Some of Nothing

My Morality
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

It's depicted on this chart in green. The average liberal and average conservative scores are depicted in blue and red, respectively.

Note the emphasis on Fairness, because I'm pretty sure that's why I find Andrew Sullivan's take-down of the Torture Right today so thrilling. Eric Martin, at Obsidian Wings, offers an abridged and annotated version of Sullivan's masterpiece.

For the record, Andrew Sullivan is a conservative; I am a liberal. And while I find Sullivan's sporadic fixation on "symbolic issues" fairly WTF?-worthy, it's nice to see that we have something in common...an interest in karmic justice.

Also, here's Jonathan Haidt discussing his study of morality differences between liberals and conservatives:

(from TED)

And here's Haidt's website where you too can take the Morality test. Personally, I find Haidt's analysis intriguing. But as the grown progeny of two conservative-cum-neoconservative parents, I have noticed that my desire for intellectual honesty and self-awareness has played a foundational role in the evolution of my ideological identity. Whether that desire stems from one or more of the five traits that Haidt lays out or whether it is a separate trait, I'm not quite sure. But I think it at least deserves a mention. In other words, I've determined through careful, independent observation and analysis that a non-trivial amount of conservatism (especially social conservatism)--as expressed outwardly by conservatives themselves--is complete bullshit*.

*Sorry for the profanity...kind of.

Nothing New byslag at 11:03 AM