Best Posts in Thread: I literally don't even know

http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-politics/

So, a quick outline before you dive (I mean jump carefully. No broken necks, ya hear?). This article briefly summarizes a book. This book is written on conservatives vs. liberals, and why (now I had though I was the only one to notice this, silly me) conservatives seem to understand liberals better than the reverse. It gives five 'moral' principles ((1) care/harm, (2) fairness, (3) loyalty, (4) authority, and (5) sanctity), and claims that, whilst conservatives adhere, or value, each of them equally, liberals tend to value care and fairness the most. This creates a situation where conservatives can understand the base motivations for liberal though, but liberals find it difficult to reciprocate. You might see evidence of this in the liberal media's propensity to demonize conservatives as racist, super-christian bigots.


Anyway, I just want to see what a mostly liberal space makes of this.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 14, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 14, 2015 ---

Just browsing the web (ok, not really) I found another article, and one bit really struck me as insightful:
"What we have here are two different forms of family-based morality. What links them to politics is a common understanding of the nation as a family, with the government as parent. Thus, it is natural for liberals to see it as the function of the government to help people in need and hence to sup-port social programs, while it is equally natural for conservatives to see the function of the government as requiring citizens to be self-disciplined and self-reliant and, therefore, to help themselves."

Anyway, here's the full article: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/467716.html It's engaging and really long. Really long.
Personally, this pretty sums up my view of the government: It's there the provide the things we can't provide on our own. That would be infrastructure, an army, police force, and fire dpt. and education. If there is to be a welfare system, it should be limited to people who are actively searching for a job, and can prove they are actively searching for a job. That basically sums it up, and that's all I need from the government to live: roads to get to work, safety from foreign powers (and as much safety as a police force can provide), and a fire department to prevent the city from burning down. Businesses can take care of the rest.

 

I definitely don't value them all equally.

While I would say that I probably tend to value fairness, loyalty, and care close to equally, sanctity is below them, and authority is definitely below that. It's completely BS to say that I can't understand people that value them all equally though.

Let's say that we have five fruits (Apples, oranges, bananas, pears, and kiwis). Say that I only like pears, apples, and oranges, but you like all five of the fruits. Does this mean that when you eat one of the fruits that I don't like, I'll be unable to fathom why you are doing so? No, it's easy to understand when someone likes or cares about something that you don't.

I think it's reasonable to say that many liberals don't realize what factors motivate conservatives, but it's untrue to say that they're unable to understand it.

TLR - I understand conservatives fine, I just disagree with them.