Right / Left Brain in association with Right / Left Politics

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I know that I have posted about this before, at the following post:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ht=#245524

Am I really intuitive or what? A lot of people said that it was a lot of crap, but now I have uncovered someone else besides me that has posted something on this topic:

http://www.freedaily.com/columns/000103c1.html

Now, there is probably something here. Maybe we're not to blame for our political aspirations at all, but how we think is ...

- Ray M -

Aren't "conservative" and "liberal" opposite in the US and UK where in the US we use "right" for conversative and "left" for liberal and over in the UK it's the other way around?

no, in the uk, the conservative party is the major right wing party. liberal, however, isnt really used as popularly or in the same context as in the us.

I actually think this idea is quite interesting, if oversimplified. Aeturnus is very much right that personality plays a significant role in determining a person's political outlook; but so do parents' beliefs, community beliefs, current economic situation, and numerous other factors. It's silly to reduce personality into a simple left-brain/right-brain division, though. I remember from my sociology class that political attitudes are linked to how an individual prioritizes different moral values. Liberals tend to prioritize empathy and nurturing highest whereas conservatives tend to prioritize maintaining upstanding character and punishing wrongdoing highest. Basically, liberals are more concerned with getting along whereas conservatives are more concerned with maintaining a proper social order. That is, of course, simplification.

Aeturnus rightly pointed out the fear and paranoia that tend to run throughout much of conservative ideology. Conservatives are more likely to set up an external enemy (communists, terrorists) to induce fear in the population as support for their agenda. Liberals are more concerned with social freedom (as the name itself implies) and social progress (over racial discrimination, inequality, etc.).

Liberals and conservatives also divide into different types. Some liberals are highly concerned with the environment, gay rights, and even animal rights to the point of veganism. Others are more concerned with maintaining personal autonomy and freedom of choice with social programs as a sort of balance to this freedom. Conservatives can be highly fundamentalist, dividing the world into us and them. They can also be somewhat more intellectual and concerned about the most efficient way to grow the economy and project power abroad. It's really not so simple.

Here is an article that might be of interest:

Jost, John T.; Glaser, Jack; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Sulloway, Frank J. (2003). Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 3 (pp. 339-375).

Well, I certainly do not believe that this hypothesis is necessarily accurate. There seems to be too many variations from this idea for this to even be considered from my point of view. There are highly logical leftists and highly illogical rightists as well as vice-versa. There are probably factors involved in the physiology of the mind that lead to the development of political ideals. I tend to place the most emphasis on the experiences and knowledge of individuals as there are many conversions between right-left-and other ideologies. Ultimately, I see one's political allegiance just as the logical conclusion of a set of premises accepted by the individual and because the premises are not generated upon birth it ultimately falls to the individual in question to develop them and accept them.

I tend to believe that one's core beliefs on economic systems and social systems are not necessarily linked. In the US it is true that social conservatism is linked with free-market economics while social liberalism is linked with interventionist economics, however a system of switched partners is easily possible with a system of libertarians and christian socialists (or national socialists). Because of the differences between economic and social beliefs I think that one must analyze the premises that lead to the differing beliefs. After all, there are many different ideologies outside of the simplistic scheme of right and left and to act as if these different ideologies did not exist would be rather foolish. The world cannot be crudely divided into the left and the right.

I do question the article that you listed NeantHumain given its controversial status and based upon its treatment of Stalin as a conservative even though he bears little similarity to the American right(which is the political orientation in question) and was a revolutionary who worked to overthrow the existing social order and as such did something completely contrary to the goal of conservatism. This is not to say that it was a bad idea to post it, however, I have serious doubts about it.

A person with a high belief in personal autonomy in my mind would tend towards libertarianism because they would see intervention in their life to be unwarranted. Libertarianism is free-market ideology and social liberalism. Of course, other beliefs need to be factored in, as a person who distrusts the free-market and sees a need for regulation to protect individual interests might be more left-wing while a person who believes that certain cultural values must be in place to ensure good decisions might be more right wing.

Perhaps you have a point about temperment and personality structure. After all, a belief in safety and such will also affect spending habits by causing a greater push for more frugality. Perhaps I was a little quick to jump at the idea put forth. After all, I do have a belief in human autonomy and as such I might view certain things as attempts to explain away free-will as well as the possibility of distorting the centrally held beliefs with some suspicion. You are right, all individuals try to manipulate their societies into believing as they do, this can mean by dispelling currently held fallacies or creating new ones. Nobody in existence is completely neutral and logical as we cannot function without having our own biases.

I have neither been in any Political Party System Myself saying that in the end I have molded a bit of both on how I see the World.

While I think it definately has some impact in many cases, there are always gonna be exceptions. Also, I think personality likely has an impact on what one decides to debate about. I mean, one may have very extremist politics but they might be more inclined to debate about, say, immigration or religion instead of about war.