Is it me, or are there a lot of article trying to tie political orientation to personal habits or consumption choices? Apparently the messiness of my desk is a marker of my progressive politics. A recent New York Times article tries to make a link between maternal weight and political ideology arguing that heavy mothers produce more conservative offspring. A month ago I read about a connection between an individual’s startle reflex and their orientation towards more hawkish national defense policies.
This is all driven by the recent resurgence in genetic explanations for political behavior. While advances is DNA mapping explain part of the resurgence, It seems to me that our scholarship is also being driven by our increasingly polarizing politics. As we move into left and right tribes socially, we seem to be resurrecting essentialist arguments to explain the phenomenon. I suspect we’re asking the question “are liberals wired differently than conservatives” because we’ve had “Red America vs. Blue America” beaten into our heads for almost a decade. I hope this academic fad passes quickly into the night so I can go back to keeping a messy desk!
Comments 4
Don Waisanen — October 24, 2008
I couldn't agree more Jose. What I most want to know is how these reductionist renderings of human activity, which are still holding on to behaviorism for all its worth, account for political transformation and repositioning?
I don't doubt that we all carry around habits of birth and genetics which inform many of our decisions (and this before we even get to talking about how deeply situated we are all within various social structures). Freud and Bordieu have taught us to look out for that sort of thing, that is, as much as it can be brought into awareness. Yet, there's an awful lot of political change going on right now. In our own county alone, independents are increasing. Were they pre-programmed or primed for this?
For me, it all comes down to the same old thing--Americans unending fascination and worship of "psychology." I love psychology, don't get me wrong. But there is far more to human beings that deep inner drives which motivate us. These news accounts are typically drawn from scholarship which has no or little theory of language--no explanation of how symbolic action (words, images, etc.) can help us transcend our biological underpinnings--making us more than simply animals, and most importantly--also capable of agency and change!
jose — October 24, 2008
No fair! I can't find any point of disagreement on that post!
Kenneth M. Kambara — October 24, 2008
I think in our rush to predict things, people often forget about whether or not the relationships even make sense.
I remember watching a chilling HBO special with a psychiatrist interviewing a serial killer. The psychiatrist said to the killer that he tended to be fearless, which made killing easy. This fearlessness is also considered a good trait for firemen and law enforcement officers. The caustic childhood environment was posited as the reason for the pathological behavior. So, even with understanding at the gene level, at some point nurture has an effect, as Don alludes to.
Lynn Kahle up at Oregon used to quote another psychologist saying (paraphrasing here) that the most interesting things occur at the 23rd. level of interaction.
Jonathan Pfeiffer — October 25, 2008
I think all of you are pointing to the methodological pervertedness of most American psychology during the last century or so. There was some really cool psychological research going on in Germany before the United States bombed it. And even now, there are some people working very hard to bring it back.