Moral Foundations Theory (Wikipdeia): "a social psychological theory intended to explain the origins of and variation in human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, modular foundations. It was first proposed by psychologists Jonathan Haidt, Craig Joseph and Jesse Graham, .... and subsequently developed by a diverse group of collaborators, and popularized in Haidt's book The Righteous Mind. The theory proposes six foundations: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression; while its authors remain open to the addition, subtraction or modification of the set of foundations."
An NPR program Hidden Brain, When Doing Right Feels Wrong, discusses what goes on in our minds when core moral values clash. This goes straight to the heart of what makes ruthless and even crackpot propaganda so effective in the hands of talented demagogues. Using mostly two examples, the program highlights the clash between the normal innate human impulses to be both (1) loyal to family, group, tribe, etc., and (2) fair or honest with oneself and people generally.
Edward Snowden: The broadcast started with citing Edward Snowden and his leaking of thousands of secret surveillance documents produced by the US National Security Agency and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance.[1] The leaked documents embarrassed the US and possibly endangered some American citizens abroad. People polarized into two mindsets about what Snowden did. Snowden fled to Russia and Putin accepted him. Some American firmly believed that Snowden was a traitor who was disloyal to the US, while others firmly believed he was being honest by warning us about US government intrusions into private lives of all kinds of people.
The police officer: The other example cited was by a young Detroit police officer who was offered an illegal way to make a lot of money by breaking into the house of a bookie who kept a lot of cash in a safe in his home. The officer was torn between loyalty to fellow officers and honesty about the law and justice. He chose honesty but he mentally struggled about his betrayal of his fellow officers who he felt close to and trusted with his life. He also felt the sting of criticism and many death threats from people who felt he was a dirty rat. His girlfriend and her child were firebombed (but not hurt) to in an attempt to kill the whistleblower cop. He called the decision to be a whistleblower against his fellow officers "gut wrenching." The reason for that is because the gut is involved in emotional feelings. This officer retired earlier this year.
A key point here is that loyalty is not more or less moral than honesty. They are simply two different innate moral impulses and they can come in conflict. They can be, and routinely are, forced into conflict by demagogues, propagandists and marketers who are acutely aware of these impulses in normal people (not sociopaths, narcissists, etc.). They fully understand much trouble normal people have in resolving moral conflicts. The rider (the conscious mind) did not evolve to question what the moral elephant decides and wants to do. The weak, lazy rider evolved to make up post hoc justifications, not to do critical moral or empirical analysis of what the elephant wants to do or why or even whether it makes any sense at all.
Often what the elephant wants to do is blithering nonsense dressed up to feel like it makes sense by a political and/or religious demagogue or a special interest. Demagogues, propagandists and marketers know how to make people react emotionally and feel it.
The title of Haidt's book, Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion gets right to the point. These conflicts arise and they divide people. Each side of the moral divide sees the other as needing their heads examined. The human mind does not like to hold incompatible beliefs at the same time. What Snowden did was empirically both disloyal and honest, but few people are comfortable with that unstable mental state. Normal cognitive dissonance forces minds into one of two belief states, either disloyal traitor or honest whistleblower. There is little or no room for mutual understanding, but lots of room for distrust, animosity, resentment and false beliefs that support those negative feelings.
The 53 minute broadcast is here for those interested. It is very good. It brings the loyalty vs. honesty moral conflict into clear, sharp focus.
Where does culpability lie?
Republican Party propaganda routinely slanders Democrats and liberals as liars, crooks, evil, tyrannical, and often pedophiles, communists and/or something(s) else bad. Most rank and file Republicans sincerely believe most of these falsehoods. Their minds are trapped in a nasty moral cage. That propaganda is relentless and ruthless. Inconvenient fact, truth and reasoning are almost completely swept away and replaced mostly with lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation and/or flawed motivated reasoning. Republican elites and their propaganda forces such as Faux News, know exactly what they are doing. They have successfully played on the loyalty moral value to the extent that honesty has now been swept almost completely away.
Think about it. Why has decades of Republican propaganda relentlessly attacked the credibility and honesty of the free press, Democrats, democracy, inconvenient facts and truths, e.g., climate science, experts bearing inconvenient messages, and expertise itself. That is done to build and maintain a clash between loyalty to the GOP and its tribe-cult against inconvenient truth and honesty. Republican lies and crimes are denied and/or acceptable, while the same by Democrats are vilified as horrors. Why did the ex-president elevate loyalty to himself as a core moral value over loyalty to the Constitution, inconvenient truth, democracy and the rule of law? The GOP has successfully built a social norm and tribe/cult where loyalty routinely trumps honesty.
The ex-president, like all other professional Republican propagandists are fully aware of the moral foundations of humans doing politics, religion and ideology generally. They get it. Or, as Haidt put it, “Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t.”
Question: Who or what is more culpable for false beliefs and bad, anti-democratic behavior, demagogic Republican elites spewing toxic propaganda, or the deceived, manipulated and betrayed rank and file? In other words, is propaganda is irrelevant and adults are responsible for their own beliefs and behaviors, true, false, good, bad, smart, stupid, neutral or ambiguous?[2]
Footnotes:
1. Wikipedia comments on Snowden: A subject of controversy, Snowden has been variously called a traitor,[7] a hero,[8] a whistleblower,[9] a dissident,[10] a coward,[11] and a patriot.[12] U.S. officials condemned his actions as having done "grave damage" to the U.S. intelligence capabilities.[13] Snowden has defended his leaks as an effort "to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."[14] His disclosures have fueled debates over mass surveillance, government secrecy, and the balance between national security and information privacy, something that he has said he intended to do in retrospective interviews.[15]
2. Or, as Tom Nichols once put it, “. . . . there is only one group of people who must bear the ultimate responsibility for this state of affairs, and only they can change any of it: the citizens of the United States of America.” That raises a question: How can deceived and manipulated citizens change a state of affairs or problem they are unaware of because they have been deceived and manipulated?
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