Republicans See Difference As Hierarchical

Republicans see the world as Hierarchical - that difference entails ranking into better and worse.  Democrats, by contrast, are more likely to see difference as just -- difference.

This is the finding of Jer Clifton, a doctoral student in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

This is very helpful in addressing a puzzle in my own research on why people choose the neighborhoods that they do.  People who live in the dense, walkable, mixed-use streetcar suburbs close to the city love to talk about why they chose to live there, and are curious about why others choose otherwise.  They value the vibrant diversity of their neighborhoods.

Following Clifton's finding, it is not surprising that such places tend to be strongly Democratic.  But I have found that even the Republicans in the streetcar suburbs like to talk about and think about why they live there. They are usually conservative on one or two issues - pro-life Catholics predominating in the place I study - but otherwise they are like their neighbors in appreciating difference.

Likewise, Democrats in the spread-out, car-based, residential-only, one-class outer suburbs are an easy interview to get and conduct.

The bottleneck has been in getting Republicans in the car suburbs to even agree to an interview.  When they do agree, these interviews tend to be a little more tense than the others.  The clue that Clifton's finding gives is helpful:  suburban Republicans regard the question "why do you choose to Iive where you do, while others choose to live in a different kind of place?" as implicitly a question of whether their place, and their choice, is better or worse than the choices that other people make.

Right-Wing Media Are Now the "Useful Idiots" of Russian Disinformation

Lenin described pro-Soviet liberals of his day as "useful idiots".

The Soviet Union is gone, but the Russian policy of using disinformation to unsettle democratic governments continues in full force.

Today, though, it is the right-wing media who are the most useful, and most credulous, spreaders of Russian falsehoods. In the words of Patrick Oksanen, a Swedish editorial writer after an especially virulent campaign against the Western alliance, the central idea is that “liberal democracy is corrupt, inefficient, chaotic and, ultimately, not democratic.”

The Trump campaign could not be more useful to the Kremlin if they tried.

Religious People Give More - To All Causes

The annual Burk Survey of philanthropy has come out, and once again religious involvement is one of the biggest factors in who gives to all causes, religious and otherwise.  Likewise, religious people are more likely to volunteer.

The survey did not ask how involved in a religious community the givers were, but it is a reasonable guess (and conforms to previous research) that people people who give to religious institutions and volunteer their time to one are active in that community.

The survey also has some interesting comparisons of givers and non-givers to their undergraduate college. This, recall, is a survey of donors, so these non-givers do give to some other causes, just not to their own colleges if they have one.  The main reason for non-giving:  they didn't think the college needed it as much as other causes did.

Which Entangle You - People, or Things?

I am studying cultural differences among different fractions of the middle class.  This is a class that has some choice about how it interacts with the world, and what kind of things it buys to live with.

I think one subculture regards other people, especially acquaintances and strangers who live nearby, as potential sources of unwanted entanglement.  They prefer if people keep to themselves.  The places we live and the things we own, by contrast, are valued because they enable us to do what we want.

Another subculture, though, sees other people, including acquaintances and neighbors, as the greatest source of interest and action in life.  The things we must own, by contrast, are a constant source of upkeep and a necessary burden.

I would welcome thoughts on this contrast, and what else it might map on to in social life.

Westboro Baptist Church is Like the Joker - They Just Want to Watch It Burn

I just read an interesting book, God Hates, about Westboro Baptist Church.  WBC has a hyper-Calvinist, double-predestination, antelapsarian theology.  This means that they think God damns - even hates - all sinners, and saves only a few for God's own inscrutable reason.

Westboro is not trying to change the world.  They are, at most, trying to convince the damned that they are damned, but should repent anyway.

Like the Joker in Batman, they are not trying to save the world.  Some churches just like to watch it burn.

My "Thank You, Lord, I Don't Have to ..." List Begins with "Drink"

For years I have had a mental list of things I am grateful that I do not have to do.  I always begin it with "Thank you, Lord, I don't have to own a boat" or "go skiing."

I do not think those things are bad.  I just don't want to do them, and am grateful that I do not have to.

My wife and I just read J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, about escaping his Appalachian upbringing of drinking, yelling, fighting, and running away - even while he appreciated the virtues of the fierce family loyalties of Appalachian honor culture.  I know many family trees with branches ruined by heavy drinking - my own included.

From my teen years I have been grateful for the freedom to not take part in drinking culture.  Don't get me wrong, I am not against alcohol as such.  Jesus made wine - it can't be all bad.

But I have realized that the invisible first item on my "Thank you, Lord, I don't have to ..." list has always been "drink or take drugs."

This is a great freedom of a free society.

Good News: Federal Court Invalidates NC Voter Suppression Law

As soon as the Supreme Court ended the federal supervision of voting laws enacted in the Voting Rights Act in states that used to prevent voting by African Americans, North Carolina proposed a raft of voter suppression provisions.

