I'm not talking about "rhetorical ploys". — Apollodorus

If we are talking about politics then we must talk about rhetorical ploys. It is important to see how much political rhetoric informs our views of politics.

Historically, liberals were opposed to the ruling conservatives, and socialists to the ruling liberals or conservatives. That's why in historical terms the left stands for opposition to the established order. — Apollodorus

Historically, these terms are not fixed. The center shifts and with it those who are on either side. Depending on the issue conservatives may be just as determined to change the established order as the liberals.

Historically, these terms are not fixed. The center shifts and with it those who are on either side. Depending on the issue conservatives may be just as determined to change the established order as the liberals. — Fooloso4

The center doesn't shift of its own accord. It shifts further and further to the left under pressure from the left.

When conservatives are determined to "change the established order", the established order tends to be an order established either under pressure from the left opposition or under the rule of the left. In which case, the conservatives more often than not see change as a reversal of leftist policies and a return to the more conservative status quo ante.

The change aimed at by the conservatives is not the same as the change pursued by the left, though the two may partially overlap at times. This is an important distinction to make if you want to understand what my original question meant.

If we are talking about politics then we must talk about rhetorical ploys. It is important to see how much political rhetoric informs our views of politics. — Fooloso4

I think it's the other way around. Rhetoric is an expression of political thought. Rhetoric may well inform our views of politics but it doesn't originate in our views. Therefore we need to look at its place of origin which is politics and politics is at least partly rooted in psychology.

This is also a psychological explanation, albeit one not rooted in personality traits but social conditioning — Joshs

Sure, I'll admit to getting lazy by virtue of how other people are responding. Such as the quote below:

From my understanding of it that premise is not stressed or pivotal to the theory. — praxis

The importance of the premise re: threat and conservative worldview was explicitly provided by the social psychologists and political scientists themselves. I took the time to emphasis those remarks and reexamine them after contradictory phenomenon was provided to the authors, so that they couldn't be avoided by commentators here, but congrats, you're attempting to do so anyway.

Philosophy is an anti-psychology and that is its essence and greatness. Politics even more so.

Is it possible that there are some personality traits that are statistically more commonly shared by liberals than conservatives and others more common to conservatives? If so, is there any value in identifying them? — Fooloso4

Depends on the question you have in mind.

You can see perhaps differences in the personality traits among people who have as pets cats opposite to dogs or then have rabbits, but likely people will just draw stupid stereotypes from the information. A lot of people in PF had cats as pets. Hmmm...

In politics more important might be the actual politics, the implemented policies and so on.

I'm only familiar with MFT so my comments are limited to that theory. You re-quoted this from The Righteous Mind:

Conservatives react more strongly than liberals to signs of danger, including the threat of germs and contamination, and even low-level threats such as sudden blasts of white noise

This is pivotal to MFT?

I like the way Klein casually mentions "A virus isn’t just any threat, some researchers say. It is the threat at the root of these psychological cleavages." What researchers and how did they did they arrive at that conclusion?

My takeaway from MFT is that what separates us politically is mere social constructs and not particular traits or moral intuitions. Isn't everyone afraid of disease and death? Doesn't everyone value loyalty and fairness? Does being a member of tree-hugger clan mean that you have to think and act in a particular way? Sure, to be in good standing, but circumstances change and what it means to be a tree-hugger may change with it.

Is MFT even considered part of political psychology?

Philosophy is an anti-psychology and that is its essence and greatness. Politics even more so. — StreetlightX

And art is an anti-philosophy and anti-psychology, as is music, literature , poetry and every other mode of human creativity. Each is the anti of the others and that is their greatness. Any attempt or privilege or denigrate
any of these modes with respect to the others leads to silly biases like Heidegger’s elevating of poetry to the ultimate expression of being, or Nietzsche doing the same with art , or Rorty telling us we should chuck our philosophy books in favor of novels, or claiming that politics is ‘even more’ anti psychology than philosophy.

When powerful new ways of understanding ourselves come upon the scene , they can be expressed in any of the above modes. All I know is the most exciting and insightful discourses of being in the world I have found are from a small group of philosophers and clinical psychologists. It seems to me that political theory is lagging behind. Deleuze, Foucault and Marx don’t do it for me.

