Partisan attachment: How politics is changing dating and relationships (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Partisan attachment: How politics is changing dating and relationships (2020)

aei.org

65 pointsTomte125 comments

My 2 pennies:

Living in a secular society where religion plays a reduced part on the individual, compared with 50 years ago.

People now fill the gaps with other banners to fly and differentiate themselves with.

I agree, religion offers simple ways to classify actions as good or bad. Following the church teachings or priest's guidance was enough to make an individual confident they are a good person, doing good things.

Meanwhile, in real life, everything is complex, few things are clearly good or bad, everything has advantages and disadvantages. People need a simple compass to distinguish good and bad. It seems the "political beliefs" are taking up that space in a secular society.

That is the narrative of the religious but most don't go to learn about what they are doing wrong. They go to find out what other people are doing wrong so they can feel superior and rail against the sin of others. Religion has always been a weapon, it is just easier to wield now.

I'm not religious myself, but it is true that if you're going to treat something other than religion as though it were a religion, it's almost always going to be much worse.

Most religious prescriptions are either common sense (thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness) or recipes to avoid social chaos (thou shalt not commit adultery).

Of course religion has also been wielded as a weapon, and I'm the first in line to cherish western secularization, but I don't see it as an inherently socially harmful force.

> That is the narrative of the religious but most don't go to learn about what they are doing wrong. They go to find out what other people are doing wrong so they can feel superior and rail against the sin of others.

And this is the narrative of the Extremely Online Atheist. Of the hundreds of religious people I know (though I'm not myself), maybe two fit that description. You are noticing outliers and assuming they represent the entire group.

No, I grew up going to church three times a week. I believe in God but not religion for the reasons mentioned. All my family is religious. They post the most hateful judgmental things on FB. My one cousin is gay and her direct family won't talk to her because she is a "sinner". I don't see the so called Christians acting like Christ and when they do it is mostly on spreading the word. Even the churches and mission that offer free food around here do so only with prayers and sermons as part of the experience.

I think it depends on which Church, which cultural groups, what generation etc. I know the "judgemental Christian" cliché, but I also know it to be very much an American WASP (specifically Evangelical, I think?) stereotype.

To be fair, I know nothing about Christianity outside of the US. Just speaking of those I've interacted with. I'm not sure it is only Evangelicals. Catholics won't even let other Christians take communion. You may say that is theological but it seems pretty judgmental to me, "you are a real Christian unless you are an RC". I won't get into the other institutionalized atrocities wrought at the hands of the RC church.

Catholic Church in Poland does not differ much.

Christianity is pretty clear on pulling out the log in one's own eye. Since everybody alive is imperfect we shouldn't spend time criticizing others, beyond something like a friend offering advice or parent correcting a child, or protecting people from others. It also is clear it is not our place to judge others. That is the place of the Father (if Jewish) or the Son (if Christian).

Christianity as practiced is a different matter altogether. The ideal fails when it comes into contact with intrinsic human motivations such as desire for power, status, wealth e.t.c

> Christianity as practiced is a different matter altogether. The ideal fails when it comes into contact with intrinsic human motivations such as desire for power, status, wealth e.t.c

No one (sensible) said following it was easy.

> I agree, religion offers simple ways to classify actions as good or bad. Following the church teachings or priest's guidance was enough to make an individual confident they are a good person, doing good things.

The unfortunate thing is that this sums up the current state of religious education because we've had a generation that was poorly taught, who then taught the next generation. Now the generation we are raising is not even being taught - which might actually be a good thing since those that are interested will seek that knowledge for themselves instead of being turned off by poor educators.

But for Catholic moral theology for example, it's generally quite complex and exceedingly individual for all but the most black and white situations. What is a sin for me, may not be for you. "Sin" is also in itself a catchall for a whole subset of types of sin - and they're almost all relative to the individual because it will depend on the extent of your free choice, your understanding, and the gravity of the situation. People think it's the 10 Commandments, but that's really just the one thing someone who was poorly educated would remember.

And it's quite tragic because it's actually a whole journey that begins with natural law. Then slowly, over generations, you get small revelations of what God's moral teaching is until you reach a big moment with the revelation of Mosaic law (part of which are the 10 Commandments). Then generations later, you have Jesus drop by and quite literally say that because you were too hard of heart, that was the law revealed to you, but that now you are ready for a higher moral standard.

Even if one has no interest in Catholicism, it's fascinating to watch from the perspective of the evolution of a moral code over generations.

And then you have to consider that Catholic moral theology is just the foundation for Catholic social teaching, which is exactly what is taught to deal with the everyday complex issues where it may not even be a question of "is this a sin?", but rather, "how should I act?".

This would be more convincing if Catholics - actually religious people in general - were known for exemplary morals.

That's very much not the case.

Religion is demonstrably useless when it comes to practical morality, because it's not in any sense a coherent and stable moral system.

It's really about crafting individual and tribal justifications for arbitrary behaviours supported by various power hierarchies. Some may be considered moral, while others are clearly damaging, hateful, and abhorrent.

It's impossible to deny this without denying centuries of religious history.

There's far more of value in psychological research than there is any religious teaching. Even though it's just getting started, it's a far more coherent body of knowledge than the random mess of conflicting and contradictory opinions and justifications that the religious industries have generated.

