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Your fundamental political biases may be largely influenced by the genes that predispose your personality (although I'm sure there is also evidence that suggests environment plays a role). But your political beliefs can still be wrong with respect to your biases. Say for example you have a certain goal derived from a bias, like say you want people to have easier access to healthcare, except the policy you support would do the exact opposite. So you can be wrong in your political beliefs. Except when it comes down to arguing for our fundamental biases.
Your fundamental political biases may be largely influenced by the genes that predispose your personality (although I'm sure there is also evidence that suggests environment plays a role).
As with psychology generally, environment is by far the greater factor. Indeed, the OP is a textbook example of a question springboarded from a false positive.
We can see the effects of environment on political beliefs in real time. When mothers caught in poverty give their children up for adoption and the children are lucky enough to be taken in by a middle class family, then assuming no further contact is made with the mother it is almost invariable that the child will grow up with the values of the adoptive family rather than the biological one.
Generally speaking one's political views are formed by the hand that rocks the cradle.
Tribal voting is the norm in most democratic societies with children adopting the political persuasion of their parents, just as they do with their religious beliefs.
Providing people don't try to force their political views onto others through violence and intimidation the open exchange of views serves to foster a healthy and well balanced society in which everyone is free to express their political and religious dogma.
I didn't bother to read you sources, but here's what I think of the question:
I think it would be wrong for people to judge you for your beliefs (you can see my debate titled "Can having a certain belief be morally right or wrong?" for more detail), because you can't help it.
People can still judge whether those beliefs are right/wrong, and I think it's okay for them to try and convince you that you are wrong, so long as they don't blame you for what you couldn't help.
(Also, I'm sure the environment you grow up in plays a part in determining your beliefs too, but the question is still the same)
So what about folks like me who have gone through most of the political spectrum?
I buy that there are structural aspects of the brain that may support tendencies toward particular attitudes, that support particular mental capabilities that lead to thinking about things like risk, income, and social relationships according to different levels of complexity.
However, there is a lot more to what we think and believe in than that.
But you aren't a slice of bread, nor do you have butter on you. Am I wrong?
"...what side of the bread your butter is on" is a metaphor for self-interest.
Consider:
People tend to support policies they perceive as supporting what is good for them, personally, and tend to be against policies they perceive as being detrimental to their personal good or individual goals.
It is primarily in the realm of policies they do not perceive to have any significant impact on themselves that biological predispositions are likely to play a significant role in political beliefs.
This explains why people tend to be more liberal when we are young, and become more conservative as we get older. (Bear in mind, this is a VERY broad generalization.)
- Younger people have less personal capital and fewer financial resources. As a result, they are more likely to be in favor of higher taxes for people with a higher income than theirs, and more likely to support socialism and the welfare state. Because of their lower personal capital (education, skills, experience) and resulting lower incomes, they are likely to favor higher taxes for others. Because of their related dearth of financial assets, they are more likely to favor a socialist safety net that may benefit them in the form of various types of aid that would be paid for by somebody else.
- Older people are more likely to have more personal capital and greater financial resources. As a result, they are more likely to be in favor of lower taxes for people with a higher incomes (like theirs) and less likely to support socialism and the welfare state, which is far less likely to be of any benefit to them, personally.
It is true, however, that some of the lifelong trend toward conservatism may be related to changing biology. People become more risk averse as we age, regardless of the type of risk, whether social, political, financial, or physical. That tends to drive more toward conservatism and resistance to change.
Even so, we can see that self interest does play a part when considering the voting behavior of union members in the last two presidential elections.
Many union members voted Democrat for years, but then switched to voting for Trump in 2016. While they perceived that Democrat policies were likely to benefit them, they voted for Democratic candidates. For example, because Obama extended unemployment insurance benefits indefinitely, it was in their interest to vote for him in 2012.
