Liberals vs. Conservatives

As the US presidential election is in a few weeks, I’ve lately been reading a lot about different moral values. It’s the endless fight of controversial ideologies: Liberals against conservatives. But why is it that there are those two contrary ways of thinking and why is it so hard for people to reach their counterparts? In this blog entry I’d like to give you an answer to that fascinating question.

I’m assuming that most of you already know the fundamental differences between liberal and conservative people, as you probably represent one of these ideologies. But for those of you who don’t, I will explain them briefly.
Liberals and conservatives are often associated with the two main US-parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. Liberally thinking people put their emphasis on things like care and equality, while for conservatives, those values are not that significant. They have more of an old-fashioned way of thinking and mainly focus on patriotism, loyalty and purity.

Different brain structures can influence people in their personal moral values!
After examining MRI brain scans of many different people it turned out that liberals usually have a more sizeable anterior cingulate cortex, a part of our brain that is associated with understanding and monitoring conflict.
Conservatives, on the other hand, have a larger right amygdala, the part which helps process fear and anxiety. But how is that connected to people becoming more old-fashioned, you may ask yourself? The question is truly simple: Humans become more conservative, when they’re terrified of something. You can observe that phenomenon after any catastrophe for example after 9/11.
People of the two ideologies also feel pain in a different way. Scientist can find out whether you are liberal or conservative by showing you pictures of mutilated limbs and analyzing your brain. Free-thinking people ordinarily also feel pain, when someone else is suffering while conservatives’ brains don’t respond to such images in this way. This doesn’t mean that they don’t care about others, it just proves that their brains work differently.

But why is it so challenging for people to reach those, with a different ideology? It’s because we think our moral values are universal. Other values seem illogical and unacceptable, so we present our arguments in a way that mostly appeals to the ethics of our own side and not to that of our opponents. To convince differently thinking people, we first have to understand the values of the other side and try to find arguments that satisfy those values. An example: When talking to a conservative person about refugees, you shouldn’t say that they are poor and need help. Instead you could use word like “They want to live the American dream, so they’ve chosen to come to the US.”
This technique is called “moral reframing” and you should definitely learn it if you want to reach more people in the future.

What are your thoughts on that topic? If there’s anything important to add, I’d be glad if you’d comment!
I’m looking forward to a marvelous discussion!

 Simon