The moral roots of liberals and conservatives – Jonathan Haidt

Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed. They want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos.

Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions. They want order even at some cost to those at the bottom. 

The great conservative insight is that order is really precious. It’s really hard to achieve, and it’s really easy to lose.

The social order is a moral order

Many of the earliest legal texts begin by grounding the king’s rule in divine choice, and then they dedicate the king’s authority to providing order and justice. 

Human authorities take on responsibility for maintaining order and justice. Authority has a role in creating moral order.

Like chimpanzees, people track and remember who is above whom. When people within a hierarchical order act in ways that negate or subvert that order, we feel it instantly, even if we ourselves have not been directly harmed. If authority is in part about protecting order and fending off chaos, then everyone has a stake in supporting the existing order and in holding people accountable for fulfilling the obligations of their station.

Current triggers of the Authority/subversion foundation also include acts that are seen to subvert the traditions, institutions, or values that are perceived to provide stability. As with the Loyalty foundation, it is much easier for the political right to build on this foundation than it is for the left, which often defines itself in part by its opposition to hierarchy, inequality, and power.

In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama showed himself to be a liberal who understood conservative arguments about the need for order and the value of tradition. When he gave a speech on Father’s Day at a black church, he praised marriage and the traditional two-parent family, and he called on black men to take more responsibility for their children. When he gave a speech on patriotism, he criticized the liberal counterculture of the 1960s for burning American flags and for failing to honor veterans returning from Vietnam.

Human flourishing requires social order and embeddedness. Social order is extraordinarily precious and difficult to achieve.

Political ideology: Left or right

Here’s a simple definition of ideology: “A set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved.” And here’s the most basic of all ideological questions: Preserve the present order, or change it? At the French Assembly of 1789, the delegates who favored preservation sat on the right side of the chamber, while those who favored change sat on the left. The terms right and left have stood for conservatism and liberalism ever since.

John Stuart Mill said that liberals and conservatives are like this: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”

Source: Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion