It Started With a Facebook Post

A conservative friend of mine recently posted something that made me angry. The post  linked to an article claiming that Islamic extremist terrorists aren’t perverting the peaceful religion of Islam. But rather that Islam — at least as defined by the Koran and other scripture — aligns with and supports terrorism.

Because this premise made me angry, I decided not to just ignore this post. My first move was to check the source, since I suspected it must be a right-wing propagandist with little credibility. It turns out the source while decidedly conservative, is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney with impressive credentials.

Still angry, my next move was to skim the article in search of obvious fabrications or bias. I was sure I’d find something, but nothing jumped out.

So, I bit the bullet and actually read the complete article. I found it to be thoughtful and thought-provoking. The author made some logical leaps I would argue with, but it wasn’t the hatchet job I expected (and was trying very hard to find).

A Timely Discovery

Around the same time I saw this post, I discovered the work of Jonathan Haidt.

Most of us think we make moral judgments by applying our values to a situation and deciding what is right and wrong. And sometimes the things we judge to be wrong make us angry.

Haidt’s research, however, has shown that this description is backwards. We actually experience emotions related to a situation and THEN work to create a rational explanation for our emotional reaction. In other words, we experience anger (or another emotion) and then we construct an explanation for why we’re angry. Clearly that’s what I did in the situation above.

Morality Across the Spectrum

Haidt’s research shows that the things that provoke these emotional reactions are different for liberals and conservatives.  Of the five moral foundations he identified, both liberals and conservatives generally value two of them highly:

• Compassion
• Fairness

But, conservatives also typically value three other moral foundations highly:

• Loyalty
• Sanctity
• Authority

So, when a liberal and a conservative experience or observe the same situation, one may have a severe emotional reaction (e.g., anger) while the other has no reaction, or a different reaction.

Of course, the research looks at averages, so any individual might vary from this scheme, but the trends overall are clear.

How Do You Feel About Colin Kaepernick?

This insight made me think of the emotional exchanges  about football players taking a knee during the national anthem, to protest unfair treatment of people of color by police officers. I really couldn’t understand the emotional opposition to these protests. Surely, no thinking person can deny that the problem exists, right? (Socially, I’m clearly liberal as it relates to this scheme.)

But Haidt’s research has helped me understand what’s going on. Conservatives reacted emotionally when they perceived that their core value of loyalty (to our country) was threatened. Many of them then worked to construct a coherent rationale for their anger. In response, many liberals worked to create their own rationale.

That’s why everybody’s Facebook feeds were flooded with military people and veterans supporting both sides of the issue. After the initial emotional reaction, everyone felt compelled to support their position. The emotionally-pitched battle raged, with very few thoughtful conversations taking place between people of opposing viewpoints.

So What?

What’s the value of this insight? For me, it has been huge. Now that I understand where these emotional firestorms come from, I accept them for what they are: sincerely-felt reactions that are determined by our emotional firmware. And these reactions will vary depending on where we fall on the political left-to-right spectrum. I know plenty of good conservatives, good liberals, bad conservatives and bad liberals. So where you fall on the spectrum doesn’t say anything about whether you’re a good person or a bad person. It’s just determined by your firmware.

When a controversial issue comes up and a conservative friend reacts differently than I do, I find I’m more interested in getting past the emotion and having an actual conversation.  We may or may not modify our perspectives, but we will definitely understand one another better. And, if we do it right, we’ll come out of the discussion respecting each other as much or more than when we started.