No, psychology is uniquely bad at understanding anything - especially politics - because it does not admit of a transcendental perspective. This is why philosophers as diverse as Kant, Husserl, and Frege went out of their way to erase any trace of psychologism from their work. Rightly so.

In politics more important might be the actual politics, the implemented policies and so on. — ssu

So what is your opinion? If a person prizes a free market above the availability of healthcare, is there a personality trait in that?

psychology is uniquely bad at understanding anything because it does not admit of a transcendental perspective. This is why philosophers as diverse as Kant, Husserl, and Frege went out of their way to erase any trace of psychologism from their work. Rightly so. — StreetlightX

The meaning of the transcendental , as well as the psychologistic, has undergone substantial
change since Kant. Psychologists who follow Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology embrace a form of transcendentalism that stands as a critique of Kantian transcendental subjectivity, by recognizing the irreducible reciprocal dependency of subjectivity and objectivity in the apprehension of the world.These authors jettison Kant’s solipsist idealist transcendental in favor of radical self-world interaction.

One finds this a priori in psychologists like Gendlin and Kelly, as well as Evan Thompson.

Of course , an entire generation of neo-Kantian psychologists implicitly based their models on Kantian idealism. So it wasn’t that they didntt admit of a transcendental perspective, but that they took it for granted.

The meaning of the transcendental, as well as the psychologistic, has undergone substantial change since Kant. — Joshs

Oh I'm well aware. The best working to purge it ever more of any residual psychologism. Considering psychology is largely a garbage science anyway, one has to admire the foresight of philosophers in ditching it early on.

The center doesn't shift of its own accord. It shifts further and further to the left under pressure from the left. — Apollodorus

It shifts in both directions. For example, many of Reagan's policies are now regarded as liberal.

When conservatives are determined to "change the established order", the established order tends to be an order established either under pressure from the left opposition or under the rule of the left. — Apollodorus

Right. The pendulum swings in both directions.

I think it's the other way around. Rhetoric is an expression of political thought. — Apollodorus

It is not one way or the other. Influence flows in both directions.

Philosophy is an anti-psychology and that is its essence and greatness. — StreetlightX

That may be the way you regard it, but there have been many prominent philosophers both past and present who do not agree with you.

So what is your opinion? If a person prizes a free market above the availability of healthcare, is there a personality trait in that? — frank

I will surely bet that those that are either for or against universal healthcare differ in their personal traits. The views that they hold on universal healthcare most likely depends on their own experiences of the system and the government/private sector.

If system works, people usually are OK with that. If the system doesn't work, they likely are unhappy with it. Hence them being for or against a system doesn't depend on their individual personal traits, but on the performance of the system.

As I said, owning as a pet a cat or a dog might say something about you, but it doesn't say much about your stance on health policies. But someone might make a nonsense investigation and come to the conclusion that if you have a rabbit as a pet, you likely vote X.

Considering psychology is largely a garbage science anyway, one has to admire the foresight of philosophers. — StreetlightX

I’m aware of your influences: Cavell, Zizek, Wittgenstein, Connolly, Deleuze. Every one of them has waxed enthusiastic about certain psychologists.
I think Deleuze was fond of Guattari, Witt admired James, Connolly quotes Freud up the wazoo, etc.

If system works, people usually are OK with that. If the system doesn't work, they likely are unhappy with it. Hence them being for or against a system doesn't depend on their individual personal traits, but on the performance of the system. — ssu

Correct.

I agree. This is why I said in another post:

I would think it worth identifying them before declaring them spurious.

...

In politics more important might be the actual politics, the implemented policies and so on. — ssu

But those policies and practices are put in place by people. People vote. People protest. Money and power are great equalizers but what else motivates people to promote one policy rather than another? Back one candidate rather than another? Become a candidate? Run on a particular platform? Are there differences that divide along party lines?

What fuels today’s polarizing political scene is not simply that the opponents see the world differently , it’s that they cannot fathom how one could in good conscience hold the views of the opposing side. This leaves only delegitimizing explanations for the other’s behavior.
— Joshs

Yes, I agree, though obviously for different reasons. — Isaac

Where groups are oppressed and have been serially so for decades - the poor, minorities, modern day colonies of TNCs...what's needed is more violence and condemnation. — Isaac

I’m not sure I understand how one can authorize violence and condemnation against an other while at the same
time considering their perspective and actions to be legitimate. As Ken Gergen wrote “ those we excoriate are but living also within traditions that are, for them, suffused with a sense of ethical primacy.”


