I dislike strawmans so this argument always irks me.
Teachers are left leaning because people with left leaning predilections tend to choose teaching as a career. There are multiple models to explain this but the most relevant is the idea that lefties tend to order their moral hierarchy “outward in” (World > Society > community > family > self) and righies tend to reverse that order (self > family > community > society > world)
The type of person that morally prioritizes the broader world & society will be more inclined to learn about it and also to teach it.
Can you source the studies that claim lefties prioritize self the least? Liberty conceptually is prioritizing yourself (or other individuals) over the good of society as an aggregate, so the idea that lefties would prioritize society so far above self is very counterintuitive.
Maybe, I’m still reading through but even this has pretty strong sentiments against the first commenter’s.
Liberals care about harm and fairness (individualizing values), whereas conservatives care more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity (binding values).
Tbf it’s talking most about universalism vs parochialism so I could see where someone would infer that. I don’t think that’s what the paper is saying (so far) though.
I don’t think that’s true. I mean I’m a leftist and I’d order it closer to what you say is conservatism, because I want to be happy and that means I want to be surrounded by good and happy people in a thriving world
I do good things because it makes my life better. It makes my brain release happy chemicals, it makes my environment just a tiny bit better, it makes me feel good about myself. It makes the people around me say pleasant things and care about my well being
Nearly everyone becomes more left leaning as they become more educated, because the more you learn the more you come to realize we’re all in this together.
Education ultimately helps you to understand a simple truth - that you and everyone you care about would be better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one
It’s not about personal values or beliefs, greater understanding of the world simply opens your eyes to the fact that the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better… The more you learn the more you understand this.
It’s a lack of understanding and imagination that causes people to act against their own interests, not a difference in values
You claimed to have an inward-out moral hierarchy but the rest of you comment demonstrated the opposite. “we’re all in this together.”, “better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one”, “the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better”. These are all statements that imply you would take actions that are objectively worse for you + your immediate community if it benefited the broader society. People that feel that way tend to be left leaning. E.x.
Vote to increase taxes that would affect you
Let’s assume you own a gun for arguments sake, you would still vote for gun control
Prefer to not be in a war even if it objectively benefited your countries economy
Many conservatives would rather be rich in a worse society, for example. Or that humanities organization doesn’t really matter so long as they can do what they want when they want.
That said this is just one model. I’m not claiming it applies to everyone.–
You claimed to have an inward-out moral hierarchy but the rest of you comment demonstrated the opposite. “we’re all in this together.”, “better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one”, “the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better”. These are all statements that imply you would take actions that are objectively worse for you + your immediate community if it benefited the broader society. People that feel that way tend to be left leaning.
Here’s the thing… These sentiments are objectively true. I know these things because of my education, just the same as I know “opposites attract” does not stand up to empirical analysis. We are actually all in this together, and living poor in a society that takes care of the poor is does actually lead to higher happiness than living rich in an inequal one
You talk about actions that are worse for me - I’m not so sure I’d do something that’s actually worse for me. I’m not that selfless
What I will do is take actions that prioritize the long term over instant gratification, or give up something direct for the sake of something less direct or even something ephemeral
Some of that is that I have a lot of empathy, being around someone suffering or someone full of hatred feels bad. But my political positions all come from sociological analysis - growing up my positions were closer to anarcho-capitalists because I love freedom, and now I’m very left leaning because I learned
I spend a lot of time around conservative people, and their values aren’t very different. They want what we all want - they want life to be affordable, they want a future for the children, they want to live in a thriving world.
The difference is they don’t understand how things can be better. They don’t understand that they’re voting against their own interests. They don’t understand that their perceived enemies are just like them, people who just want to live a good life
They see the state of the world, and they believe others are out to get them. They think everyone has bad intentions, and so they must “play the game” and get theirs before someone else does it first
And they’re often not actually bad people, they can be as generous as anyone and sometimes have a strong will to help others, so long as they feel it’s not their perceived enemies
They choose short term benefits and to disadvantage others, because fundamentally they don’t understand the world and the nature of others.
It all boils down to ignorance, often an ignorance they will fight to maintain, but it’s ignorance.
