LEFT- RIGHT

I've wondered for a long, long time, both during my life in the UK and since I arrived in the USA, how it can be that humans see matters of political importance in such diametrically different ways.....the black and white of it - the liberal and conservative of it, to attach available labels.

I attempted to write about the topic in April last year, in a post Political Preference - Brain Differences? Astrology in there anywhere?

If astrology "works", even at the most basic of levels, planet Saturn and/or its sign of rulership Capricorn (and possibly even its sign of rulership before Uranus was discovered, Aquarius), would have to be in some way more prominent or in a stronger position and without heavy conflict, in the natal chart of a dyed-in-the-wool right-wing conservative type. I don't have a view on what would likely be prominent in the chart of a strongly liberal left-winger, it's not as clear cut. Perhaps simply the absence of such astrological indications mentioned above would set political preference in the other direction?

Yesterday, How the Right Brain Works and What That Means for Progressives - an essay at Alter Net by Chris Mooney approached the topic (minus any astrology, of course). The essay draws on the author's book due to be published in April (The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality ) and on certain interviews.

The essay is interesting. I found several comments in the thread beneath it excellent assessments also. Two especially caught my eye:

From Perry Logan

A good way to frame it is to say conservatives in the U.S. have an incredibly strong herd instinct, whereas lefties tend to be weak or deficient in this area.

The Right are profoundly tribal. This intense group instinct affects both the emotions and the thought processes of conservatives.The most notable cognitive difference is that the Right's concept of truth itself is tribal--that is, conservatives only accept information/disinformation from conservative sources. Liberal or lefty sources of information are rejected out of hand. In addition, righties will categorize any unwanted or threatening information as being "liberal" or tainted.

That's why the Right can reject an entire scientific discipline--atmospheric science--for the simple reason that the information is unacceptable. Those scientists--hundreds of them, from all nations, all over the world--must be lyin' libs. The whole thing must be a plot.

Likewise, when I offer years of research and reviews from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, which one might have thought an unimpeachable source, showing that guns are just as deadly and dangerous as common sense would predict, the gun guys just snort. "Harvard? What do they know?" and trot out some stats their cousin cooked up in the basement, which are more to their liking.

Lefties are not clear-eyed, objective observers, by any means. But in my experience, they are rarely capable of such a profound degree of cognitive bias.

The result of all this reality-filtering is that the Right literally have their own facts about everything. It's as if they lived in a parallel universe, where liberals are the cause of all our problems, if the world could only see. Those are some weird brains they have over there.

When I say the left are "deficient" in herd instinct, I don't mean it as a criticism. Our relatively weak herd impulse is one of our virtues, it seems to me. At the same time, it puts us at a distinct disadvantage in politics. We're not the great followers our rightward brethren are.

The Obots are very tribal, by the way. Obots--Obamacrats--are strikingly similar to wingnuts in their thinking and behavior. That's because Obots are not true lefties, but are members of personality cult centered around the Bammer.

And..... from a different angle:

Along Came Jones

I found this article interesting from a philological prospective but I am not so sure of it's practical use. While there are certainly differences in the extremes, those difference begin to dissipate when considering the total attitudes between the extremes. There has always been this difference and likely always be a difference. I also suspect that civility has had it's ups and downs and will continue to ebb and flow. However, I don't believe these differences account for the problems we face now or similarly in 1890 or 1920.

There is a percentage of a group somewhere between 5-10% that either works at cross purposes, is unsuitable, is delinquent, or what have you. If you start with this premise it becomes clearer the nature of most problems. The problem society faces is how to justly isolate this percentage so as not to impede the group.

To cut this short and offer a quick summary of today's conditions:

1. 95% of people will obey safe driving rules either by choice of peer pressure, while 5% will not. Thus the need for traffic laws to protect the 95%.
2. We have allowed a small percentage of people, many of which are psychopaths or sociopaths, to game our political, economic, and social systems. When judged by wealth alone many are at the upper levels of respectability.
3.This small percentage of wealthy misfits uses distraction to confuse the other 95%.

These periods of the 1890's, 1920's, and today are similar in this case and I am sure there are other similar periods in history. If I had to guess, it is generational in nature, ie: one generation of abuse followed by one of reform, one at rest. and one diminishing group diligence. It starts over again as the last generation that remembers dies off.

"...one generation of abuse followed by one of reform, one at rest. and one diminishing group diligence. It starts over again as the last generation that remembers dies off. That proposition would benefit from some research, astrological and otherwise - as would the original conundrum of why people seem to naturally gravitate left or right politically. Perhaps more posts on this, sometime, if I can get my head around the best way to do it.