However, during the Obama years, the recession caused mass unemployment among union workers. This was exacerbated by regulations that gutted industries like coal and car manufacture, and by decades of trade policies (NAFTA, etc.) that specifically disadvantaged US manufacturing and trucking industries, which disproportionately disadvantaged union workers. When Trump announced policy intentions that the workers perceived as likely to reverse these trends, an unexpected number voted with their self-interest, and for Trump.
People tend to support policies they perceive as supporting what is good for them, personally, and tend to be against policies they perceive as being detrimental to their personal good or individual goals.
Hello m:
How ya doin?
What you say is absolutely true in right wing circles. But, we libs have what's called empathy, so we can put ourselves in somebody's else's shoes.. That's why we vote for the good of the country, instead of the good for ourselves..
What you say is absolutely true in right wing circles. But, we libs have what's called empathy, so we can put ourselves in somebody's else's shoes.
I think your assumptions about the difference between left and right wing virtue are misplaced.
Studies indicate that conservatives donate slightly more money to charity, volunteer more time, and donate much more blood than liberals, (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html) while liberals vote more for government giveaways than do conservatives.
To be fair, I think the essential motives of these behaviors are generally similar.
The difference is whose money each person is giving away. Conservatives tend to favor letting people decide whether or not to give away their own money, whereas liberals (especially leftists) tend to favor giving away other people's money (especially that of the rich).
I don't see how it is virtuous to vote to give away somebody else's money, regardless of who it helps. Certainly it shows nothing about how empathetic you are, but merely with whom you empathize.
That's why we vote for the good of the country, instead of the good for ourselves.
I think you know that is not a just assessment.
I think we ALL vote for what we perceive to be for the good of the country. I even think we have VERY similar ideas for what is the good of the country: peace, justice, universal prosperity, individual freedom, clean air, water, and land. We just have very different ideas of how best to achieve it all. That seems to me to be based on different assessments of government and people.
I think you liberals have a much higher opinion about how well government works than do conservatives, but you seem to have a much lower opinion of the motives and capabilities of individual people.
Conversely, conservatives tend to think government is a necessary evil that is disastrously inefficient, and is demonstrably ineffective at addressing big issues like poverty and health care needs, and therefor should be kept out of most of those activities. Conservatives tend to believe in the capability of individuals to solve our own problems and help each other out, provided government stops interfering and screwing things up. This is why we object to social welfare programs that infantilize large segments of the population, who are otherwise perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.
I think we ALL vote for what we perceive to be for the good of the country.
Hello again, marcus:
A minute ago you were telling us that we vote for what we perceive to be good for US.. One sounds positively Ayn Randian, and other sounds slavishly liberal. It can't be both.
I don't disagree that conservatives give more money to charity. So? That's a SHORT term solution, if it's a solution at all.. Libs, like me, support programs that SOLVE hunger and ends the need for charity.
Yeah.. I'm gonna TAKE your money to do it.. IF you were as generous or caring as you would have us believe, I wouldn't HAVE to take it.. You'd GLADLY volunteer it.
But, I DO agree that we BOTH believe our way of doing things is better for the country.
In response to "I think we ALL vote for what we perceive to be for the good of the country."
you wrote, "A minute ago you were telling us that we vote for what we perceive to be good for US."
I don't see how these are automatically (or even more than seldom) in conflict.
- 1 - Our self-interest almost always coincides to some degree with the good of at least some others. Some of this is because a country is a system of systems. If one of the systems or subsystems were to be directed to our benefit, it is not necessarily unreasonable to conclude that it would be an improvement in the overall function of the nation.
Absolutely, I think people tend to overgeneralize, and therefore many think that more people are in a similar situation as them than is truly the case. Both sides of the political aisle globalize factors with respect to many issues.
- 2 - We tend to view life in terms of our own experience. That causes us all to project our own good onto the good of the country. In fact, many people evaluate how well the country is doing based on how well they personally are doing. This is why one of the major factors in whether voters vote for or against an incumbent is whether their personal situation has improved or deteriorated.