> This would be more convincing if Catholics - actually religious people in general - were known for exemplary morals.

I'm not sure how you'd propose to measure that, but in terms of charitable giving at least religious people have been found to give significantly more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/religious-p...

Okay now look at the statistics on rape of children and how the church protects those rapists. Does that square with "think of the children?" A dude with "free candy" painted on his panel van ticks the "charitable giving" box, right?

If you were trying to use charitable giving as a measure of morality, you’d have to somehow control for the collection plate effect which is more about response to peer pressure than morality.

With a bit more discovery, the Catholic church apoears as the probably biggest corporation today with its unscrupulous desire for power. There are all sorts of people and stuff going on in that organisation: from literal saints (in the past) to rather evil types, from lithurgy to ceremonial magic and dark rituals. But the church is adept at making the illusion of united front. Its biggest secret is perhaps the history it had erased but had kept records of. So I wouldnt take its moral code any more seriously than a corporate policy. The only thing of value in that code is the basic rules like "do to others what you would do to yourself", but these rules werent invented by the church.

Simple like ‘love your enemies’

Without taking on the challenge of falsifying your claim (I think it’d be pretty hard), I see things a little differently.

A key moment in the development of the current conservative mindset was Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, nearly 60 years ago by now. Goldwater (and every Republican who succeeded him) has used the same rhetorical lynchpins: the media cannot be trusted, it’s the coastal elites against the heartland, &c. An entire generation of conservatives grew up with Goldwater conservativism as their frame of reference, and cheered when the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine was undone. The last 30 or so years of American conservative politics are on a relatively straight track from there: radio politics, the Contract With America, an increasing dependency on evangelical voters and a corresponding shift towards their social issues, &c.

But note: this started when religion was a much larger part of American life. So, at least to my mind, America’s (relatively modest) secular shift is not the primary mover here.

I can see no reason aside from lazy malevolence to downvote your comment woodruffw.

I appreciate that. It’s discouraging, but that’s life.

Goldwater himself wasn't a fan of the increasing courting of religious folks in the 80s, nor their policies, and leaned libertarian as the years passed.

Goldwater himself might not have been a fan of courting the religious right, but the conservative tradition that began with him certainly does! I didn’t mean to rest the blame solely on him; only to paint a more varied picture than “the decline of religion is to blame.”

This doesn't make much sense. Especially since 50 years ago, your race mattered infinitely more than whatever religion or denomination you belonged to.

There was a lot of all-white communities in the USA back then, though. In those, people would search for other ways to think less of their neighbors.

AFAIK Kennedy as the first Catholic president was considered somewhat of an outsider.

I think I recall your name from Reddit.

But while race definitely mattered (and more), religion mattered in-race as well. Same thing for casteism in India. Religion matters, but so does caste even within Hinduism.

In the white community, I think race matters more Protestant vs. Catholic, especially during the 1920s-1950s (When Kennedy was elected, folks would say "Put your hope in the Pope" because he was Catholic). While in the black community, we simply don't have that much of a Catholic or Muslim population for such in-group conflicts.

Yes, I'm the same low-agreeableness person from Reddit.

Also don't forget the role of economic growth & opportunity. America is a country where millions of immigrants have put aside their cultural differences for the pursuit of money.

Note that in areas where there is still a reasonable chance of getting rich - coastal California, for example, or NYC - people are still willing to put aside their differences to get rich. At least among the people who are actually getting rich. Chinatown or the Sunset in SF have all sorts of AAPI hate crimes, while 50 miles south in Cupertino, Chinese, Indians, and white people work side-by-side in cube farms while enjoying their Apple stock.

We work side by side in downtown SF too.

OK, in side by side video windows for now...

"For now"? Judging by the average comment on this message board one gets the impression that working downtown at a software job is a thing of the past.

"Note that in areas where there is still a reasonable chance of getting rich - coastal California, for example, or NYC..."

Where are these opportunities? Do people actually think they can get rich and then achieve it in any meaningful numbers?

>Where are these opportunities

If the stats on where most immigrants from foreign countries wind up residing are any indication, not in coastal California or NYC.

The people who move to SV or NYC to get rich on tech or finance are generally Americans born to parents who are college educated or credentialed professionals, and you can see this in the demographics of the companies where these people are working and getting rich.

Silicon Valley tech companies as a whole are 71% foreign-born [1]. Cupertino itself is 57.4% foreign-born [2]. I've been on teams at Google where I was the only U.S. citizen, out of 10 (the others were from Iceland, the UK, Vietnam, Taiwan, 2 India, and 3 China). Canada is another big contributor as well - out of my immediate neighborhood of ~60 coworkers, 5 were Canadian.

The largest groups within SV tech are actually green-card holders or naturalized citizens. H-1Bs are only about 8%, U.S. citizens about 20-50% depending on company.

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/17/h-1b-foreign-citizens...

[2] https://datausa.io/profile/geo/cupertino-ca/

I was on a team on the east coast (finance arena) that was similar. I think a couple were US citizens, but I was the only US born person on the team. I was also the only white person on the team.

Economic mobility is highest in the Mountain West region, not coastal California or NYC.

https://www.businessinsider.com/income-inequality-upward-mob...