A federal panel reviewed the history of how the law was made, and concluded that the legislature blatantly sought to suppress those, and only those, methods of voting and voter identification most favored by African Americans.

Before enacting that law, moreover, “the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices.” After receiving that data, “the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.” Indeed, this data appears to have guided the state’s lawmakers in drafting a law that would have maximal impact on African-Americans.

This decision is good for democracy in itself.  It is also a good step in restoring the wisdom behind the Voting Rights Act that our country has had a pernicious pattern of suppressing black voting.

Strongmen Want a Conflagration

Howe and Strauss' theory of generations has long predicted the "Crisis of 2020."  The cycle of generations is now ripe for aging Baby Boomers to launch a crusade about something, which compliant Millennials will fight.

The theory does not predict that a bad thing will automatically happen in 2020.  Rather, it says that bad things happen all the time, but only when we have leaders looking for a fight and young people willing to take orders do we have the conditions that, time and again, have led to the major crises of U.S. history.

The rise of strongmen around the world is the first precondition.  Putin is the scariest, but Erdogan follows the pattern, too.  And Trump is the most likely American strongman - long on aggressive rhetoric, short on any actual plan to do something.  And to each provocation, his response is bellicose.  In response to a single man driving a truck through a crowd in France, Trump said he would declare world war.

The strongmen, and the angry base behind them, want a big fight - whether it actually addresses their problem or not.

Super Delegates are a Good Idea. The Republicans Wish They Had Had Some This Time.

Political parties in a democratic society do not themselves have to be democratic.

There is no contradiction in this claim.  The party is a private membership organization designed to win elections and pass legislation.  Anyone can join.  But only those who have joined have a legitimate claim to voice in its choices, especially of candidates.  And the wise leaders of that private organization sometimes need to overrule the choice of many voters if that choice would lose elections or make it impossible to pass legislation.

Democrats learned this the hard way in 1972.

Republicans have been so establishment-driven for, well, forever, that it never occurred to them than an insurgent could come in from outside the party to take over their under-protected candidate-selection procedure.

The same thing might have happened to Democrats this year, but the wise and timely invention of super-delegates kept a non-Democrat from seriously threatening to take the party's nomination.

The Methodist Social Creed and the Catholic Social Teaching

The choice of Tim Kaine to be Hillary Clinton's vice-president joins two active proponents of two of mainstream Christendom's most active social uplift doctrines.

The Methodist Church has always been active against social evils, from the days of John and Charles Wesley's opposition to slavery.  A core principle of the current United Methodist Social Creed is

We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress.

Catholic Social Teaching is an even more developed theory and practice of the just order of society, organized around a "preferential option for the poor."

Using the power of government to lift up "the least of these" is what Methodist and Catholic politicians have been doing for all of American history.

The Ban on Non-Profits Endorsing Candidates is Good for the Church

Donald Trump says that "an amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocated their political views."

Trump's claim is mostly false - religious institutions often advocate their political views.  What they can't do is advocate voting for specific candidates. Moreover, the law that Johnson pushed was not aimed at religious institutions, but rather at red-baiting McCarthyite organizations.  Since the law covered all tax-exempt non-profits, it also covered religious institutions. 

I think this law is actually very good for the churches.  I expect my church and pastor to promote decency and justice, which sometimes mean taking a side in a political argument.  However, that is different from endorsing or opposing specific candidates.  Candidates are people with a mix of vices and virtues - some of which will only be revealed in the future.  The potential for corruption in the short run, and embarrassment in the long run, of allying the church with specific candidates, is very great.  

The current law, which was not made for or about religious institutions, has worked to our advantage.

The Diseases of Aging Are Declining - Not Sure Why, But We'll Take It

I often lift up improvements in the world which are the result of deliberate efforts at betterment.

But there are also things that are improving for unclear reasons.  Several of the diseases of aging - colon cancer, broken hips, dementia - are all down.  Researchers don't really know why.

They conclude that it is probably the result of everything - deliberate effort, unintended consequences, cause X.

I will believe that we should keep doing the right thing, and we will probably be helped by Providence, too.

The Gun-Obsessed Got Their Way In Dallas

The gun-obsessed want everyone to be able to have heavy weapons for two reasons.

First, to defend themselves if the government becomes oppressive.

Second, to defend themselves against a bad guy with a gun.

The Dallas gunman who shot police did so because he believed that the police had become oppressive to black men like him.

The peaceful Black Lives Matter event that he shot up was faced with some twenty open-carry protesters who had their assault weapons on full display.  When the shooting started, they did nothing to stop the bad guy with a gun.  Instead they ran away, like everyone else.

Everyone, that is, except the actual "well-regulated militia," the police force.

Worse, the guys running around with their big guns showing interfered with the police figuring out which guy with a big gun was the bad guy that day.