It is not selfishness, but overgeneralization.
It IS true, however, that in the absence of information, mathematics and classical logic, some people do fail to perceive conflicts between their own perceived self-interest and the good of the country as a whole (as opposed to the good only of people like them.
We see this in Obamacare, . People were willing to sacrifice the good of hundreds of millions of people for the sake of getting free or reduced cost health care to somewhere between 7 and 11 million people (depending on whose estimate, and which year.) They were not trying to sacrifice the good of the majority, they just miscalculated the impact.
With more information and a better grasp of math and basic economics, they instead would have gone with expanding HIPAA to include the individual health insurance market, and added the rule about covering offspring until age 26.
But, I DO agree that we BOTH believe our way of doing things is better for the country.
I agree absolutely. I have told you before that while we disagree, I do not think you are either mean-spirited or stupid.
I am pretty sure the root of our disagreement about social welfare programs is that you are more MUUUUUUUCH more optimistic than I am about the capabilities of government to be effective, and you are MUUUUUUUUUUCH less pessimistic than I am about government tendencies toward intrusion and despotism.
For example, I do not think Hitler, Stalin, Peron, the Sauds, Ceausescu, Erdogan, the Ayatollahs, Mussolini, or Mao were anomalous. I sure don't think government waste and ineffectiveness are surprising or remediable.
What is interesting about this is that despite my belief that people in power (including petty bureaucrats) are likely to run amok, I have much greater faith in the ability of individuals to run our own lives effectively when required to do so than you do.
As a result, IN GENERAL, you think the more important something is, the more necessary it is to involve government, whereas I think the more important something is, the more necessary it is to keep government out of it. We both have our exceptions, but I think this captures the bulk of it.
Do you think I got this right?
If so, how did you manage to stay (become?) such an optimist about government after all that time in the hoosegow?
I don't disagree that conservatives give more money to charity. So? That's a SHORT term solution, if it's a solution at all.. Libs, like me, support programs that SOLVE hunger and ends the need for charity.
I agree that giving to charity is a short term solution. It is merely giving a man a fish, as opposed to teaching him how to fish, AND giving him a place to fish. Government welfare programs are likewise short term, and there are indications that they actually exacerbate the problem by actively discouraging independent "fishing". There is a big difference between short term emergency help via charity or government aid, and programs that create long term dependence.
The most successful method for bringing people out of poverty has been capitalism. Capitalism is how in a single century BILLIONS of people have been raised out of abject poverty. In fact, obesity is now a greater health risk for more people than starvation is.
Importantly, capitalism relies on individuals serving their self-interest to fuel the mechanism for curing poverty.
If you think you know of another proven, successful method for lifting people out of poverty long-term, I would be interested to hear it.
(Err...read it.)
Yeah.. I'm gonna TAKE your money to do it.. IF you were as generous or caring as you would have us believe, I wouldn't HAVE to take it.. You'd GLADLY volunteer it.
I never argued (or at least I never intended to argue) that I, personally am generous. I try to work out win-win situations that serve the self-interest with others. I did not teach for free, but I was careful to do a good job when they were paying me, and I did spend more time and care on my students than I was required to do.
If liberals were as generous and caring as they pretend to be, they would not take until their own pockets were empty.
To be fair, giveaways have pretty consistently to be proven ineffective. However, I still do not see a lot of liberals teaching poor people how to fish. (I sure don't see Bernie Sanders spending his millions by providing anybody that free college tuition he was promising.)
We really don’t disagree at all, as you know. Capitalism, is indeed, the best cure for proverty. Nonetheless, in terms of feeding the hungry, I don’t do it to teach them a lesson. I do it because they’re hungry.
I just realized I failed to tie my earlier post to your response.
I think we all realize that our ability to do good things for others is dependent on our own needs being met, and our own self-interest being addressed.
