I haven't posted much on OT in a long time and for those who might remember back when I did I was a rather irritating angsty teenage Liberal. I'm still probably angsty, Liberal, and annoying (at least to some) but at least I'm not a teenager anymore
Lately I've been doing some self reflection on how my political views have drifted over the past few years, mainly because that's more fun than studying for my qualifiers. But I've reached some interesting conclusions and was wondering what some of the great minds of OT thought of them.
First thought, introduction of terminology:
Political Axiom:
similar to a logical/mathematical axiom political axioms are the beliefs we hold without any solid support. These are unprovable and taken more or less on faith, but form the basis of any rational system of thought. In mathematics the goal is to have as few and as simple axioms as possible, and of course they should "make sense" as much as possible. Obviously when creating your political worldview there may be a similar goal, but you might have much more complicated axioms because the goal is different.
Examples:
In case my description wasn't good enough here are a few examples of what I would consider political axioms.
A fetus before x months, is/isn't "a person/alive".
The environment is/isn't valuable for it's own sake.
Personal privacy/Liberty is/isn't valuable.
People do/don't deserve a "good" life regardless of there life choices.
Homosexuality, sex before marriage, birth control, etc. is/isn't "wrong"
etc.
Some of those may not be very good examples, but hopefully you get the point now.
Now I claim that two people who hold the same view on the same issue, but use totally different axioms and thus lines of reasoning to reach their viewpoint hold non-isomorphic views. Thus two people we might normally both call Liberal or Conservative might have nothing in common politically aside from who they end up voting for.
Example: Suppose we are looking at adding new laws to protect the environment from pollution and preventing climate change.
Person A:
Believes the environment is sacred and should be protected for it's own sake, thus strongly supports the new law.
Person B: Doesn't really care about the environment for it's own sake, but is worried about the people in third world countries who are being affected by pollution and thus strongly supports the law for humanitarian reasons.
Person C: Doesn't much care about the environment or citizens of third world countries, but thinks that the new law will help his local economy by bringing in green jobs.
Thus we have 3 people all supporting the same thing even though their core beliefs might have nothing in common.
Now obviously rather we think about it a lot we area ll aware of this, and I don't think I've brought up anything surprising, controversial, or really discussion worthy yet. So here's what got me thinking. As I've matured over the past few years, going to college, graduating, now going to grad school, moving out of parents house, getting away from being homeschooled meeting people in the real world, etc. My beliefs have of course changed dramatically and I see the world totally differently now than say 3-5 years ago when I was just starting this journey. I have noticed that most of my political views haven't changed very much, I still support a basic spread of Liberal things sure there are changes, but certainly not enough to change who I would vote for etc. What have changed are my axioms, what I believe has changed dramatically. This seems totally backwards, one would think that core beliefs should be relatively unchanging, but how they logically form into views should change drastically as a person matures. It seems at least on the surface that changing the axioms significantly should change the views, unless of course something else is going on in our heads which is much less rational than we would like to believe.
An example of a view of mine:
Viewpoint:
I support moderately higher taxes and a strong social safety net with large amounts of government investment.
Old axioms and reasoning:
Poor people get screwed over by the system and can't get out, but all people deserve the same treatment so the government should help the less fortunate.
New axiom and reasoning:
Redistributing wealth to the lower classes especially by certain methods helps the economy because money held by the poor is more "liquid", and proper investment keeps our economy stronger.
Changes to the viewpoint are very minimal, before I would have been more supportive of welfare type things, whereas now I'm more supportive of money for education, infrastructure, etc. But in general the action I want has changed only a little, but my reasoning for it has changed from far left, to center right.
In fact most of my political views remain solidly Liberal, but my reasons for them have become much more conservative. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Possibly the reverse of this?
Thoughts?
As a side note, I rarely discuss politics anymore. The only times I do are when I'm talking to someone who I think has similar axioms (even if they have very different views) as I do. When this is the case we can often have very good discussions, but talking to someone with very different axioms, even if their views are basically the same is often a very frustrating and irritating experience. Often leaving me agreeing with someone while thinking the're stupid at the same time
Note, this isn't a political discussion thread. I'm talking about the psychology of political belief, not here to argue about actual politics
Lately I've been doing some self reflection on how my political views have drifted over the past few years, mainly because that's more fun than studying for my qualifiers. But I've reached some interesting conclusions and was wondering what some of the great minds of OT thought of them.