That has nothing to do with the policies of the region, and everything to do with the volume of taxing oil operations work that requires limited/no education and can pay 6 figures.

That largely comes down to out-of-control housing cost, which does owe to policy. Can't move up if you can't move in to where the economic growth is.

One of the motivation behind NIMBY is to maintain high property values and most of all keep out multi family housing in order to price out the lower classes. This results in huge differences in k-12 educational quality and thus opportunity, due to school zoning.

You're mischaracterizing typical NIMBY motivations. When I talk to those people they are mostly long term residents who are more concerned with quality of life issues like noise and traffic. They don't care as much about property values because they aren't planning to sell; they expect to die in their current homes. And they oppose new development even in cases where it would increase their own property values.

Economic mobility is not the be-all and end-all of statistics: in particular, if everyone's income exactly doubles (and prices stay the same), then during that interval (the doubling) there was zero economic mobility.

The AAPI hate crimes are not white-on-Asian, btw. In California, there generally isn’t much tension between the two groups

There isn't any tension between the black people and asian populations either. There isn't even much overlap between the two populations. People are trying to push a narrative that one riot in LA and one event in Crown Heights, both 30 years ago, are representative of a continent wide consensus, validated by individuals committing crimes now. Silly. Its so silly that it pretty much shows how segregated the two groups are.

>There isn't any tension between the black people and asian populations either

>one event in Crown Heights, both 30 years ago

I thought (I just googled it to check) that was West Indians and Lubavitch Hasidim. Which are you calling Asians?

hmmmmm ......... so even less race based animosity to point to between the aforementioned groups

I don't know, were you reasoning about California based on NY, or is there a Crown Heights there too?

As it happens calling Jews Asians is an established form of race based animosity.

I’m aware of events there coming up when people rationalize the idea of organized race based animosity, lurking in the shadows amongst a fictionally amorphous group

Are they banners or core values and beliefs about the world. Values are pretty important things to align with.

"Where Christianity has left a moral and religious vacuum in the wake of its collapse, we are now seeing the construction of a new social and moral orthodoxy to fill this void — in short, a new religion.

It's not hard to see why: religious orthodoxy brings with it the highly intoxicating and addictive frameworks of unambiguously delineated good and evil, right and wrong, us versus them, and the equally addictive sense of moral righteousness that follows from it. In short, many people have a psychological dependence on religion; they need such a thing."[0]

[0] The Rise of Newchurch (https://www.devever.net/~hl/newchurch)

it's truly strange. now people define themselves by which corporations are their favorite and which funkopops they own

Religion never left - it merely have new names like "science" (actually "scientism" and not really science), political ideologies, activist movements, etc.

All are forms of religion in practice, value and effect though everyone is loath to admit it.

> Religion never left - it merely have new names like "science"

What is your definition of "religion"?

This was me circa 2012-2013. I hadn't realized it yet, but was quite liberal minded compared to my fellow church mates.

I tried talking to someone who is rather politically conservative (she eventually ran for office). In our conversations, I just kept finding myself thinking... that's not how I view that... at all.

Nothing became of the relationship, but doubt it would have maintained anyway.

For me, it was the first time trying to date across the isle with someone who was politically aware and was very eye opening.

It's good to have a variety of friends from different perspectives, so that the peer pressure can balance a little. I agree that for relationship commitments, it's often a more enjoyable to find someone with compatible views rather than just what one community expects from you. In my case, I decided it would be a good learning experience to date a non-Christian whose world view and travel experience is more suitable for mine. I thought it would be a good learning experience, and it is! I didn't expect we'd still be together 4.5 years later, but I'd rather stay long-distance with her than be with anyone else, or single again. Every day my mind wonders why we're still together, and every night we chat online and my heart falls madly in love with her all over again.

Side note for church, specifically: my favourite church is where the sermon is convicting and the people are encouraging. My least favourite church is where the sermon is encouraging and the people are convicting.

My favorite is where the people are encouraging and the sermon is under ten minutes.

This would be a good thing if it were true. Politics is not a product where your choice of whether to consume the red, blue, or green thing is an irrelevant expression of your personality or style. It's always life or death, and that fact is disguised when it doesn't mean your life or death.

This survey is also corrupted by self-reporting. People like to pretend that they're more tolerant than they are (especially when they don't have a comfortable or civil argument for their intolerance.) In fact, I bet if you followed up with a bit of a Keynesian beauty contest, you'd find that they report that the tribe that they belong to is far more tolerant than the enemy tribe.

And for a fact pulled out of my ass, I bet if you checked the proportion of people who married outside of their race or religion 50 years ago, it would be <1% (at least for people who claimed a race or religion.) If you checked now, the numbers would be 4-6% IIRC. That's an improvement. You might find a higher percentage of mixed Democrat/Republican relationships 50 years ago (maybe), but if that number has dropped, that's also an improvement. Material differences in opinions about how the world should be run and people should behave should at least be more significant than race or (the mystical aspects, not the moral codes of) religion. It means that society is becoming more supportive of people trying to escape their tribal affiliations. 80 years ago, in the US, there were laws actively preventing this.

