Red brain, blue brain

In the last year I’ve been enjoying the NPR show Hidden Brain. It is on in my area at 11:00 on Sundays, so I listen to it after church and on my way to meet friends for lunch. That means I tend to hear about half an episode.

A month ago the first half of the episode was intriguing enough that I wanted to listen to the whole thing. I finally did so online tonight, taking notes as I went.

The episode is titled Red Brain, Blue Brain; Nature, Nurture and Your Politics. Host Shankar Vedantam talked to John Hibbing, a political scientist of University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Hibbing is one of the authors of Predisposed: Liberals, conservatives, and the biology of political differences. The online audio is 26 minutes.

Hibbing found many correlations between political views and other things in our lives. For example, conservative like order, liberals embrace ambiguity and diversity. Conservatives tend towards meat and potatoes. Liberals embrace ethnic foods. Conservatives like predictability. Liberals are more experimental. Conservatives decorate their homes with sports memorabilia and keep things tidy. Liberals are more likely to have lots of books and a diverse shelf of CDs in a space that is more messy. Conservatives like purebred pets. Liberals like mixed-breeds and think of the pet as a member of the family. Conservatives want poetry that rhymes, novels with a clear resolution, and music with a clear melody. Liberals tend more towards free verse, appreciate less tidy novels, and more accepting of the spontaneity of jazz. Conservatives like tradition. Liberals like innovation.

Yes, these are averages and based on correlations. So while it is possible to make a pretty good guess of political preferences by the food one eats and the music one listens to, it is definitely not a strict correlation. I’m a liberal that isn’t into jazz. Even so, there are differences in temperaments – genuine psychological differences between liberals and conservatives that goes beyond politics.

So what shapes our politics? Originally, our views are shaped by our parents and other prominent adults. After a while we test our politics against our world view and come up with our own opinion.

When people hear about these correlations they don’t like them. No one want to think to be a good liberal I need to eat in ethnic restaurants. We’re being ourselves. And or politics is also being ourselves.

So on to bigger things, such as how we perceive threats. An example is a rant by Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA. He listed a large number of threats we face. To conservatives these threats are numerous and are very real. To Liberals the world isn’t all that threatening and we don’t want to build our lives around these inconsequential threats.

Guns are one issue where each side baffles the other. Immigration is another. Conservatives see immigrants are a threat. Laws need to be strong. Citizens need to be well armed. The government needs to spend lots on defense and empower police. We need the death penalty. Those who make it here need to be extremely vetted. We don’t understand why anyone would be opposed to safety. A good citizen is one who is prepared to defend home and country from these threats.

Both sides accuse the other that they don’t get it. But each threat (or lack of threat) is real from their perception. We think if they don’t agree with us it is because they are deliberately obtuse or biased. We have a hard time believing other people don’t see the world as we do.

Hibbing and Vendantam turn to the science. Is there a source for these differences? Is that source our home environment? Growing up in a conservative home a person is influenced by much more than political views, such as foods, types of pets, and the way the home is decorated. All these traits may tend to come together. So is political preference just about nurture?

Hibbing was able to access a large study of twins. This data included political views. His team looked at fraternal twins, who have similar genes, and identical twins who have the same genes. Twins grow up in the same household, eat the same food, and listen to the same politics from their parents. So a lack of difference in political views might be traced to genetics.

And, indeed, that was found. About 30-40% of our political views are influenced by genetics and 60-70% are influenced by the environment (go ask a scientist what that really means). The scientific community was a bit upset that the influence of genes over politics was more than zero.

There are several traits that we now see as biologically based, such as being left-handed or being gay. With that recognition usually comes tolerance. Will that same tolerance come to political views?

I have a personal answer to that last point. If you want to eat just meat and potatoes, go right ahead. While you do that I’ll enjoy the area Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Lebanese restaurants. But it is hard to be tolerant of a conservative viewpoint when their stated goal is malice and harm – of the immigrant, of other races, of other religions, of the poor, of LGB and especially T people, of women. Of everyone but straight white Christian men. That isn’t just a different opinion, a different way of looking at things. That results in pain, suffering, oppression, and death. That needs to be resisted.

There is another episode on a similar topic. That will have to wait for another day.