I’ve since drifted away from that assumption.
I learned from Jon Haidt that people can be pretty cleanly divided into two groups:
1. People who (a) tolerate hierarchies and inequalities, (b) resist change, and (c) care about group loyalty.
2. People who don’t.
Bet you can’t guess which is which.
It seems that the liberal vs. conservative divide is not just about arbitrary political preferences, but is a foundational moral philosophy—one with not insignificant explanatory power.
(There are theories as to why people tend to fall into these two groups, mainly having to do with mountain/rural culture. If I remember correctly, Haidt discussed it in this diavlog.)
There are some serious implications with these differences in views. I’ve written before about the implication for work/careers, but that’s just one example. In summary, if you want to learn about a person – if you want to predict how they will behave – the liberal vs. conservative distinction is likely to serve as as good of a heuristic as any.
But how do you go about identifying someone’s moral/political views without straight up asking them? Turns out it’s pretty easy.
Here’s one question you can ask:
Do you prefer the people in your life to be simple or complex?
Liberals answer "complex" by 2 to 1; conservatives answer "simple" by 2 to 1. (Business Insider; Hat tip: The Door.)
And here is a four-parter I posted about awhile ago:
Which is more important for a child to have...
Independence or respect for elders?
Obedience or self-reliance?
Curiosity or good manners?
Being considerate or being well-behaved?
Again, bet you can’t guess which is which.
***
As a side note, I think the liberal vs. conservative terminology gets muddied in the field of economics. Studying economics tends to make people more “conservative,” meaning that they prefer smaller governments, but when we talk about the economics department at the University of Chicago being primarily conservative, I think we are talking about something very different from preferences about hierarchies, change, and loyalty. Conservative economists tend to side with the republicans on economic issues, but they side with them for very different reasons. On Haidt’s moral foundations test, I’d bet that “conservative” economists would score as liberal at a rate consistent with the rest of academia.