In America, politics is indeed a middle class-dominated area where people choose their product. When matters do come down to life and death, such as in wars, the two teams do not proceed materially differently. There is a reason we had 20 years of war in Afghanistan for example, and it ain’t because only one of the teams kept it going.

I agree on your point about people’s view of their own tolerance.

People on this site like to mindlessly parrot the “we’ve become too partisan and divided these days” narrative, but what are they actually proposing?

Oh wait…

https://twitter.com/rottenindenmark/status/14326439023229255...

That is an offensive, inaccurate and entirely unproductive comment.

We are proposing a wide range of changes that would break or weaken the hold of the two party system in America. Our political system of pure winner takes all regional representation in partisanly gerrymandered districts strongly encourages negative partisanship and decreases the actual voice that voters have in how their country is run.

You can do that and also not date people who are against LGBT rights?

Sure, if you think that'll help. Or what you must do for your own sanity. I get it. I have friends who are in very tough spots who have had to make hard choices. I can't and won't judge any one else's life choices. We're all a little bit confused, exhausted, anxious, and maybe even a bit insane. And just trying to do the best we can. Even my crazy uncle who forwards me emails about liberals like me destroying real America.

Honestly, the 2016 presidential broke me. Then around 2018 I decided my relationships were more important than being right. For instance, it was our turn to do eldercare (and other family emergencies), so I had to cooperate with my family. Because that's what's best for our mom. I definitely iced out the more toxic individuals (eg "Obama's a Muslim!") who just wanted to fight.

Ask me again in 10 years, after our mom's passed, if I made the right choice.

Hobbs is a gem. I just listened to the episodes on Political Correctness (#123) and Cancel Culture (#125). So good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Wrong_About

FWIW, my SO voted for Trump. We just don't talk about politics, and somehow manage to make it work.

Those episodes were fantastic. It really shows how commentators latch on to the optics of the situation rather than the actual substance of what's trying to be addressed.

"We agree date rape is bad, but someone threw together a kinda-cringy powerpoint when trying to address it, so I guess we should do nothing"

Not picking on you, but...for how little sense this makes to me, it's practically an inside joke.

Between not having any idea who the participants are, and the horrid experience of reading Twitter (I presume the intended reading order is quoted tweet > tweet > text in picture?), I have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on. Nor can I be bothered to care for something so irrelevant.

Twitter "discourse" is like a virus, infecting everything it touches.

Twitter can be hard to parse, but it's not impossible to understand. If you're having trouble understanding it, you could ask or just not comment? This feels like the equivalent of replying to an argument with "you're"

> If you're having trouble understanding it, you could ask or just not comment?

Respectfully, I think the onus is on you to add some context. The tweet doesn't contribute much to the discussion otherwise.

The quoted tweet is... kind of stupid.

I assume the op must just be a fan of this particularly person and thinks its related. It basically is an inside joke.

> Nor can I be bothered to care for something so irrelevant.

How is it irrelevant? The highlighted quote in the article excerpt says 'Kauffmann claimed that the instance of female students refusing to date Trump supporters provides evidence of "progressive authoritarianism"' which seems extremely on-topic to me.

I disagree. I mean sure, it's a good thing (if true) that race is less significant than politics in choosing a partner, but why should we have to pick one?

unless you're part of a very select group of activists, politicians, or wealthy donors, your impact on world issues is pretty much negligible. the political opinions of the average person are much less significant than they might think. but what we can do is have a strong impact on the people who are actually in our lives, and that has very little to do with politics.

if I change my political positions to please a potential partner, that doesn't really change the big picture. if I refuse to date someone because of their political views, I again have not moved the needle at scale, but I have closed the door on a potentially happy partnership.

my parents have had a long and happy marriage despite deep disagreements over political issues. the disagreement is so strong that they had to agree years ago to simply not have those discussions. I guess that's not exactly the model of tolerance, but I am glad they found a way around that. if they hadn't, either my family would have been ripped in half, or I wouldn't have been born at all. and the rest of the world would be the same as it is today.

You are too pessimistic. Inter-racial marriage alone in the US went from ~3% in the 1960s to ~17% as of 2015 (Pew Research). In some regions of the US, such as the West, it is approaching 25% of all new marriages.

That is pretty well-mixed considering many people live in locales with few opportunities to date outside their race.

> You might find a higher percentage of mixed Democrat/Republican relationships 50 years ago (maybe), but if that number has dropped, that's also an improvement.... It means that society is becoming more supportive of people trying to escape their tribal affiliations.

Fewer cross-political-party marriages mean that we're becoming more supportive of people trying to escape their tribal affiliations? Not if you count Red/Blue as one of the tribal affiliations, it doesn't...

This isn't surprising. People want to build a life with someone who shares their values.

Most of those numbers don't seem particularly high.

The only one I thought was really surprising was: "A majority (59 percent) of Americans say that whether the person shares their views on having children is one of the most important or a very important consideration.", and that only because 59% seemed low.

The question I have is how independent each of these are. If every person has one political view that's a deal-breaker, then it doesn't matter that only 15% of the population has that particular deal-breaker.

Counter-intuitively, my parents have stayed happily married for a very long time and my dad is significantly more conservative than my mom (although my mom has become more "conservative" in the current decade in reaction to how extreme rhetoric on the left has become in the US). I am about to propose to my long-time partner who is significantly more to the left than I am (we are both to the left, I'm barely left of center, my partner is barely to the right of the the edge of the chart).