Consider this in the context of the debates regarding illegal immigration. The conservative position boils down to wanting the US is to be a good place to be, both for natural born citizens, and for immigrants. That means that immigration must be controlled so that the country is only strengthened by immigration, and so that destructive forces, whether nefarious or incidental, are not allowed into the process.
Ask an American Indian about the negative results of uncontrolled immigration.
Regarding the importance and benefits of voting for one's own self interest, the health of a republic DEPENDS upon it. We all know our own needs better than we know the needs of others. If we vote in accordance with what we merely THINK are other people's self interest, we muck up the basis for representation, and end up doing at least one of two things.
- Sacrificing the good of the majority for the perceived good of the minority.
- Distracting government from what we know from our own experience is in our own interest, and instead directing government toward what we only think might be (and we may be grievously mistaken in our assessment) is in someone else's interest. This means voting from ignorance may cause government to work counter to the interests of the very people we hope to help.
I agree--this is why Psychology is a (very) "soft science", more toward Philosophy on many fronts though they try to push it under the banner of science. Richard Feynman warned about such abuses many years ago, as people understood the power of Physics and by extension anything associated as "similar" to it. This is what is now often coined "concept creep" in action.
this is why Psychology is a (very) "soft science", more toward Philosophy on many fronts though they try to push it under the banner of science.
Yeah. After a couple psych classes, and several education classes that were heavily based in psychology (developmental psych, special ed, etc.), I came to the conclusion that psychology is a mix of metaphor, pseudoscience/junk science, actual science, mysticism, and common sense.
Clearly, Freud's work is based on no science whatsoever, but is merely metaphoric discussion of anecdotal observations.
Jung's work is more appropriate to an English literature class or mysticism than anything even remotely associated with science.
Many of the "scientific" studies had small sample sizes, and often only published.included selected results or runs of the experiment, like the infamous Milgram experiment.
There is no denying that Maslow's hierarchy of needs is common sense. It is not groundbreaking--the first time I read it, my reaction was, "Duh, of course air is a higher priority than love, and of course without both of them you cannot achieve your full potential." The obviousness is what makes it common sense.
Psychiatry is predominantly trial and error.
Carl Rogers' work is not scientific, but it is common sense that talking to kind people who empathize will make people feel better.
The one bright spot in psychology is conditioning studies. Both Pavlov and Skinner used scientific principles, and produced dependably repeatable results.
I agree with everything you said. Do you have any specific thoughts about Psychotherapy? It seems to me, if Psychotherapists were truly interested in finding out what Psychological states feel like and then attempting to cope and ultimately overcome it, then they would personally seek it out in real life. For instance, go out into the world and attempt to conquer a fear of heights by riding the biggest roller-coaster in the country, or some other such challenge. Want to find out what overcoming fear with courage is like in the face of danger?--volunteer at the Fire Department for several months. Want to see how to deal with stressful living/life conditions?--do an arduous manual labor job for 3 months. Etc. etc. After all, the core of science is testing/experimentation.
I get the impression that many Psychotherapists have a Yoda or Philosopher-King "Complex" where they like to think they are "Jedi Masters" and have all these various things they read in a book conquered, and the world along with different niches in society "figured out". Now, to Philosophize about the world is one thing, and very important to think about, however using your own personal Philosophy(s) in the context of a "scientific therapy" session seems like it could be irresponsible and potentially quite damaging. I like Jordan Peterson, and understand that he has been a Clinical Psychologist, I am speaking more generally about the field.
Do you have any specific thoughts about Psychotherapy?
I thought you would never ask. I have a lot of thoughts about psychotherapy, counselling, etc..
I have never known a problem that could be solved by talking about it.
My basic principle is that our feelings are not particularly important. It is our actions, regardless of our feelings, that form the substance of our lives, and that determine our well-being. Coping is all about behavior.
The corollary is that useful habits are the foundation of a happy, productive life, and self-destructive habits are the core of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
Regarding psychoanalysis and psychosocial analysis
I think that whole dive deep into the past to figure out what happened in formative years to screw you up ("Tell me about your mother") is counterproductive.
