There's a Reason they call it Liberal Arts

Via Bitch Ph.D.

Michael Berube has a satirical post that talks about Sean Hannity and the Right Wing fear of higher education: Autocratic but fun Friday

This is such a simple issue, but I don't know how we fix it. Higher Education will almost always produce a more liberal, more tolerant individual. Even people born and raised in Conservative homes will be generally more liberal than their parents, though they may still vote Republican for religious or economic reasons. In other words, if you've got money, you vote for Conservatives. If you want to keep your kid Conservative, you send them to a Conservative school that will reinforce their indoctrination, like Liberty University or Yale. Notice that Conservatives hate public schools because they expose kids to other ideas and other cultures than their own. They don't just believe different things than Lefties do. They are thinking differently than we are (and not in a hip, iPod kind of way, either.)

I often talk about Kohlberg's Stages of Moral and Ethical Development. Here's a gross over-simplification that the Left has to thoroughly grok, or we are never going to make any progress with these current waves of fascism. We have got to get out of our heads and *Get This* because reason and logic doesn't work with fundamentalists.

There are three levels of Moral and Ethical thought:

I. Reward and Punishment

Effective from ages 0 - about 8 or 9
(and sometimes again in College.)

What will it get me?
What will it cost me?
Will I get in trouble?

II. Obedience to External Authority

Ages 8 or 9 to around 16

Morality is based on an external Code or source determined by family, environment or peers. (The Herd)

It's the LAW!
It's in the Bible.
It has always been this way.
You are either with us, or against us.

People at this level want to be "good" and often are, but some take it to an extreme.This is the source of Fundamentalism and Fascism and most people never outgrow this. It is literal, either/or, Black or White, Gay or Straight, Faithful or Infidel, Good vs. Evil, God vs. The Devil and God vs. Atheism thinking. Yes, Atheists can also fall into this category. It's not what you believe. It's why and how you believe it and whether you can let someone else believe something different without conflict.

To vary from the prescribed Code is weakness, crime, chaos, anarchy, evil or sin and may be punished by "believers" who claim the "divine right" or assumed authority to enforce their rules on others, often seen as "for their own good." To question or criticize The Code provokes Believer's fear of survival or loss of acceptance by the Herd and will often result in violence. The Code must be preserved at all costs, or believers think that something horrible - death, damnation, castration - will ensue.

That assumed authority is used to justify racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, censorship, book burning, torture and executions as "good" and "right" if it is performed in service of the Code.

III. Self-Determination/Personal Moral Code

becomes possible Age 16+

Morality is based on personal reflection, evaluation, empathy, critcal thought.

I evaluate.
I perceive.
This is logical because...
I might be wrong, you might be right, we both have rights because we are equal.

This level requires Abstract Thought - the ability to consider other points of view, to consider that there may be more than one "right" or "good" answer or code.

We are not having a clash of cultures. We are having a world conflict between two factions - Christian NeoConservatives and Islamist Extremists - both functioning at Level II and trying to get rid of each other; and Western and National conflicts between Levels II. and III.

Europe, Canada, the American Left and, increasingly, South America are (mostly) functioning at Level III.

The Bush Administration, the Middle East and Africa are functioning at Level II and trying to wipe out everyone who doesn't like their particular book of rules. Level II has America staring down the throat of a Christian theocracy and Muslim clerics offering gold as incentive to murder cartoonists. It has Muslim kids burning cars in Paris, and American students spying on their college professors for pay. Christian churches advocating an illegal war, and Americans campaigning against science and tolerance in schools. None of this is "logical" or even consistent with the actual texts of the Bible or the Koran. It IS adamnantly, violently loyal to The Herd.

Notice that the Crybaby Consevatives in America ridicule education; sneer at "nuance"; rail against "Moral Relativism" - those are all Level Three functions and they pose a threat to the Preservation of the Code.

The key is getting our Level II bretheren to allow for the possibility that they might just be wrong while admitting that we might be, too. The problem we have to solve is how do we get them to consider this when they're ready to burn flags and bomb embassies?

I'm trying to figure out how we do that. Any ideas?