Whoop for Dean, fine and green! (Lame, but I’m not 100%.)
Waiting for the shuttle to the airport at 0415. Missed my plane yesterday afternoon, hoping that the flight home from San Francisco is not delayed or cancelled (past experience teaches neither is very unlikely). Messed up the blog post format note on this computer, so here is a cut and paste link from Mother Jones.
I don't think "negativity bias" is a good term. At one point the article uses the term "threat-oriented," which seems a better fit for what's being described. As the article points out, that seems to go along with some aspects of conservative ideology. I'm not sure how broadly it can be generalized, though.
It may be important to note that conservatives in general are not opposed to change. In fact, they are generally more in favor of change than are liberals -- just different changes. It was while talking the political orientation poll that I realized just how happy I am, in my late 70s, with the way things are today. That's what makes me a "solid liberal."
If people are hard-wired the way they are, with genetics and physiology holding sway, what hope is there for the world?
I'm not sure how this fits in, but one thing that came to mind for me is that I am very different from the rest of my family. I had a near-death experience as a toddler and all the research I've read on the NDEs of children says that a NDE re-wires a child, and they think differently than others do. Of course, how we market that to conservatives is beyond me. LOL!
Yes, "hard-wired" isn't really right. It's a matter of personality rather than anything biologically more fundamental. And even without anything as dramatic as a near-death experience, people's personalities do change over time. I can trace the connection, but in many important ways I am not the same person I was 60 years ago.
Atwater notes that the child who returns from a near-death experience is not the same child as before, but is a “remodeled, rewired, reconfigured, refined version of the original.” Presenting data to support her contention that these children have experienced structural, chemical, and functional changes in the brain, she also shows how their greater empathic abilities as well as dramatically higher intelligence are qualities that are also present in children born since 1982--enhanced abilities that cannot be tied to simple genetics. Atwater shows that understanding the near-death experiences of children can help us prepare for a quantum leap in the evolution of humanity.
What happens when you combine NDE with severe brain damage, er, such as makes a previously sound, healthy child totally blind and unable to so much as crawl or sit up - guess what I'm saying,major emotional trauma as well as being physically totaled? Not that I suppose anybody has studied that combo. Hopefully there aren't a whole lot of kids with that combo to study. But, as one such myself, it would be interesting to know.
I like the sound of "dramatically higher intelligence." *smirk*
A pious story has it that Confucius was born sixty years old and therefore already wise. But even in his day that was unusual; how much more so today?
The question of whether people have inherently good natures that need only be nourished, or inherently evil natures that must be reformed will never be settled. Whether one nourishes the fruit and flowers in a garden or extirpates the weeds, the result is much the same. Maybe our original nature is wisdom, but we are born forgetting it; or maybe wisdom is something which we must acquire rather than remember. Again there is little real difference. But clean water can be changed into mud by the addition of dirt, and mud rendered pure and drinkable by addition of enough clean water. Selfishness can be increased to the level of pathology and self-destructiveness.
Getting back to what is called "conservatism," I am reminded of the opinion that it always includes the principle of social hierarchy; above we have a suggestion that it is an adaptation to the savage state. It seems to me, probably because of the times in which I grew up, that what generally is called "conservatism" today is actually radicalism; indeed, it is often anarchism (albeit of a far different sort than that of Prince Kropotkin).
Oh, well. Off to the Bay Area tomorrow morning, to do a bit of shopping and to visit Naomi.
Perhaps the NDE of a child is something like the Christian evangelical experience of being "born again," or satori, or shinjin (true-mind), but with less [culturally?] specific conditioning to be dealt with. Just a suggestion. I should think that the veil between the child and its basic nature would be thinner than that of an adult; there should be less to undo. Am I being too romantic?
Driving south from Yreka toward and past Mt. Shasta to Redding yesterday, I was tempted to stop and collect a small sample of the rocks--surely volcanic bombs) that littered the largely treeless land to the north of the mountain. (I kept going, in the vain hope that I might get on my scheduled flight to San Francisco.) Around the mountain it is higher and there are many trees, so there is no seeing from the road if there are as many stones lying about, but there probably are. To the north I saw some very long stone fences made of stones from the fields. Going through the mountains there were road cuts and landslides that revealed thick layer of tufa. I hadn't realized that Mt. Shasta had multiple subsidiary peaks.
Whoop for Dean, fine and green! (Lame, but I’m not 100%.)
ReplyDeleteWaiting for the shuttle to the airport at 0415. Missed my plane yesterday afternoon, hoping that the flight home from San Francisco is not delayed or cancelled (past experience teaches neither is very unlikely). Messed up the blog post format note on this computer, so here is a cut and paste link from Mother Jones.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/biology-ideology-john-hibbing-negativity-bias
Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative
TTFN
—Alan
Oh—thanks for the music ideas, Cat—will investigate this evening, time permitting. Very full day impending
Delete—Alan
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/biology-ideology-john-hibbing-negativity-bias
DeleteI don't think "negativity bias" is a good term. At one point the article uses the term "threat-oriented," which seems a better fit for what's being described. As the article points out, that seems to go along with some aspects of conservative ideology. I'm not sure how broadly it can be generalized, though.
