, 30 years later. I want to argue, following Jonathan Haidt and his Moral Foundations colleagues, that we are, indeed, hard wired with various deep intuitions about morality, religion and politics. Our biological selves have inherited 9, at latest count, sets of wiring that make each of us see the world as a moral place.

Unfortunately, there are 9 different intuitions. Too many to reduce to one. Inherently in tension. We each favor a different set of moral intuitions. By age 15 we have preferences. By age 25 they are largely fixed for life. Like the Gallup Strengthsfinder “talents”. They tend to cluster into left and right, liberal and conservative frameworks.

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Quick Summary of Moral Foundations Theory

Care – protection of children and the weak.

Proportionality – good behavior, effort and results should be rewarded.

Equality – all individuals should be treated equally, even those who are somewhat different.

Loyalty – members of a group are responsible to be loyal to the group and its leaders.

Authority – members of a group should respect the authority of duly positioned leaders.

Purity – individuals should reject impure things, situations, acts and people.

Liberty – Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, American and French revolutions.

Honor – Individuals are devoted to a moral code larger than themselves and should be duty bound to enforce it at all costs.

Ownership – Property is essential. What’s mine is mine.

A Comprehensive Summary

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion – 2012 (Part 1)

The Righteous Mind – Part 2

The Inherent Conflict

Moral, religious and political views are shaped by biology, experience, history and culture. Western culture has moved from an integrated “Christendom” in 1500 to pluralism and secularism. Individuals and groups of individuals have different views about what is fundamental about life. The last 600 years are a history of these differences. We have learned to embrace a tolerant “classical liberal” view of politics, economics and culture not because we like or emotionally embrace it as an ideal, but because it is necessary to keep us from fighting with each other. Deep divisions about moral, political and religious views are the norm. They don’t go away with progress, science, modernity, trade, globalization, education, or experience. Why?

Liberals Think

Care is first. Equality (maybe equality of results, not just opportunity) is second. Liberty is third.

Proportionality is pretty logical. Some sorts of purity are important.

Not so sure about loyalty, authority, honor and ownership. Not just absent, but maybe these are not really virtues at all.

Conservatives Think

Liberty and Authority duel for first place. Ownership/Property and Loyalty are tied for third. Proportional fairness is very important. Purity and honor are sometimes very important. Basic equality and caring are also important. Everyone knows this.

Summary

We see the moral world differently. We prioritize these factors differently. There is enough consistency on the “left versus right” dimension to see individuals as one or the other, but our lived experience rejects this oversimplification. There are very different versions of liberals and conservatives. We try to simplify this as center-left versus new left or center-right versus extreme right to stay on the single simplifying dimension, but this is inadequate. There are many dimensions. Domestic versus international. Economic versus social/cultural. Universal versus local. Personal versus groups. Thinking versus feeling. Intuitive versus logical. Individual versus community. Secular versus religious.

In general, liberals are willing to take social risks, experiment, try new options. Conservatives are reluctant to take risks, preferring to stay with what is known. Liberals are optimistic and wear their feelings on their sleeves. Conservatives are careful and quietly calculate results. In general, on average, in aggregate, social scientists present data to confirm this view. But real people don’t neatly fall into the two categories. Entrepreneurs take huge risks. Many social conservatives are now radically trying to transform the US into a society that fits their views. Some liberals are trying to define what is “acceptable” and limit free speech. Many liberals now see that the preservation of their FDR era social and political institutions and norms are critical as they are threatened by a populist leader.

The US was founded with a political system that tries to moderate the extremes and find a common ground in the middle of competing political, moral and religious views. We have lost sight of this ideal, this vision, this necessary reality. We are stuck with each other. We have different versions of the perfect world. They are not going to be miraculously overturned through education or experience.

Are those who see the world differently from me Evil? Wrong? Unworthy? Shunned? Ignorant? Clueless? Selfish? Childish? Possessed? Confused? Stunted? Misguided? Immoral? Greedy? Irrational? Emotional? Small-minded? Provincial? Utopian? Idealistic? Shortsighted? Prejudiced? Reactive? Limited? Deluded? Suckers? Hubristic? Elitist?

There is a fundamental human need to organize our world into a meaningful whole, worldview, perspective, vision and reality. There is a fundamental principle of biology that embraces sexual reproduction and the diversity/variety of genes in order to “have our cake and eat it too”. We combine genes and genetic variety in order to produce individuals who are different. This provides a species level advantage. We don’t want to go “all in”. We want to have options to face a changing environment. Probabilistic beats deterministic. Period.

The Meyers-Briggs personality dimensions are good examples. We want to preserve BOTH introversion and extraversion, intuitive/abstract and specific/analog/local, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving. As a species, we need both. We are wired to use both ends of each spectrum, but each of us tend to favor one end or the other. A very few people learn about these options and develop the skills to be equally productive on both ends of each dimension, despite their genetic wiring.

We are intrinsically different regarding moral, political and religious views. This is unavoidable. This is good. We OUGHT to recognize and embrace these differences, not demonize others. This is an inherently “liberal”, optimistic, complex, dynamic, grey, soft worldview. I understand why others may disagree.

I’m a math major, economist, finance MBA, CPA, CMA, process engineer, COO, CFO, financial analyst, statistician, supply chain manager, risk manager, cradle Catholic, adult Presbyterian, small-town child. Put me in the box. I ought to be a highly structured person that supports the philosophical conservative world view, but I don’t. Historically, I experienced the systemic challenges of poor people. Care, fairness and equality became most important for me. I also appreciate proportionality, authority, property/ownership and loyalty.

My personal journey has many influences. I see that others have varied experiences. I respect these differences even when they lead to different moral conclusions. I’m a child of the enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation. I embrace the freedom, liberty and opportunity of the free-standing individual. Yet I try not to elevate it to an extreme. I am not God, the eternal, universal, transcendent, omnipotent. I have received both “child of God” and “inherently broken” messages. Both/and. Complicated. Dynamic. Bittersweet. Sweet and salty.

We all want to believe that “we are right”. In moral, religious and political matters, we need to accept that others see the world differently. Despite these differences, we have proven that we can work together to manage our society “well enough”. This is not an obviously inspirational message, but it is very, very important. This is as good as it gets. IMHO!