How will Coronavirus change politics?
Living through a pandemic has been much more surreal than I think most of us could have imagined. One particularly surreal part of it all, is that this single topic has overwhelmingly commanded the attention of the vast majority of people all across the world, for weeks. We're all thinking about the same problem.
I wonder what kind of long-term effects we might see, especially politically.
The immediate ramifications on politics are quite clear. Economic stimulus measures, governor-ordered lockdowns. Many people speculate the impact on the upcoming presidential election, mostly in terms of judging the president's performance on the issue, or what kind of relevant policy platform differences may emerge from either major political party.
But long-term effects are harder to pin down. Here's one way things might change substantially.
Jordan Peterson has popularized some of the work Jonathan Haidt has done around the psychology of disgust and attendant behavioral systems. Here he is speaking with Haidt, and this fascinating item comes up. Let's jump right to the money line.
Peterson: "And so what they found was that the higher the prevalence of infectious disease, the higher probability of totalitarian or authoritarian political attitudes."
He's discussing the alarming findings of this academic paper. So will Coronavirus instigate a wave of fascism across the globe?
It's easy to see how contending with a formidable and daunting threat like Covid-19, with exceptionally limited ability to protect yourself & your family can lead even staunch civil liberties activists to implore their governments to do something, please. Whether disgust, fear, or both, there is a recognition that what can be done to mitigate a pandemic, must be done at large scale, with robust cooperation. Frameworks pursuant to autonomy and liberty don't intrinsically offer a solution to pandemics.
What's less immediately clear is how the desire for leaders to act, specifically on this matter, lends toward acquiescence for leaders to exercise broader authority in general. But again Peterson offers some insight.
He points out that conservatives score high in Conscientiousness in the Big 5 Personality Traits model. (BTW, Big 5 is widely regarded by psychology academics as the best model, while things like Myers-Briggs and Enneagrams are no longer considered seriously by academia). And so subsequently, progressives score low.
Conscientiousness can be divided into smaller pieces, orderliness and industriousness. Orderliness is strongly associated with disgust. Which makes a lot of sense: if you like to keep your world neat & tidy, you're more likely to be a bit of a germaphobe.
And so these traits lean to the right, and so does authoritarian tolerance, and the fact that they're correlated makes a lot of sense once you learn about it. But are these traits dynamically changeable, and will an outbreak of infectious disease like Covid-19 actually change political attitudes?
Conscientiousness, like the other 4 big traits, is roughly 50% heritable. But how could epidemics correlate so strongly correlate (0.6, which Peterson points out is nearly unheard of) with authoritarianism without environment factoring significantly?
Peterson goes on to talk about Hitler, and a collection of his spontaneous speeches at dinner parties, in which Hitler's most common metaphor was of the Aryan race and nation as a body, with Jews and Gypsies as assaulting parasites.
Certainly a striking example of the connection between disgust and totalitarianism.
Hopefully we won't see anything remotely of the sort in the near future, anywhere. But will we see authoritarian attitudes crystalize in the populace? Enough to swing elections? Enough to usher in an era of populism? If so, how soon, and for how long? I'm not sure. But it's certainly something to watch for.
The whole pertinent 4.5 minute segment is below.
I wonder what kind of long-term effects we might see, especially politically.
The immediate ramifications on politics are quite clear. Economic stimulus measures, governor-ordered lockdowns. Many people speculate the impact on the upcoming presidential election, mostly in terms of judging the president's performance on the issue, or what kind of relevant policy platform differences may emerge from either major political party.
But long-term effects are harder to pin down. Here's one way things might change substantially.
Jordan Peterson has popularized some of the work Jonathan Haidt has done around the psychology of disgust and attendant behavioral systems. Here he is speaking with Haidt, and this fascinating item comes up. Let's jump right to the money line.
Peterson: "And so what they found was that the higher the prevalence of infectious disease, the higher probability of totalitarian or authoritarian political attitudes."
He's discussing the alarming findings of this academic paper. So will Coronavirus instigate a wave of fascism across the globe?
It's easy to see how contending with a formidable and daunting threat like Covid-19, with exceptionally limited ability to protect yourself & your family can lead even staunch civil liberties activists to implore their governments to do something, please. Whether disgust, fear, or both, there is a recognition that what can be done to mitigate a pandemic, must be done at large scale, with robust cooperation. Frameworks pursuant to autonomy and liberty don't intrinsically offer a solution to pandemics.
What's less immediately clear is how the desire for leaders to act, specifically on this matter, lends toward acquiescence for leaders to exercise broader authority in general. But again Peterson offers some insight.
He points out that conservatives score high in Conscientiousness in the Big 5 Personality Traits model. (BTW, Big 5 is widely regarded by psychology academics as the best model, while things like Myers-Briggs and Enneagrams are no longer considered seriously by academia). And so subsequently, progressives score low.
Conscientiousness can be divided into smaller pieces, orderliness and industriousness. Orderliness is strongly associated with disgust. Which makes a lot of sense: if you like to keep your world neat & tidy, you're more likely to be a bit of a germaphobe.
And so these traits lean to the right, and so does authoritarian tolerance, and the fact that they're correlated makes a lot of sense once you learn about it. But are these traits dynamically changeable, and will an outbreak of infectious disease like Covid-19 actually change political attitudes?
Conscientiousness, like the other 4 big traits, is roughly 50% heritable. But how could epidemics correlate so strongly correlate (0.6, which Peterson points out is nearly unheard of) with authoritarianism without environment factoring significantly?
Peterson goes on to talk about Hitler, and a collection of his spontaneous speeches at dinner parties, in which Hitler's most common metaphor was of the Aryan race and nation as a body, with Jews and Gypsies as assaulting parasites.
Certainly a striking example of the connection between disgust and totalitarianism.
Hopefully we won't see anything remotely of the sort in the near future, anywhere. But will we see authoritarian attitudes crystalize in the populace? Enough to swing elections? Enough to usher in an era of populism? If so, how soon, and for how long? I'm not sure. But it's certainly something to watch for.
The whole pertinent 4.5 minute segment is below.
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