I can understand how one group might accept an other group’s politics as not at all subject to moral condemnation , and yet find it necessary to protect one’s own community from them. One can defend oneself against a wild animal without condemning them , because we see their behavior as legitimate and natural.

I really don't see any reason to think that Side A or B have any kind of 'logic' to their respective worldviews at all, so there's nothing to see in that respect. There are collections of positions which are generally mutually exclusive sets (though some overlap) that are adopted out of habit, conformity, personal narrative building... — Isaac

I think this gets to the heart of it. For you the idea of a legitimate perspective , an internal logic to a worldview , is incoherent There are only fragmented and arbitrary bits of conditioned habits, so a ‘tough love’ is justified to change the reinforcement contingencies , habits, propositional narratives.

It is not one way or the other. Influence flows in both directions. — Fooloso4

It may well do. What matters is which direction is the main one and where the original source lies.

But someone might make a nonsense investigation and come to the conclusion that if you have a rabbit as a pet, you likely vote X. — ssu

However, if that someone has the statistics to back up his conclusion then his investigation can hardly be dismissed as "nonsense". It's all a matter of evidence, nobody cares about spurious conclusions. But you do sound a bit like a rabbit person, for sure.

if that someone has the statistics to back up his conclusion then his investigation can hardly be dismissed as "nonsense". — Apollodorus

You must have spent a lot of time making that drawing and you have my respect and admiration for your effort. However, I doubt very much that anyone would ever think of linking shark attacks and ice cream sales. Did my comment upset you? Or are you a cat person?

Perhaps sharks are attracted to ice cream lovers for some as yet inexplicable reason. We just don't know. Someone needs to do a study.

Perhaps sharks are attracted to ice cream lovers for some as yet inexplicable reason. We just don't know. Someone needs to do a study. — praxis

Maybe they smell sweeter due to the ice cream's sugar content that reminds sharks (at least the more clever among them) of blood? So you are a cat person after all. Unless you prefer rabbits.

That's exactly what highlights the problem of political power and its impact on society — Apollodorus

Are you suggesting an alternative arrangement?
Would not any sort of change require political power?

I don't understand the distinction you are making between politics and society.

Or perhaps beachgoers all jacked-up on ice cream swim more erratically and farther out to sea and the sharks don't sense the added sweeteners at all. Again, someone must do a study.

I don't know what the critter thing is about. You can safely drop me into the general 'animal lover' category though, though I'm not crazy about sharks.

That sounds cool. Just don't tell @frank, he tends to get upset a bit too easily. Have a great remainder of the day.

Very good questions. There are psychological differences that makes us choose the left vs the right. People in trait openness are liberal and people low on trait openness are conservative.

Defensive: many reasons. One is because it’s an important issue. Like closing the boarder when there is a pandemic. Another is when your fundamental beliefs disappear it’s like letting go of the boat that keeps you afloat. People don’t like that. You end up in chaos then.

Far left are loonies and far rights are loonies. Normal left are loonies because they are the creative types. They are eccentric. They want change. And they have many ideas (most ideas are stupid) they are ofc not loonies but can be seen as such.

The far left has gone too far. Wanting everything the be equal is not gonna work. It’s a foolish idea. No way can you have equal amounts of people of different “types” for lack of a better word in any system.

No point talking about far right (we know where that goes)

Far left also think that western society is patriarchal (it is) but not the way they think. They think everything is based on power. Which is ofc not true. Most hierarchies in the west are based on competence. It’s not the brute destructive programmer that rises too the top. It’s usually the most competent.

Why the different part: well we mostly like our kin. People who think and act like us. You have your own group. It’s weird for a philosophy group to take a day out with the practical types and do practical things and vice versa.

And society is a tyrannical force (not only) it makes you conform. You have to be a cog in the machine. It deletes part of you that might be beneficial for all and also deletes part of you that won’t. It also gives you everything that society has given you. And creative (open) people are more original (they like to be different) They feel that more strongly when things get “tyrannical” and low open people feel it more when things generate into chaos. Both need a balance ofc. Thats why we need free speech and talk to the other side. Sometimes conservatives are right and sometimes liberals are.

People in trait openness are liberal and people low on trait openness are conservative. — Caleb Mercado