An anthropologist studies evangelicals' politics

[BigAppleBucky]

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/do-as-i-do-not-as-i-say/?scp=1&sq=Evangelicals&st=Search

If Democrats want to reach more evangelical voters, they should use a political language that evangelicals can hear. They should talk about the kind of people we are aiming to be and about the transformational journey that any choice will take us on. They should talk about how we can grow in compassion and care. They could talk about the way their policy interventions will allow those who receive them to become better people and how those of us who support them will better ourselves as we reach out in love. They could describe health care reform as a response to suffering, not as a solution to an economic problem.
To be sure, they won’t connect to every evangelical.

But the good news for secular liberals is that evangelicals are smarter and more varied than many liberals realize.

[BrainGlutton]

When secular liberals vote, they think about the outcome of a political choice. They think about consequences. Secular liberals want to create the social conditions that allow everyday people, behaving the way ordinary people behave, to have fewer bad outcomes.

This is also known as “common sense.”

[Chronos]

Democrats are already doing all of that. How are Republicans connecting to evangelicals?

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@Chronos

Democrats are already doing all of that. How are Republicans connecting to evangelicals?

Democrats are starting to, but they’re playing a little bit of catch up, and having to reframe a few things in these new lights. What people on the Left do is, largely, explain how. Instead, they need to explain why. The Left likes to cite studies, talk about things they read in a paper or journal, bring facts, figures, and numbers, but that doesn’t resonate with folks. That’s why making these things personal is important. That’s why using your own personal story is integral to reaching out to other folks, even folks that are “brainwashed”.

[BrainGlutton]

When evangelicals vote, they think more immediately about what kind of person they are trying to become — what humans could and should be, rather than who they are. From this perspective, the problem with government is that it steps in when people fall short. Rick Santorum won praise by saying (as he did during the Values Voters Summit in 2010), “Go into the neighborhoods in America where there is a lack of virtue and what will you find? Two things. You will find no families, no mothers and fathers living together in marriage. And you will find government everywhere: police, social service agencies. Why? Because without faith, family and virtue, government takes over.” This perspective emphasizes developing individual virtue from within — not changing social conditions from without.

And that is . . . well, it’s all very arguable, but “common sense” just don’t seem to apply.

[Esox_Lucius]

I don’t think there’s any way of framing abortion and gay rights and all that nasty stuff in a way that would appeal to evangelicals. Just mention the words and up go the shields. “But the bible says…” (That was my father-in-law’s response to the news that we humans originated as Africans and spread out to the rest of the world from there. The idea that that should make us less racist was lost on him simply because of what his bible told him.)

[Chronos]

Talking about what we’re trying to become is exactly what liberals do and conservatives do not. That’s pretty much the core of the difference between liberals and conservatives: Liberals talk about what we can become, while conservatives talk about what we have been. If that were really what evangelicals wanted, then they’d be solidly in the Democratic base, and the Republicans wouldn’t even have a hope of catching up.

[septimus]

There have been 2 or 3 recent studies which claimed physical differences between the brains of “liberal” voters and “conservative” voters. (IIRC, the studies found different differences. :dubious: ) I don’t have the URL’s (which I might have found first here at SDMB.)

I hope a smart Doper can track down those studies and offer a critique.

[BrainGlutton]

@septimus

There have been 2 or 3 recent studies which claimed physical differences between the brains of “liberal” voters and “conservative” voters. (IIRC, the studies found different differences. :dubious: ) I don’t have the URL’s (which I might have found first here at SDMB.)

I hope a smart Doper can track down those studies and offer a critique.

I applied my stellar library-science research skills and googled “liberal conservative brain differences.”

This one says they actually have different, well, brains.

In the study, led by Ryota Kanai of the University College London, people who identified themselves as liberals generally had a larger anterior cingulate cortex — a comma-shaped region near the front of the brain that is involved in decision-making. By contrast, those who identified as conservatives had larger amygdalas — almond-shaped structures that are linked with emotional learning and the processing of fear. (More on TIME.com: In Politics, It’s Survival of the Fittest, Literally)

These structural differences, the authors suggest, support previous reports of differences in personality: liberals tend to be better at managing conflicting information, while conservatives are though to be better at recognizing threats, researchers said. “Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual’s political orientation,” said Kanai in a press release. “Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure.”

<snip>

The theories are best guesses. And Kanai qualifies the findings of his own study, acknowledging that political orientation is complex, and can fall into more than just two categories. In addition, the study doesn’t answer whether brain structure influences political preferences or vice versa: it’s possible that the shape of the brain changes over time with a person’s experiences — and with his or her changing political views.