There used to be the phrase "opposites attract". I think there are value systems which underlie politics that need to match up, but those value systems don't necessarily translate into the exact same political beliefs. In fact, in the US historically, men tended to be more conservative and women more progressive, and I don't see that really changing in the current times. Most of my male friends are more conservative than their partners, even as most of us are left of center. This is true, anecdotally, among the people I know across educational attainment and income.

On the flip side, when I was still dating, I always brought up politics and religion on the first date because it helped me filter people out. I didn't filter people out because we disagreed politically, but because of /how/ we disagreed (or rather how /they/ disagreed) politically. It was surprising the number of people who were exceedingly disagreeable about politics, completely unable to have a polite conversation on the topic, where any hint of dissent from their view was met with vehemence, even in person in a face-to-face conversation. My experience up to that point was this was how things worked online, but you could have a conversation with someone very different from you over a beer and it'd be alright face-to-face. Dating changed my outlook on this.

I think this was a good filter, because while politics was the topic of discussion, the filter had nothing to do with beliefs and everything to do with agreeableness, reasonableness, and behavior. In effect, it became a very good way to filter out assholes, of which there are many, unfortunately the majority of eligible persons in my dating pool. But, no regrets on this filter, because my current partner is wonderful and was found after many years of searching using this filter.

My parents relationship, the relationships of my friends (most of whom are married), and my own relationship are all anecdotal, but strong evidence that supports you don't need to politically agree to date successfully and have a long-term relationship or marriage. But it does require the two people involved to not be vehement zealots who dehumanize anyone that disagrees with them, which unfortunately is becoming a rarer situation thanks to the extremist echo chambers we've created online.

Yes this is very true

As long as both people are open minded and try to assume positive intention (unless proved otherwise) I think differences are just fine.

I don't think I could date someone who could only accept the party line, whether D or R. It astonishes me the arrogance of people who think they have the world completely figured out and know the best solution for everything.

Yes, and it's more than just politics. In any marriage, someone will be more conservative, and someone will be more liberal. But also, someone will be more fiscally conservative, and someone more willing/eager to spend. Someone will be more of a morning person, and the other more of a night owl. Someone will be more extroverted and social, and the other more of an introvert. Someone will be more athletic and outdoorsy, and the other more of a couch potato.

Those differences exist. They're going to hit your relationship, because they hit every relationship. Can the two of you deal with them (all of them) in a reasonable and healthy manner, or not?

> Those differences exist. They're going to hit your relationship, because they hit every relationship. Can the two of you deal with them (all of them) in a reasonable and healthy manner, or not?

Just so. This is also true of friendships as much as it is romance, and nobody much likes being friends with someone who is domineering and zealous. Agreeableness is a useful trait in relationships of every type and for many farther reaching cases than simple politics. I think that politics /might/ be becoming a more strict relationship divider in our current times, but is is less to do with politics, and more to do with the lack of agreeableness amongst people.

These all seem like things that should be dealbreakers

I've known a number of folks who were mistreated by people who bore strong resemblance to Trump's personality - Trump was an ongoing trigger for them.

Dating someone who embraced Trump's personality - that would seem to be a terrible experience for those folks.

I think the people this effects the worst are those who don't subscribe to either party, or the idea of a "one-dimensional political spectrum" in general. The dominating political "sides" are full on ideologies at this point, and if you don't worship their sacred cow: you could only ever be the other side in their eyes.

So the price for not falling into the two-party trap is that you have to just keep your mouth shut in all situations, lest you be ousted.

Anecdote: all of my friends who very much aren't falling for this two-party nonsense have had a common experience of being called Trumpers, Leftists, Anti-fa, Rednecks, and every other slur one side throws at the other. I'm not sure if it's a real litmus test or not, but I start to worry now when I've been getting too much of one and not enough of the other.

I've been thinking for a while this is really a form of speciation. Conservatives and progressives literally have different brain structures [1] as well as different world views and different psychological triggers.

When those differences lead to extreme aversion, they're going to be enhanced by evolution.

I'm not sure I want to speculate what the long-term result is likely to be.

[1]https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.neu...

My perception of the mindset of the typical liberal in the past was that it was more about making change for the benefit of everyone in the country (don’t worry conservatives , this will work out for the best). Now it is more about making change that benefits some at the expense of others (screw you conservatives). In order to push political agendas like this, political opposition needs to be more negatively portrayed and demonized. My perception of conservatives is that they are trending in this direction too, and the result is more fracturing of our societies.

'Liberal' and 'conservative' are just labels that no longer describe the same ideologies as in the past.

19th C liberals were sort of like modern day libertarians, but in the context of the European monarchies at the time which were explicitly oppressive.

20th century progressives with their universal social programs were social democrats.

Modern day liberals are split between 'centrist' neo-liberals and more hardcore leftists.

The neo-libs are basically still trying to promote universalish improvement, but are not willing to tax their corporate donors to do it. So all they're left with is culture war posturing and legislation, since that's fiscally free.

