Have You Ever Wondered What Compells Your Conservative Relatives to Vote the Way They Do?

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http://www.alternet.org/culture/have-you-ever-wondered-what-compells-your-conservative-relatives-vote-way-they-do



***SNIP

RH: Your book is based on the idea that most of us don’t understand the true roots of political differences. What are we missing?

Haidt: People often assume that politics is primarily about self-interest. They wonder why someone would vote for a candidate who’s going to raise their taxes or cut their benefits. But politics, especially at the presidential level, is more like religion than a shopping excursion. Despite all the individualism and materialism within our culture, our group affiliations matter deeply to most of us. Politics begins to make more sense when you understand it as a tribal phenomenon.

RH: So, in politics, group membership trumps individual need?

Haidt: Yes. The more we care about our ethnic group, our city, our state, our occupational group, the likelier we are to vote for politicians who we believe will advance those interests, even when they diverge from our individual interests. For example, it’s striking how many liberal parents with children weren’t more opposed to forced school bussing in the 1970s. Politics is largely about moral missions for the nation, and the president is expected to be the high priest of the American civic religion. It can be illuminating to see the left and right in this country as practicing different civic religions, and looking to very different high priests.