The central conceit of Politics for the New Dark Age is its rejection of a universal understanding of human nature. I posit that societies exist in evolutionary stable equilibria consisting of a mix of different personality types and that politics can largely be understood as a mechanism to generate dynamism and progress from the conflict between them. The rejection of universal rationality makes some uncomfortable; nowadays, I tend to point people with concerns towards Joshua Greene’s “Moral Tribes”, and Johnathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind”, both of which do a great job of introducing this concept to a general audience from positions of expertise in psychology.
I have responded to Greene elsewhere; today’s blog will speculatively tackle one aspect of Haidt’s Moral Foundation theory. To re-summarise, Haidt posits that individuals have multiple moral system, some of which progressives and conservatives share (care/prevention of harm and fairness), and some of which they don’t (loyalty and respect for authority). I have argued elsewhere that politically salient personality cleavages (authoritarianism v libertarianism, progressive v conservative) can be understood as reflecting where these moral systems disagree, and that universal liberal social contract norms can be understood as reflecting where they converge.
The problem with sanctity
But where does Haidt's fifth category (‘sanctity’) fit into this scheme? Haidt himself often seems unsure, despite the central role it comes to assume for him in explaining the differences between progressives and conservatives. What is sanctity? From a biological perspective, sanctity simply reflects our innate avoidance of disgusting things, primarily as it relates to food, sex, and hygiene. The existence of such a mechanism makes evolutionary sense, as does its repurposing as part of a cultural mechanism. Rotten food tastes bad and you probably shouldn’t eat it. But beyond that, many cultures have complex food laws and rituals which embody local knowledge and expertise about food sources where the danger or opportunity is not intuitively obvious to individuals. Because moral systems create motivated action, the adaptive salience of such a mechanism is intuitively obvious.
Haidt claims that sanctity is of higher importance to conservatives than progressives. Conservatives tend to be obsessed with [sexual] purity, and a desire for cleanliness and order are important components of the conscientiousness trait which underlies political authoritarianism. And because the purpose of disgust is to motivate action, disgust and excitement are often strongly interlinked in human behaviour. Thus, it’s a cliché that many conservative figures who decry certain sexual practices in public find them exciting in private. We are aroused by moral violations, and that arousal sometimes finds expression in paradoxical ways.
Not just conservatives
What interests me, however, are manifestations of the sanctity trigger on the left. Unlike what Haidt believes, when you scratch the surface even just a little you find they’re widespread. Anti-vaccination paranoia is not merely a result of lack of education by fringe right-wingers, it’s also widespread amongst highly educated and socially-conscious people who are genuinely disgusted by the thought of injecting 'diseases' or 'chemicals' into their or their children’s body. Whether its concerns about ‘toxins’ in food, anti-GMO hysteria, helicopter parenting, or a desire to consume only free-range eggs, some progressive stereotypes do in fact seem highly concerned with body sanctity. So what causes this? Is it yet more evidence for the so-called ‘quadratic hypothesis’, the mistaken theory that the far-left and far-right are fundamentally similar?
There was an interesting piece in the Atlantic in February which examined the issue. Concern about food sanctity, dietician Michelle Allison argues, is a manifestation of the existential fear of death (which also strongly motivates much political behaviour). Biologically, we are torn between “our desire to try new foods (neophilia) paired with our inherited fear of unknown foods (neophobia) that could turn out to be toxic.” Allison roots this in the so-called ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’: as generalists, humans are presented with a potentially overwhelming variety of potential behaviours (Haidt uses the same metaphor).This contradiction between novelty-seeking and safety-seeking has obvious political parallels: some of us find freedom exciting, others find psychological comfort in traditional social and cultural rules that limit those choices, providing a sense of order and control.
The 'Omnivore's dilemma' is thus functionally identical to the political divide between progressives (who believe that novelty makes society better off) and conservatives (who believe that novelty makes society worse off). My own hypothesis is that sanctity comprises both an 'internal' and 'external' vectors. The internal vector concerns the way in which the sanctity trigger motivates individual action; the external vector concerns the projection of those behaviours and standards on to others through the use of enforcement mechanisms such as punishment, gossip and shaming. Externally, the psychological links between sanctity, the desire to enforce order and conscientiousness seem rather obvious.
Therefore, the external, enforcement component of Haidt’s sanctity mechanism forms a part of the set of authoritarian personal and political behaviour traits – which, as you’ll know from Chapter I of Politics for the New Dark Age can manifest on both right and left. The political consequences of authoritarian sanctity are also common to both left and right: proponents of clean-living and clean-eating establish their superiority over those (economically less-advantaged) who cannot afford to do so, creating taboo words, behaviours and beliefs that become markers of social status.
What I’d be interested in finding out is why the authoritarian left (with some notable exceptions) seems less interested in the sexual purity aspect of Haidt’s sanctity trigger. While the Soviet Union and communist China were/are far from embracing LGBT rights and sexual liberation, concerns about sexual behaviour have never formed a core proselytizing component of their political systems in the same way it has for right-wing regimes. Personally, I know plenty of sexually puritanical progressives, but they tend to keep it to themselves. The obvious exception to this are sex-negative and sex worker-exclusionary 'radical' feminists. What seems to be crucial is that they combine more conservative personal beliefs with strong authoritarian tendencies. Some have tried to claim Chomsky for this view, on the basis of this interview; although to me that doesn’t look like a well-formed intellectual position.
It would also be interesting to find out how those on the left with particular anxieties about body sanctity (i.e. anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO types) scored on other metrics of political authoritarianism. Does sanctity correlate with other metrics of conservativism and authoritarism as I posit, or is is independent? Research for another day!