See also here.

And this Wiki article.

[Beware_of_Doug]

Compassion and care and responding to suffering aren’t going to reach evangelicals, because they leave those things at home when they go to vote.

[septimus]

@BrainGlutton

… And this Wiki article.

Thank you. As so often it seems, the Wiki link seemed best – indeed one of the other links seemed to point to the Wikipedia article for detail!

The phenomenon seems very interesting and very relevant. It may help explain why liberals and conservatives often argue at cross-purposes here at SDMB, unable to understand the other’s viewpoint.

I hope someone starts a thread to discuss this biologic correlation. But the thread should be started by someone better informed … (or even more opinionated ) than me.

Two statistical questions I don’t see clearly addressed: (1) how strong is the correlation? (2) are the relevant brain-feature distributions bimodal, or are we still dealing with a “bell-shaped curve”?

(The Wikipedia article suggests that matings tend to be of politically similar, which I suppose might drive toward a bimodal population, but are we there yet?)

BTW, our own Leader was mentioned in the Wikipedia article

Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope disputed claims that Democratic-leaning states of the United States are smarter on average than Republican-leaning states, noting that a study published in The Economist in 2000 was a hoax, and a 2006 study by Satoshi Kanazawa was grossly flawed by failing to note that students in Southern states who did not take the SAT scholastic test were often taking the competing ACT exam instead.

[puddleglum]

This just shows how out of touch the anthropologist is. Highlighting suffering is not going to work because conservatives think about it in a different way than liberals. When a conservative sees suffering they think “I should try to help or give money to people who help”. When a liberal sees suffering they think “We should raise taxes on the rich and use that money to help”
The approach recommended just reeks of Lakoff’s reframing idiocy. Politics through euphemism.

[gamerunknown]

@puddleglum

I should try to help or give money to people who help

Not according to the just world hypothesis. If they’re in a rut, it’s their own fault.

[BrainGlutton]

@puddleglum

When a conservative sees suffering they think “I should try to help or give money to people who help”.

You’re really gonna have to provide a cite for this one.

[furt]

@gamerunknown

Not according to the just world hypothesis. If they’re in a rut, it’s their own fault.

You are aware that one of evangelicalism’s core tenets is a fallen world, that is in fact unjust? :dubious: And that evangelicals donate more to charity than the average?

Evangelicalism is not Ayn Rand with a bible, any more than liberal Christianity is Marxist.

[gamerunknown]

@puddleglum

Evangelicalism is not Ayn Rand with a bible, any more than liberal Christianity is Marxist.

He wrote “conservatives”, not “evangelicals”.

From the Hoover institute:

@Hoover

For example, religious people are 7 points more likely than secularists to volunteer for neighborhood and civic groups, 20 points more likely to volunteer to help the poor or elderly, and 26 points more likely to volunteer for school or youth programs.

That doesn’t preclude a religious motivation. My father visits prisoners to minister, would that count as nonreligious volunteering?

[Bill_Door]

@furt

You are aware that one of evangelicalism’s core tenets is a fallen world, that is in fact unjust? :dubious: And that evangelicals donate more to charity than the average?

Evangelicalism is not Ayn Rand with a bible, any more than liberal Christianity is Marxist.

And if the donations that the evangelicals make go to air conditioning the pastor’s doghouses or to defeating California Proposition 8, or to passing the latest constitutional amendment in North Carolina who was helped by that? That’s the reason evangelicals score so high on charitable giving yet so low on charity.

[puddleglum]

@BrainGlutton

You’re really gonna have to provide a cite for this one.

I thought this was well known.
Here is a column about it

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

[Sicks_Ate]

@puddleglum

I thought this was well known.
Here is a column about it

Many of those households tithe 10% to their church. I’m sure that they call that charitable giving, but since it’s ‘required’ I don’t see it as truly ‘charitable’. It’s a requirement.

[furt]

@gamerunknown

He

Who?

That doesn’t preclude a religious motivation. My father visits prisoners to minister, would that count as nonreligious volunteering?

Not IMO, or AFAICT in the study.

@Bill_Door

And if the donations that the evangelicals make go to air conditioning the pastor’s doghouses or to defeating California Proposition 8, or to passing the latest constitutional amendment in North Carolina who was helped by that? That’s the reason evangelicals score so high on charitable giving yet so low on charity.

Didn’t read the cite before venting your bigotry, did you?