Wayne, I have myself been thinking about Jonathan Haidt and his moral foundations- upon which this research seems to be based. I agree with you about focusing on relationship, communication and understanding but I worry that there may be fundamental differences in our values that we are just smoothing over when we couch issues in terms of “conservative” values like purity. I’m really not sure. Haidt himself states in his book that he came upon purity as a foundation after spending time in India.
I have been thinking about this too! How do you have a conversation when the person has a different moral basis than you do? How do we have common language around values when the Right cares about liberty, loyalty, sanctity, and authority when the Left cares about mostly harm and then fairness?
I've thought about this a lot with abortion. The Right talks about a human life while the Left talks about women's rights. Clearly no progress can be made when both sides are speaking about totally different subjects.
I guess the task is to try and bridge the subjects, but it's hard. But I'm with you in that I'm not sure. I wish we could do more lift up vegan conservatives because other conservatives will be more likely to listen to them since they speak the same language.
“Lift up vegan conservatives” well yikes. most of us want them OUT! Remember when Gary Y left activism and the “intersectional vegans” celebrated.
I think in the US it’s ok to have right wing vegans supporting veggie burgers at Cracker Barrel. But in India it’s a quite different thing when ring wing Hindutva will lynch the marginalized for eating beef. And yes, many right wing vegans in India are Hindutva
Hah, yeah not to say I support conservative philosophy. I'm very much against it. But we have to make progress somehow. So if some Christian vegans want to get other Christian to stop abusing animals, that's a win in my book.
But that’s exactly the point. The prof is saying USE CONSERVATIVE VALUES (ie philosophy) to change right wing minds. So would you say, all meat eaters are dirty and polluted degenerates and only vegans are pure Christians?
This is a really good question. What do we do if our values just don't have enough in common for us to work together in making change?
Part of the answer, for me, is that I just truly believe that all human beings, at root, believe in compassion. Because we all know what it's like to suffer without it. But if I am wrong, the job will be harder, of creating change. Still do-able, but harder.
Also, is this the same Rama who was involved in DxE in its early days? If so, it's so good to hear from you. Someone mentioned your work to me recently. Please do update me on what you're up to nowadays!
Yes it’s the same Rama from the “old” days, but to me it doesn’t seem all that long ago. Nice to hear some of my work is getting passed around. As you may or may not know, purity is a big issue in brahminical patriarchy, in fact it’s where the original ideas for purity in moral psychology came from- westerners going to India and finding out about purity practices. Part of which is very definitely diet.
I’m writing some of these up for a chapter in the book Gender and Animals, I’ll send it along to you.
How do we reach? So vital, for me as well. Currently, a big thing is: how do we reach people who are inner-blocked from hearing the dangers of the injections? Reaching people - that's long been a huge concern of mine. As a prof, I didn't care to have students fake-agree, I cared that they explored, examined, THOUGHT (meaning, found out facts and used logic) rather than stayed with "I know what I think."
I only read the abstract of Robb Willer's paper on extreme protesting. But it makes me wonder if the four men that sat down at a white's only counter in Greensboro, NC would be considered extreme? What about Rosa Parks not giving up her bus seat? Won't our biggest enemies always think of us as being extreme? Once we achieve victory, won't society claim "duh slavery was wrong!" But I'll read the paper and hopefully that will be in there!
The full paper is good! Robb would say the Greensboro protests were not extreme, but moderate, because they were nonviolent and compassionate -- while still being confrontation. And -- this is a key bit from his paper -- his research shows that these more "moderate" (in tone, not in message) tactics had positive impacts!
Wayne, I have myself been thinking about Jonathan Haidt and his moral foundations- upon which this research seems to be based. I agree with you about focusing on relationship, communication and understanding but I worry that there may be fundamental differences in our values that we are just smoothing over when we couch issues in terms of “conservative” values like purity. I’m really not sure. Haidt himself states in his book that he came upon purity as a foundation after spending time in India.
I have been thinking about this too! How do you have a conversation when the person has a different moral basis than you do? How do we have common language around values when the Right cares about liberty, loyalty, sanctity, and authority when the Left cares about mostly harm and then fairness?
I've thought about this a lot with abortion. The Right talks about a human life while the Left talks about women's rights. Clearly no progress can be made when both sides are speaking about totally different subjects.
I guess the task is to try and bridge the subjects, but it's hard. But I'm with you in that I'm not sure. I wish we could do more lift up vegan conservatives because other conservatives will be more likely to listen to them since they speak the same language.
“Lift up vegan conservatives” well yikes. most of us want them OUT! Remember when Gary Y left activism and the “intersectional vegans” celebrated.
I think in the US it’s ok to have right wing vegans supporting veggie burgers at Cracker Barrel. But in India it’s a quite different thing when ring wing Hindutva will lynch the marginalized for eating beef. And yes, many right wing vegans in India are Hindutva
Hah, yeah not to say I support conservative philosophy. I'm very much against it. But we have to make progress somehow. So if some Christian vegans want to get other Christian to stop abusing animals, that's a win in my book.
But that’s exactly the point. The prof is saying USE CONSERVATIVE VALUES (ie philosophy) to change right wing minds. So would you say, all meat eaters are dirty and polluted degenerates and only vegans are pure Christians?
This is a really good question. What do we do if our values just don't have enough in common for us to work together in making change?
Part of the answer, for me, is that I just truly believe that all human beings, at root, believe in compassion. Because we all know what it's like to suffer without it. But if I am wrong, the job will be harder, of creating change. Still do-able, but harder.
Also, is this the same Rama who was involved in DxE in its early days? If so, it's so good to hear from you. Someone mentioned your work to me recently. Please do update me on what you're up to nowadays!
Hi Wayne
Yes it’s the same Rama from the “old” days, but to me it doesn’t seem all that long ago. Nice to hear some of my work is getting passed around. As you may or may not know, purity is a big issue in brahminical patriarchy, in fact it’s where the original ideas for purity in moral psychology came from- westerners going to India and finding out about purity practices. Part of which is very definitely diet.
I’m writing some of these up for a chapter in the book Gender and Animals, I’ll send it along to you.
How do we reach? So vital, for me as well. Currently, a big thing is: how do we reach people who are inner-blocked from hearing the dangers of the injections? Reaching people - that's long been a huge concern of mine. As a prof, I didn't care to have students fake-agree, I cared that they explored, examined, THOUGHT (meaning, found out facts and used logic) rather than stayed with "I know what I think."
I only read the abstract of Robb Willer's paper on extreme protesting. But it makes me wonder if the four men that sat down at a white's only counter in Greensboro, NC would be considered extreme? What about Rosa Parks not giving up her bus seat? Won't our biggest enemies always think of us as being extreme? Once we achieve victory, won't society claim "duh slavery was wrong!" But I'll read the paper and hopefully that will be in there!
The full paper is good! Robb would say the Greensboro protests were not extreme, but moderate, because they were nonviolent and compassionate -- while still being confrontation. And -- this is a key bit from his paper -- his research shows that these more "moderate" (in tone, not in message) tactics had positive impacts!