"It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Reason.com's Hit and Run blog has an interesting video up featuring psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, who is best known for his research into the foundations of morality. In the video, Haidt posits that political inclinations are based on sensitivity to disgust -- the sensation that something is innately repulsive, even if that repulsiveness can't be rationally explained.
Our disgust sensitivity, he argues, is the tool by which we structure our morality. (I'm repelled; therefore it is wrong.) And that sensitivity, or lack of it, makes for entertaining political bedfellows:
People who are low on [disgust sensitivity] tend to be attracted to liberalism or libertarianism...people who are high on it tend to be conservative...there is clearly a link between your disgust sensitivity and your moral judgment about cultural issues.
Libertarians are actually in personality very much like liberals, not like conservatives. Very much like liberals, but just lower in compassion [laughter] and more rational...libertarians are the smartest, most logical, least emotional across all emotions.
(If you're curious where you fall on this spectrum, go to Haidt's website, yourmorals.org, where you can take a battery of surveys.)
Haidt explains that disgust originally was a physical defense mechanism -- don't put that in your mouth! -- but it evolved into a means of differentiating between the base and the divine. He expands on the question of divinity -- the extent to which we associate purity (distance from the disgusting) with the divine -- and notes that we in the developed West are living in "the first fully desacralized world ever devised by human beings," with the consequence that "disgust plays a much lower role [now] than it [did] throughout human history and across cultures."
The lecture left me curious on several points. Haidt notes that on surveys, libertarians score by far the highest on systematizing and by far the lowest on empathizing. Those two distinctions also, he points out, define the general difference between masculinity and femininity. Now, he's already stated his premise that libertarians, like liberals -- because of their shared lack of disgust -- are less dependent than conservatives on the idea of the divine for their moral structure. So how does one explain a religious libertarian -- or, even better, a female religious libertarian? And if religious libertarians are an anomaly, are religious liberals equally anomalous?
There is one striking difference between libertarians and liberals that Haidt hints at but then doesn't follow up on. He makes the point that libertarians are not into "perceiving magical essences", but doesn't mention what strikes me as the rampant liberal tendency to perceive magical essences everywhere. I'd be most interested to hear his take on the worshipful -- I use the word advisedly -- adoration of the earth by liberals, as well as their apparent belief that human beings are some kind of harmful aberration, like a virus. I recall a comment Elvis Costello made years ago that he sometimes wonders whether the earth wouldn't be better off if humans had never set foot upon it. Humans, if left to their own devices, will inevitably mar the earth's perfection, so they must be constrained. When it comes to matters ecological, the vaunted liberal tolerance -- by which their supposed spiritual kinship with libertarians is defined -- pops like a balloon. Have sex with a goat if that's what makes you both happy, but you damn well better be feeding that goat organic hormone-free grass or we're coming for you, buddy.
But getting back to disgust sensitivity as the root of our political differences. This theory seems to make some sense. What do you think?
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I listened to this podcast. As a retrospective loose categorisation of tendencies it's of some interest. As a predictive endeavour, not in the slightest.I declare myself here as atheist libertarian with very low innate levels of automatic disgust (which seems to confirm with Haidt's analysis), who nonetheless thinks that there is a lot of merit in much social conservatism, who supports religious institutions. That's the Hayek in me, I suppose.The skeptic in me, though, thinks these kind of measurements and categorisations ought to be treated with great caution.
Mar '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Judith Levy, Ed.:
I might have said that conservatives are more attracted to and attuned to what is beautiful and noble.
But if Mr. Haidt insists on phrasing it such that progressives are less repulsed by, or even attracted to, what is disgusting, then who am I to argue? Preach on, good psychologist!
Edited on February 28, 2013 at 12:12pmMar '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I do think there is some truth in Haidt's thesis.
However, and stipulating I do not have time today to write a full refutation, my basic complaint with Haidt's way of proceeding is that he thinks it is a more sensible procedure to attempt to understand all of the higher faculties through the lens of, and in the light of, the lower ones, then the reverse.