The more hardcore leftists, in America, seem to heavily skew towards helping particular disadvantaged groups, as opposed to the universalizing efforts of early 20th C socialists(be it racial or sexual minorities or whatever). And some of these groups care more about equality than they do absolute improvement for everyone.

As for conservatives, modern day American conservatism is HARD reactionary and in no way conservative. The social programs they are trying to privatize and dismantle have existed for 60-80 years. The conservative position would be to preserve things like Social Security and Medicare. If anything the most conservative force, when it comes to the role of government, in American politics right now are the Centrist Democrats, since they're the party of small tweaks.

It's curious that you see a spectrum in the left, but not in the right. That might suggest bias, but I'd like to give you the benefit of doubt. There is no universal conservative position, nor are all conservatives reactionary. Just as those far to the left have strayed from classical liberalism, those far to the right have strayed from classical conservatism. With the rampant labeling and tribalism so popular these days, many of us just don't know what political camp we fit into anymore.

Update: If you're downvoting, please do share why, or share a critique or rebuttal. I'd genuinely like to read some opposing opinions. I had thought that was a fair reply to the parent as the political spectrum in U.S. politics has been rather well-documented as diverse both to the left and to the right.

I’m always a bit entertained by people who claim they want to express a non-biased view of partisan dynamics, and then proceed to express something that is a perfect representation of the fundamental attribution error.

Personally I think the primary contention that exists between the dogma of the left and the right is just the contention between collectivism and individualism. But outliers aside, I don’t think you end up with substantially different policies from one side or the other, regardless of the contrast in the dogma. I don’t think members of either tribe are substantially different in their dogmatism, reactionism… or in their proclivity to deeply reflect on the views they hold. For any person who finds themselves substantially aligned with a mainstream political ideology, I think the chance that they’ve put a substantial amount of critical thought into their world view is very close to 0.

> is just the contention between collectivism and individualism

Yes.

> I’m always a bit entertained by people who claim they want to express a non-biased view of partisan dynamics, and then proceed to express something that is a perfect representation of the fundamental attribution error.

Were you commenting on the parent to my reply, or to my reply specifically? Genuine curiosity.

Sorry for not being clear, I think the error is in the comment above yours. I think your comment is very level headed.

I guess you got downvoted for both-sidesing it(Upvoted, btw :D)? I mean both parties do quite suck, even though I still think the GOP is actively harmful, while the Democratic party has good ideas that it fails to build on.

The actual party policies only really diverge on social issues. Economic policy consensus has been corporatist since the Reagan years. The main difference is the democrats are willing to blast out the occasional one-off stimulus and the GOP is also willing to do that but a smaller one-off stimulus.

I don't really see collectivism vs individualism as a left-right split. The religious conservative wing of the right is culturally collectivist, the catholic conservatives are also pretty economically collectivist. The liberal mainstream is highly culturally individualistic(well... within the boundaries of acceptable lib behavior). The left can be almost culturally atomistic, if you go into the disown your racist/homophobic relatives areas of the ideology.

I made the distinction between dogma and policy because I don’t think the two are very strongly connected. I think there are localised outliers like California and Texas, where the ideological differences are more effectively implemented in policy and legislation. But generally speaking, I don’t think you get a substantially different government when one party is elected over the other. The dogma however is substantially different. It’s just that speaking differently doesn’t necessarily translate to acting differently.

I think the reason I’m downvoted (and that my comments would generally meet disapproval in most contexts) is due to the nature of tribalist politics. A political tribalist believes that we are good and they are bad. If our policies fail it’s because of reasons other than our policies being bad, if their policies fail it’s because they were intentionally designed to cause harm. They are the ones behaving tribalistically, while we are open minded and accepting.

A core element of the tribalistic psychology is that you and your team aren’t the ones perpetuating it. Tribalism is bad, and they are the source of it. It is an archetypal example of the fundamental attribution error, and a tribalistic conservative is just as likely to downvote you for suggesting that as a tribalistic liberal is.

> That might suggest bias, but I'd like to give you the benefit of doubt.

No need to doubt: I have a more nuanced view of left politics because I'm left biased and spend more time consuming left content and commentary. This is a politics post. Everyone is biased. Politics is the mind killer and all that. This includes self-described apolitical, can't we all just get along CNN types; they're probably status quo biased and 'biased' against the active reactionary/revolutionary branches of the parties.

> stray from classical

This is really complicated. They now have different policy objectives, but perhaps the same sentiments? I doubt I have it clear enough in my head to explain my view on this, sadly... OK.

The leftist ideals have tended to be to maximize negative and (once you add in socialist views) maximize positive liberty for as many people as possible. Don't restrict people from doing what they want and make sure as many people have the means to do what they want as possible. Libertarianism on social issues and at least redistributive social democracy on economic issues.

The right wing ideal, in my understanding, is that people often times want stupid shit and we shouldn't let them do it. Also evening out social outcomes is a bad idea since it reduces the incentive to work hard in everyone and impoverishes us all as a result. Also why shouldn't the best players of the social game have more power than the worst? So a mix of Burkean cautious respect for tradition and 'competition breeds excellence'.

I don't think the factions have 'strayed' from these ideals that much, but the translation of those ideals into policy positions has changed massively over time.

Anyway, the right-wing camps, in my outsider view.