DeleteIt may be important to note that conservatives in general are not opposed to change. In fact, they are generally more in favor of change than are liberals -- just different changes. It was while talking the political orientation poll that I realized just how happy I am, in my late 70s, with the way things are today. That's what makes me a "solid liberal."
Fascinating. They really can't help it then. I liked the last sentence - paraphrasing: Better living, not through chemistry, but through neuroscience.
DeleteLovely photo, Listener. I feel cool and contented just looking at it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cat. The best part is that I didn't photoshop the photo at all. It really was the bright!
DeleteSo grateful for the link, Alan.
ReplyDeleteIf people are hard-wired the way they are, with genetics and physiology holding sway, what hope is there for the world?
I'm not sure how this fits in, but one thing that came to mind for me is that I am very different from the rest of my family. I had a near-death experience as a toddler and all the research I've read on the NDEs of children says that a NDE re-wires a child, and they think differently than others do. Of course, how we market that to conservatives is beyond me. LOL!
Yes, "hard-wired" isn't really right. It's a matter of personality rather than anything biologically more fundamental. And even without anything as dramatic as a near-death experience, people's personalities do change over time. I can trace the connection, but in many important ways I am not the same person I was 60 years ago.
DeleteThe ability to grow and change is itself an important personality trait that not everyone possesses.
DeleteOkay, here's what I was talking about above:
ReplyDeleteAtwater notes that the child who returns from a near-death experience is not the same child as before, but is a “remodeled, rewired, reconfigured, refined version of the original.” Presenting data to support her contention that these children have experienced structural, chemical, and functional changes in the brain, she also shows how their greater empathic abilities as well as dramatically higher intelligence are qualities that are also present in children born since 1982--enhanced abilities that cannot be tied to simple genetics. Atwater shows that understanding the near-death experiences of children can help us prepare for a quantum leap in the evolution of humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Children-Near.../dp/1591430208
What happens when you combine NDE with severe brain damage, er, such as makes a previously sound, healthy child totally blind and unable to so much as crawl or sit up - guess what I'm saying,major emotional trauma as well as being physically totaled? Not that I suppose anybody has studied that combo. Hopefully there aren't a whole lot of kids with that combo to study. But, as one such myself, it would be interesting to know.
DeleteI like the sound of "dramatically higher intelligence." *smirk*
Cat...♥ I suppose that falls under the heading: "Could Have Been Worse"...=HUG=
Delete"All we are saying..."
ReplyDeleteHow do we respond to this really horrible day?
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5596930
A pious story has it that Confucius was born sixty years old and therefore already wise. But even in his day that was unusual; how much more so today?
ReplyDeleteThe question of whether people have inherently good natures that need only be nourished, or inherently evil natures that must be reformed will never be settled. Whether one nourishes the fruit and flowers in a garden or extirpates the weeds, the result is much the same. Maybe our original nature is wisdom, but we are born forgetting it; or maybe wisdom is something which we must acquire rather than remember. Again there is little real difference. But clean water can be changed into mud by the addition of dirt, and mud rendered pure and drinkable by addition of enough clean water. Selfishness can be increased to the level of pathology and self-destructiveness.
Getting back to what is called "conservatism," I am reminded of the opinion that it always includes the principle of social hierarchy; above we have a suggestion that it is an adaptation to the savage state. It seems to me, probably because of the times in which I grew up, that what generally is called "conservatism" today is actually radicalism; indeed, it is often anarchism (albeit of a far different sort than that of Prince Kropotkin).
Oh, well. Off to the Bay Area tomorrow morning, to do a bit of shopping and to visit Naomi.
--Alan
Perhaps the NDE of a child is something like the Christian evangelical experience of being "born again," or satori, or shinjin (true-mind), but with less [culturally?] specific conditioning to be dealt with. Just a suggestion. I should think that the veil between the child and its basic nature would be thinner than that of an adult; there should be less to undo. Am I being too romantic?
ReplyDelete--Alan
Driving south from Yreka toward and past Mt. Shasta to Redding yesterday, I was tempted to stop and collect a small sample of the rocks--surely volcanic bombs) that littered the largely treeless land to the north of the mountain. (I kept going, in the vain hope that I might get on my scheduled flight to San Francisco.) Around the mountain it is higher and there are many trees, so there is no seeing from the road if there are as many stones lying about, but there probably are. To the north I saw some very long stone fences made of stones from the fields. Going through the mountains there were road cuts and landslides that revealed thick layer of tufa. I hadn't realized that Mt. Shasta had multiple subsidiary peaks.
ReplyDelete--Alan
thick layer = thick layers
DeleteAlan