Brexit Leaders Quit When They Realize What a Mess They Have Made

Boris Johnson and Nicholas Farage led the effort to vote Britain out of the European Union. They won.

Then the economic costs started coming in.

Boris Johnson, who was poised to become Prime Minister after driving out his own party leader, decided he didn't want to preside over the mess he created.

And Nicholas Farage, the head of the United Kingdom Independence Party which exists entirely to win the Brexit fight, has also quit.

The news is full of Brits who voted for Brexit as a protest against "elites" and "bureaucrats telling us what to do" who now regret it.

The lesson for Americans?  Voting for Trump as a protest could have actual disastrous consequences. Elections are not a game.  And we don't get a do-over.

Brexit and Superorganisms

The glory of human beings is that we create super-organisms of non-kin who work together for common purposes.  These super-organisms must create loyalty to their shared community.  The bigger the community, the harder the work of imagination this loyalty requires.

The European Union is one of the most ambitious acts of imagination ever attempted.  Unlike nation-states or multinational empires, the idea of the EU was not backed by force.  Rather, it used the softer powers of capitalism to create ties, and the even softer - but deeper - power of a common cosmopolitan culture to create a feeling of Europeanness.  The EU has been a great force for peace, especially in Europe, for which it was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2012.

The surprising British vote to leave the European Union is a step back from the great experiment of a super-organism held together by soft power.  I believe this is a loss for the world.

With Flexible Policies, There is No "Happiness Penalty" for Parents

A study by sociologists Jennifer Glass, Robin Simon, and Matthew Andersson compared the happiness levels of parents and non-parents in 22 countries.  In the U.S., parents pay a happiness penalty in several ways.

In other countries, though, there was no gap.  What those countries, such as Norway and Hungary, offer are flexible policies, such as paid sick leave, which help parents make work/family balance work better.

Moreover, the policies that helped most were not the big-ticket items that some countries have tried.  Direct subsidies to parents, for example, were less effective than leave policies that were available to parents and non-parents alike.

Another Small Step to One United America: Southern Baptist Convention Urges Members to Remove the Rebel Flag from Church

The Southern Baptist Convention, which was born to preserve slavery and only apologized for that position in 1995, has taken another step toward the national mainstream: proposing to ban the rebel flag from its sanctuaries.

The SBC is a congregational polity, so it lacks the authority to require its member congregations to do anything.  But the convention as a whole has taken a stand, and urges its thousands of local branches to follow suit.

Good News: Support for Assault Weapons Ban Grows

Very few countries in the world allow civilians to own assault weapons, and only one does so with practically no restrictions (that one would be the world leader in mass shootings).  Guns and Ammo made a list of the "10 Best Countries for Gun Owners," and even in that list only five readily allow semiautomatic weapon ownership at all.

Most Americans support a ban on assault weapons.  That proportion ticked up to 58%, as it does after each mass shooting.

The experience of Australia in effectively ending mass shooters gives all countries hope.

Cosmopolitanism May Solve Group Bias, But at the Risk of Meaninglessness

We all live in groups and take part of our identity from them.  We tend to identify with our groups.  And, as a result, we tend to be biased toward our group, and against out-groups.

Being biased against other groups is a problem of alienation. The Other stands over-against us.  Marxism is centrally concerned with problems of alienation.

Liberalism is centrally concerned with overcoming bias against other groups by treating others (and oneself) as individuals. The liberal solution to the problem of parochial attachment only to my group is to become a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world, not bound by any group.

However, if we are not tied to any group, we face another problem: anomie. Anomie is the sense that there is no law (nomos), no order, no meaning, no "there" there.  We look into the abyss of meaninglessness.  Durkheimianism is centrally concerned with anomie.

What Does It Mean to Say "I Do Not Have to Be Politically Correct?" It Means "I Have No Duty to Care for the Harmed"

I have been puzzling over what people who object to "political correctness" are objecting to.  Donald Trump says he "doesn't have time" to be politically correct.  This seems to be the trait that his supporters most admire.

Jonathan Haidt's research on liberals and conservatives found that the moral foundation that most resonates with liberals is caring for those who have been harmed.  Liberals feel a special duty to  those who have been harmed by powers and privileges that liberals themselves have benefited from.  This, I believe, is the heart of what it means to be politically correct.

So what is it that Mr. Trump and his followers get out of rejecting political correctness?  They reject any ethical duty to care for the harmed.

They reach this conclusion by two routes.

The first is to deny that anyone has been harmed.  If everyone is an individual who can succeed by his or her own efforts, then whatever condition people find themselves in is just.  They deny that there are structures of power or privilege which benefit some groups and harm others.

The second is to claim that they, the privileged, have also been harmed - especially due to "reverse discrimination" by liberals trying to help those previously harmed by power and privilege.