Corporatist centrists: similar to the democratic centrists but with reversed culture wars allegiance and more tax-cutty.

Religious conservatives: culture war reactionaries, obviously. And I don't think just because they're losing ground in recent times. I'm sure there was opposition to liberal divorce laws and whatnot back in the whenever too.

Neo-cons: Republican trotskyists(lol https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/32f1df/is_th...). There are horrible regimes in the world, and America should replace them with more America. Unrelated, they invest their life savings into military contractor and adjacent corporations. See also responsibility to protect, Rwanda etc. It honestly sounds like such a good idea in theory("Check this out: we go to Afghanistan, we give them freedom and in 20 years time bam it's Minnesota in Central Asia!"), but it always goes so horribly bad in practice.

Libertarians: way more politicians claim to be that than actually live it tho, much more focused on economic aspect than social aspect. Some cynical corporatists hide under this label. I think casual libertarianish attitude describes a ton of the voters: don't increase my taxes, don't make me do anything I'm not already doing, don't make me think about the government just do your job behind the scenes.

Alt-right: culture war reactionaries? Straight up monarchist reactionary trolls? This is one of those labels that just gets painted pretty liberally, so I'm really not sure what a quick summary of it is. Trumpists?

Populist types: supposedly meh on the culture war and economically left-wing, sort of inspired by European Christian Democrat type parties. Hard to really say how much they disdain the culture war since american media is very culture war biased. Which is understandable since clearly everyone would find economic policy conversations boring(wink wink nudge nudge keep arguing amongst yourselves about pronouns and taboo words, dear proles!).

Thanks for elaborating, really enjoyed that read. The Libertarian and Populist takes are particularly interesting.

The big ticket, agreed upon progressive priorities are still for the benefit of all: Green New Deal, Medicare for all, accessible higher education. I find it more difficult to find policies for the common good coming from conservatives these days. Does anyone have examples?

The reason you don't know any is because

>policies for the common good coming

Is a political thing. You disagree with the average conservative on what constitutes policies for the common good.

The (fiscal) conservative view of those items is that paying for them is going to create poverty, or at least a lot of people being less well off because of the taxes. (And that Modern Monetary Theory is wishful thinking that doesn't work in reality.)

The conservatives could be wrong. But they aren't just hard-hearted Scrooge McDuck types who don't want to pay for something that will benefit the poors.

At this point in my life I definitely wouldn't try to date a conservative. The cultural gaps between cosmopolitanism and (everything else) have become increasingly large, especially for a person of color like myself. With that said, nobody's really knocking down my door to go out with me either, so I'm mostly just a choosing beggar.

it doesn't just affect the two people dating, it makes things awkward for everyone else.

my brother is dating a hardcore Trump supporter and its just super awkward during the holidays. i am cordial and respectful but it sucks feeling like you are walking on eggshells.

The operative keyword there is "hardcore", and it applies for either political direction:

I guarantee lots of conservatives also walk on eggshells around hardcore leftists for the sake of cordiality, just as cordial lefts walk around eggshells near radical conservatives.

Naturally, cordial people's politics are harder to tell, especially near a radical.

Why would it be awkward? I am often in very mixed political company, and never share the politics of people I am around. It isn't awkward at all. Either, don't talk about politics. Or just have fun debates, assuming they are able to hold those debates. If you can't talk with people that disagree with you, that's an issue.

Conservatives currently out reproduce liberals for whatever reason, for example:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-conservative-fertility-advant...

I wonder if it is purely cultural or is there a genetic component? If there is low fertility because of a genetic component, that is likely going to targeted hard by evolution now.

(Will evolution select against women getting higher education like Masters or PhD? Because that is one of the biggest predictors of reduced fertility.)

What does this mean for liberal views? Are they destined to become more conservative over time if there is a genetic component which is being selected against?

So interesting. I wish we could track genetic changes along with political changes over time. I bet there is more happening there than we think.

EDIT: Here is a large meta analysis paper that seems to indicate that genetics influences political ideology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038932/pdf/nih...

Conservatives live in less expensive areas and often have less wealth, two things that often drive reproduction rates up higher. I feel comfortable Occam’s Razoring that up as the explanation

Conservative parents don't necessarily produce conservative children.

But papers do indicate that there is a genetic component to political ideology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038932/pdf/nih...

Your argument is akin to a global warming denier saying that yeah, but some days are still cold. Yes, there will always be variation.

That's not really analogous. I'm just pointing out that there is an underlying assumption in your argument that may or may not be true.

X -> doubt

Education is correlated with both low birth rates and liberal political views, and culture surrounding politics and reproduction changes a lot faster than population genetics.

>(Will evolution select against women getting higher education like Masters or PhD? Because that is one of the biggest predictors of reduced fertility.)

Generally speaking evolution does not work on these time scales. Importantly, there is nothing that would make someone "genetically liberal" or "genetically conservative." You might be able to point to higher order traits which may indicate someone being conservative vs. liberal. ie, openness to experience, religiosity, etc. But, it's not clear that these traits are static throughout a lifetime. (eg, "openness to experience" is generally much higher in the young than the old.) Furthermore, the idea of what it means to be "liberal" or "conservative" changes over time as well. Someone describing themselves as "liberal" in 1950 wouldn't bear much resemblance to someone describing themselves as liberal in 2021. According to historians, the conservative movement as we understand it really only began in the 1950s, and prior to that people would not have described themselves as either "liberal or conservative." (and in fact, "liberal" was not previously synonymous with "left," and therefore many people on the "right" would have previously described themselves as liberal.