Focusing on previous pain is a horrible idea because:
- It does not actually lead to catharsis (breakthroughs) but reliving (possibly) damaging experiences. If they were bad experiences the first time, they are still bad experiences.
- It instills the habit of focusing on previous pain, which leads to:
- - A focus on a bad past when the goal is a good present and a good future.
- - Failure to notice or appreciate present success and joy.
- - Wallowing, self-indulgence, and narcissism, which destroy relationships.
- - Shifting responsibility for present conditions from one's own current actions to some other person or event.
- - It strips the patient of the attitudes of self-determination and accountability that are the bedrock of improving current life and conditions.
- It distracts from, and discourages positive and productive behavior.
Because of this, I think that long term therapy is a racket, though usually a well-intentioned one.
Regarding counseling and life coaching
Words and ideas and feelings are all very nice, but until we behave differently, nothing improves. Absolutely, in the short term (one or two sessions) talking can be useful. However, to be useful, it must follow the life coaching model.
- Sort things out to identify and prioritize issues.
- Strategizing activities.
- Do the homework wherein the patient adopts healthy and useful behaviors.
- Returns to the therapist to evaluate the success of the actions and identify improvements or adjustments, etc..
- Repeat the successful behaviors independently until they become habits.
Regarding chemically based mental illness.
The life coaching models is particularly critical for treatment of physiologically based mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression. This is the one area where long-term monitoring is actually justified. Medication compliance and monitoring are the greatest challenge, and non-compliance can be disastrous. These folks need recurrent life-coaching to ensure they stay on their meds, and to identify medication issues immediately.
Regarding couple's therapy
I know from experience that short-term couple's counselling can be very useful, because in a relationship, often there are communication problems and habits that require a referee and interpreter.
- To make any real difference in the patients' relationship there must be the development of new habits and behaviors that help them live together cooperatively and productively.
- Otherwise, they merely add understanding to the problems in the relationship, when the whole point was to SOLVE the problems in the relationship. My wife does not care why I act inconsiderately; she wants me to act considerately. Period.
Regarding loneliness and self-esteem
I think a lot of people go to counselling so they can feel connected and important for an hour a day or week or whatever. They do not have actual problems they need help with. They feel weak or lonely so they think something is wrong with them.
That is a waste of everybody's time.
If you want to feel important, do productive and useful things for others. Accept and fulfil responsibilities for the good of other people. That will actually make you important.
If you want better self-esteem, do difficult and worthy things that can justify estimation of higher self-worth. It is not complicated, and does not require professional help. It just requires work, like everything else.
My basic principle is that our feelings are not particularly important. It is our actions,
Hello again, m:
Dude! I think we were separated at birth.
It ISN'T how you feel about stuff.. It's what you DO about stuff.. People spend decades and millions on the therapist couch. Maybe, just maybe, they'll find out WHY they're neurotic.. However, finding out WHY you're neurotic does NOTHING to change your neuroses.
What you suggest, and I heartedly agree with, is that you can DO something about your neuroses TODAY. DOING things you NEVER did before strengthens your DOING muscle. 12 step programs are based on this principle. After your FIRST meeting, you STOP the destructive behavior.. MAYBE, through doing the other steps, you might find out WHY you were destructive.. But, you don't have know why in order to stop being destructive.
Reunited through the magic of ranting on the internet.... :)
12 step programs are based on this principle.
In principle, yes, but there are some counterproductive things that go on in most of those meetings. (Some of the psychotherapy methods invaded, maybe.) I stopped going when I realized that a lot of 12 step meetings are focused on people talking about something they intend to stop doing.
What most of the folks at my meetings really needed was a hobby, something to do instead of drinking, shooting up, or going to meetings to talk about wanting/not wanting to drink or shoot up.
The talking was not nearly as counterproductive as the not keeping busy. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop," don't you know.