This, by the way, is the opposite procedure from the way that, say, Aristotle or the Socratics tend to proceed. Their empiricism stems from confronting the way these notions are experienced in us and as they come to light first for us. Haidt's empiricism, concentric as it is with modern science, digs beneath that to the material (or_to_what_can_be_measured_and_calculated_materially)
The defect of this procedure is not only that it neglects human sentience (sometimes openly hostile to the notion), but it also has a tendency to reduce all human action and motivation to primeval experience or chemical processes. It is self-forgetting_and_self-congratulatory_at_the_same_time.
Edited on February 28, 2013 at 1:48pmOct '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Arrant nonsense arising from, as Crow's Nest points out, an arid methodology.
Looking at a recent paper (PDF), it is hard to shake the feeling that this is entirely invented. Let's make up something called 'disgust sensitivity' and define it as the score received from this questionnaire. Our intuition is that this has something to do with political leanings. So we get a bunch of people (90% liberal) to go to a website and answer our questionnaire and report their political leanings, and keep crunching numbers until we get a correlation. There are no real alternative hypotheses. There is no real effort to disprove the hypothesis (such as it is). This does not feel like science.
(More importantly, where is Evan Adair?)
May '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
So a libertarian has a study to say how smart and rational libertarians are? Then liberals, and finally conservatives are the knuckle draggers.
Wow, they really are like liberals.
May '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
If disgust means a negative reaction based on emotion rather than reason, then (in my experience) lefties tend to be far more disgusted than conservatives or libertarians. Put a few lefties together, and their first reaction will be to ban something. Conservatives seek to persuade, or even proselytize. Lefties seek to command, backed up by the power of the state.
Disgust, it seems to me, is the opposite of tolerance, and suggesting that lefties are more tolerant than conservatives goes against all of my experience.
May '12
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Pshaw.
Oct '12
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
What Haidt tendentiously interpets as "differentiating the base from the divine" (i.e., irrational mythology) is really just teleology, and those with a teleological understanding of nature (which is perfectly rational) tend to be more conservative than those who don't (i.e. those with a materialistic understanding of nature). The purpose of a flyswatter is to kill flies, not stir soup, and so stirring the latter with the former disturbs those sensitive to teleology, while it doesn't bother those who understand reality in purely material terms. Form should reflect substance, so it is jarring to find ice cream shaped like excrement - that is, something to be consumed in the form of something expelled. Unless, that is, you have trained yourself, or been trained, to ignore teleology altogether. And in that case, you probably won't have a problem with gay marriage either.
Sep '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I believe disgust has something to do with what you are exposed to and how much or often you are exposed to those things. Exposure to disgusting things is different for different groups. Conservatives will avoid pornography more, for example.
Cockroaches used to disgust me until I had to live with them in Egypt. My 14 year-old daughter is repulsed by the sight of a mouse. To me it's just a mouse. Unclean, but just a mouse.
Liberals and libertarians are less afraid of new ideas and less interested in keeping themselves and their children innocent. I think people can err on either side with that.
And it does have something to do with detachment. South Park is a great example. It is a cartoon, and drawings of disgusting things can elicit disgust in some people (my wife for example) and it's just a cartoon. I see it as a depiction of an idea or concept, I don't have as visceral a reaction to certain scenes. It is not meant to watch with attachment or identification, and I probably have trained myself to watch with detachment, just to get the message. Detachment can be good.
Sep '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I also notice that I have watched a fair amount of Holocaust documentaries and other horrific documentaries and I am always as outraged, but the scenes are less disgusting. At first it's really hard to look at skeletal dead bodies being flung into mass graves. Then you get used to it more. This is scary - I should be repulsed and unable to watch. Yet I am more committed to keeping this kind of thing from happening now that I know the reality of it. The mundanity of it. How casual it was. These things are important to understand so to better prevent it. I'm detached but sadly accepting that humans are capable of such acts. People who avoid those images may not be as effective at fighting against these forces. Nevertheless, I don't know if keeping people innocent isn't a good thing. In the old days, women and children were intentionally kept innocent.
It's great to keep children innocent, but they will ultimately be exposed to things and that has to be managed somehow.