The point is that political movements have short life spans. Perhaps in the tens or hundreds of years, which is not nearly enough for evolution to make any meaningful impact.

Religions have a longer time span and correlate with conservatives. Many religions actually shed their members who have liberal views. Thus religions tend to conserve conservatives leaning individuals.

So if religion was not part of the conservative-liberal divide I would buy your argument but it is part of it and it is long running.

200 years ago nearly the entire country was Christian, but the entire country did not hold the same political beliefs. Protestant vs. Catholic may have been a more pressing divide back then. And how would your argument fare in say ... 2,000-4,000 BC middle east? Each city has its own deity, perhaps part of a pantheon, perhaps not? Are the followers of Chemosh more or less conservative than the followers of Anat? Who are the irreligious liberals in this time period?

I'm pretty sure the followers of Ninkasi (Sumerian goddess of beer) knew how to have a good time.

I would argue that time and again liberals have not reproduced at the level of conservatives/religious. This is why we still have the conservative/religious as the backbone of society.

This is why there is probably some genetics underlying religious belief: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7147-genes-contribute...

It may also explain why so many people are illogical about things like Covid in religious/conservative circles. They have genetics that incline them towards illogical religious beliefs in part because it allows them to ensure they reproduce the next generation, and some of the downsides of this illogical religious inclination is that they believe crap about things and are impervious to evidence to the contrary -- e.g. faith.

I'd absolutely agree that there is likely a genetic component underlying propensity for religious belief. But "atheist" is not synonymous with "liberal," I suppose that's the crux of what I'm saying.

Actually there do appear to be some genes that tend to make people liberal or conservative. (Obviously genes aren't the only factor.)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left...

Likely the genes don't make you a liberal or conservative directly. Rather they do it in an indirect way. For instance if someone has a genetic disease that requires costly medical care then they will likely vote for socialized medical care. And of course having a dark skin color will also cause politcal leaning in an indirect way.

>The point is that political movements have short life spans. Perhaps in the tens or hundreds of years, which is not nearly enough for evolution to make any meaningful impact.

Evolution can work on any time scale, including instantly. Look no further than a large asteroid turning into a meteorite, it is evolution done in hours, where everything larger than a cat dies.

For politics: the Nazi party for example had a definite impact on human evolution in Europe as it murdered rather a lot of people who were not blond enough or too blond. The same way the British Empire had a rather profound impact on evolution in the US, Canada and Australia.

>Evolution can work on any time scale, including instantly. Look no further than a large asteroid turning into a meteorite, it is evolution done in hours, where everything larger than a cat dies.

A large asteroid will not make me grow a new sensory organ, it will simply kill me. Not all genetic changes take an equivalent amount of time, or are equally feasible.

- Growing taller or shorter can happen rapidly because genes for these traits already exist and must simply be selected from the environment.

- Moving away from a bifurcated body plan is probably impossible, as it is too fundamental to many other systems in the body.

Obviously there's a wide area in between those two examples, but we're discussing whether or not certain traits that people have are 1) genetic in origin, and 2) liable to drift much over time.

Given that religion has been a constant for all known human history (and pre-history, depending on how you interpret artifacts) I would suggest that it's likely to be strongly wrapped up in the same things which build human psychology and human social structure. I want to admit here this is just my view on the topic, and I'm not suggesting that this established scientific fact. In any case, I'm a firm believer in the argument that many who identify as "liberal" and definitely-not-Christian nonetheless have many beliefs which could otherwise be categorized as religious. I want to make it clear I'm not attacking or praising these beliefs, but simply suggesting that parts of the mind which lead people toward religion are a bit more fundamental to humanity, and are not something such as hair color which can be easily or capriciously changed.

We cannot afford a mine shaft gap!

But more seriously: the furthest left people I know are the ones who grew up around conservatives, particularly in privation (usually one of the strongest signals for high birth rates). These things have a tendency to balance each other by nurture; assuming that people are genetically predestined to be conservative (or liberal) is both silly and incompatible with our observed history as communal animals.

> assuming that people are genetically predestined to be conservative (or liberal) is both silly and incompatible

But there is evidence of that. I linked to some of these papers in my previous comments.

> But there is evidence of that. I linked to some of these papers in my previous comments.

The IFS is not a credible source. Their previous claim to fame was publishing bogus research on same-sex parenting, presumably because it doesn't align with their values[1].

The other link is a meta-analysis that shows a correlation between family political alignments (quelle surprise!). It doesn't support the more ridiculous claim that the arc of human reproduction bends towards conservativism.

[1]: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_S...

The American Enterprise Institute? That's the pro-corporate think tank which, among other highlights, has been involved in trying to deny climate change, including by paying scientists travel stipends to attend anti-IPCC events.

I agree, but this article is fairly dry. Conservatives today see anything that shuts them out of any process as alarming because they are traditionally the ones who have held the reins, and I suspect this is why it's an AEI article.

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