First thought, introduction of terminology:
Political Axiom:
similar to a logical/mathematical axiom political axioms are the beliefs we hold without any solid support. These are unprovable and taken more or less on faith, but form the basis of any rational system of thought. In mathematics the goal is to have as few and as simple axioms as possible, and of course they should "make sense" as much as possible. Obviously when creating your political worldview there may be a similar goal, but you might have much more complicated axioms because the goal is different.
Examples:
In case my description wasn't good enough here are a few examples of what I would consider political axioms.
A fetus before x months, is/isn't "a person/alive".
The environment is/isn't valuable for it's own sake.
Personal privacy/Liberty is/isn't valuable.
People do/don't deserve a "good" life regardless of there life choices.
Homosexuality, sex before marriage, birth control, etc. is/isn't "wrong"
etc.
Some of those may not be very good examples, but hopefully you get the point now.
Now I claim that two people who hold the same view on the same issue, but use totally different axioms and thus lines of reasoning to reach their viewpoint hold non-isomorphic views. Thus two people we might normally both call Liberal or Conservative might have nothing in common politically aside from who they end up voting for.
Example: Suppose we are looking at adding new laws to protect the environment from pollution and preventing climate change.
Person A:
Believes the environment is sacred and should be protected for it's own sake, thus strongly supports the new law.
Person B: Doesn't really care about the environment for it's own sake, but is worried about the people in third world countries who are being affected by pollution and thus strongly supports the law for humanitarian reasons.
Person C: Doesn't much care about the environment or citizens of third world countries, but thinks that the new law will help his local economy by bringing in green jobs.
Thus we have 3 people all supporting the same thing even though their core beliefs might have nothing in common.
Now obviously rather we think about it a lot we area ll aware of this, and I don't think I've brought up anything surprising, controversial, or really discussion worthy yet. So here's what got me thinking. As I've matured over the past few years, going to college, graduating, now going to grad school, moving out of parents house, getting away from being homeschooled meeting people in the real world, etc. My beliefs have of course changed dramatically and I see the world totally differently now than say 3-5 years ago when I was just starting this journey. I have noticed that most of my political views haven't changed very much, I still support a basic spread of Liberal things sure there are changes, but certainly not enough to change who I would vote for etc. What have changed are my axioms, what I believe has changed dramatically. This seems totally backwards, one would think that core beliefs should be relatively unchanging, but how they logically form into views should change drastically as a person matures. It seems at least on the surface that changing the axioms significantly should change the views, unless of course something else is going on in our heads which is much less rational than we would like to believe.
An example of a view of mine:
Viewpoint:
I support moderately higher taxes and a strong social safety net with large amounts of government investment.
Old axioms and reasoning:
Poor people get screwed over by the system and can't get out, but all people deserve the same treatment so the government should help the less fortunate.
New axiom and reasoning:
Redistributing wealth to the lower classes especially by certain methods helps the economy because money held by the poor is more "liquid", and proper investment keeps our economy stronger.
Changes to the viewpoint are very minimal, before I would have been more supportive of welfare type things, whereas now I'm more supportive of money for education, infrastructure, etc. But in general the action I want has changed only a little, but my reasoning for it has changed from far left, to center right.
In fact most of my political views remain solidly Liberal, but my reasons for them have become much more conservative. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Possibly the reverse of this?
Thoughts?
As a side note, I rarely discuss politics anymore. The only times I do are when I'm talking to someone who I think has similar axioms (even if they have very different views) as I do. When this is the case we can often have very good discussions, but talking to someone with very different axioms, even if their views are basically the same is often a very frustrating and irritating experience. Often leaving me agreeing with someone while thinking the're stupid at the same time
Note, this isn't a political discussion thread. I'm talking about the psychology of political belief, not here to argue about actual politics