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
There is also the liberal tendency to worship their leaders. Think of the personality cult associated with FDR, with the Kennedy family, with Bill Clinton, and with The One. Conservatives admire Ronald Reagan, but we do not worship the man.
May '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
The "study" struck me as a passive-aggressive attempt to make conservatives appear primitive, controlled by irrational, subconscious impulses.
Nonsense, and the proof is that people tend to become more conservative as they age and gain experience and wisdom. If conservatives are indeed more prone to disgust, it's more likely to be the result of our prudence and wisdom, our knowledge that the repulsive -- be it rancid meat or infidelity or corrupt gov't -- is something to be avoided, to be wary of. Pretty smart, us.
Let's rephrase the results of the study: Liberals, in their ignorance and lack of caution, are more prone to embrace that which should disgust them. That works.
Edited on February 28, 2013 at 2:39pmAug '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I actually greatly enjoyed Haidt's book. I don't have any issues with him. I'd just say, as far as the "disgust" measurement goes, there may be an issue with causality-- it's probably possible to train yourself to be disgusted more quickly, as a function of your conservatism, rather than it being the other way around.
The other issue I have is he leaves the term "rational" hanging in the wind for people to assume certain things about it. Rationality is good in some situations, but not in all situations. We want to be rational, but we want to avoid rationalizing away certain activities: "well, I probably won't be caught, everyone is doing it, it isn't really that bad."
Oct '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Another way of reading these tea leaves would be to say that libertarians are least evolved for the world which their favoured policies would bring to pass.
May '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
I'm totally on board with Crow's Nest, genferei and Scott in finding his assumptions and method unjustified, reductive, and passive aggressive.
To me it seems plain that he's confusing cause and correlation.
I mean, the same data could be interpreted in a very different way, couldn't they?
The libertarian and liberal philosophies appeal to people who lack moral sensibilities. It tends to confirm and exacerbate their arrogant and self-congratulatory unseeing.
Conservatism appeals to those who are attuned to the moral sphere, who recognize the difference between right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, between what is fitting and unfitting, worthy and unworthy. And the more we live according to what we see, the more sensitive we become to those values and their importance for human flourishing.
Jun '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
Genius!
Jul '10
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
The "disgust" response is not lacking in any of these groups cited, only the objects of disgust change. This study is transparently driven by Haidt's disgust for conservatives, and his need to paint the other as disgusting to avoid debate he is woefully unprepared for and incapable of assaying.
This is bottom tier peer review pap. Is that a federal grant process I smell?
Jun '11
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
It's like so much of psychology: a speck of truth propped up on a pile of curve-fitted crap.
Crow's Nest
I do think there is some truth in Haidt's thesis.
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
You rang?
Not only do I not get grossed out upon meeting someone who tells me he's a diaper-fetishist, I don't even get grossed out upon meeting a Methodist. Many liberals and libertarians get grossed out by, say, Baptists. So I'm not entirely sure how effective this "gross-out" terminology is (although I'm a big fan of Haidt's work on this).
I have long wondered, though, how much my Lutheranism plays into my libertarianism. It certainly helps. For one, Lutheranism emphasizes personal sin -- your own, not your neighbor's -- and so if you're likely to be grossed out or see a need for massive change, it's going to be your own sin that grosses you out.
And just as unlikely as you are to seek the government's help in getting you to stop gossiping, stop treating your spouse horribly, stop drinking so much, you're not going to see gov't as the best means for dealing with other's issues.
Re: "It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian"
But having said what I said in #19, libertarianism based on lack of disgust is a very weak libertarianism indeed.
I'm libertarian not because I want a prostitute in every pot but because I believe the state does not have the right to tell people what they should do with their lives.
One of my great disappointments upon encountering the larger libertarian movement was that many in it were there because they were drug users, atheists or gay. Now, I have no problem with that, but it was the movement that they found to affirm their lifestyle choices as opposed to being the movement they thought logically correct regardless of their drug use.
I grew up in a libertarian environment where you could be as religious and traditional as you wanted -- it had nothing to do with wanting to show the man that you could have weirder sex than he did.