And education challenges that belief. If they make it through higher education without changing their beliefs, they either do it through an extreme pessimistic view towards the motivations of others (the knowing liers happy to “get theirs” like “anyone would”), or they come out ranting and raving about liberals in academia did their best to poison their minds
But mostly, they fail or come out with different views because of their new understandings. People say reality has a leftist bent, but it’s more that conservative views require a warped view of reality
I dislike strawmans so this argument always irks me.
Teachers are left leaning because people with left leaning predilections tend to choose teaching as a career. There are multiple models to explain this but the most relevant is the idea that lefties tend to order their moral hierarchy “outward in” (World > Society > community > family > self) and righies tend to reverse that order (self > family > community > society > world)
The type of person that morally prioritizes the broader world & society will be more inclined to learn about it and also to teach it.
Can you source the studies that claim lefties prioritize self the least? Liberty conceptually is prioritizing yourself (or other individuals) over the good of society as an aggregate, so the idea that lefties would prioritize society so far above self is very counterintuitive.
Maybe this?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0
Maybe, I’m still reading through but even this has pretty strong sentiments against the first commenter’s.
Liberals care about harm and fairness (individualizing values), whereas conservatives care more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity (binding values).
Tbf it’s talking most about universalism vs parochialism so I could see where someone would infer that. I don’t think that’s what the paper is saying (so far) though.
I don’t think that’s true. I mean I’m a leftist and I’d order it closer to what you say is conservatism, because I want to be happy and that means I want to be surrounded by good and happy people in a thriving world
I do good things because it makes my life better. It makes my brain release happy chemicals, it makes my environment just a tiny bit better, it makes me feel good about myself. It makes the people around me say pleasant things and care about my well being
Nearly everyone becomes more left leaning as they become more educated, because the more you learn the more you come to realize we’re all in this together.
Education ultimately helps you to understand a simple truth - that you and everyone you care about would be better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one
It’s not about personal values or beliefs, greater understanding of the world simply opens your eyes to the fact that the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better… The more you learn the more you understand this.
It’s a lack of understanding and imagination that causes people to act against their own interests, not a difference in values
You claimed to have an inward-out moral hierarchy but the rest of you comment demonstrated the opposite. “we’re all in this together.”, “better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one”, “the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better”. These are all statements that imply you would take actions that are objectively worse for you + your immediate community if it benefited the broader society. People that feel that way tend to be left leaning. E.x.
Many conservatives would rather be rich in a worse society, for example. Or that humanities organization doesn’t really matter so long as they can do what they want when they want.
That said this is just one model. I’m not claiming it applies to everyone.–
Here’s the thing… These sentiments are objectively true. I know these things because of my education, just the same as I know “opposites attract” does not stand up to empirical analysis. We are actually all in this together, and living poor in a society that takes care of the poor is does actually lead to higher happiness than living rich in an inequal one
You talk about actions that are worse for me - I’m not so sure I’d do something that’s actually worse for me. I’m not that selfless
What I will do is take actions that prioritize the long term over instant gratification, or give up something direct for the sake of something less direct or even something ephemeral
Some of that is that I have a lot of empathy, being around someone suffering or someone full of hatred feels bad. But my political positions all come from sociological analysis - growing up my positions were closer to anarcho-capitalists because I love freedom, and now I’m very left leaning because I learned
I spend a lot of time around conservative people, and their values aren’t very different. They want what we all want - they want life to be affordable, they want a future for the children, they want to live in a thriving world.
The difference is they don’t understand how things can be better. They don’t understand that they’re voting against their own interests. They don’t understand that their perceived enemies are just like them, people who just want to live a good life
They see the state of the world, and they believe others are out to get them. They think everyone has bad intentions, and so they must “play the game” and get theirs before someone else does it first
And they’re often not actually bad people, they can be as generous as anyone and sometimes have a strong will to help others, so long as they feel it’s not their perceived enemies
They choose short term benefits and to disadvantage others, because fundamentally they don’t understand the world and the nature of others.
It all boils down to ignorance, often an ignorance they will fight to maintain, but it’s ignorance.
And education challenges that belief. If they make it through higher education without changing their beliefs, they either do it through an extreme pessimistic view towards the motivations of others (the knowing liers happy to “get theirs” like “anyone would”), or they come out ranting and raving about liberals in academia did their best to poison their minds
But mostly, they fail or come out with different views because of their new understandings. People say reality has a leftist bent, but it’s more that conservative views require a warped view of reality