Overly Serious
kiwifarms.net
The question is fairly simple on the surface. I suspect it's anything but.
Right Wing and Left Wing people can be defined in a few different ways. By affiliation, by psychological tendencies, by moral foundations (this last in particular is very interesting). But however you do it there seems to be one bizarre factor and in your face factor that nobody seems to be commenting on. That these factions fall out to be close to 50:50 numerically in the population. I can understand why someone believe in one set of values, a different person another... but how is it that in national elections, for example. the popular vote keeps falling out to be close to 50:50. Religious beliefs don't fall out at "50% believe in Christianity, 50% believe it's a lie". You don't find half the population are vegan, half are not. You don't get "50% believe in String Theory, 50% don't" in Physics. So what psychological factor leads this one to be 50:50 in political leanings? Instead of say "30%" of people share the moral foundations of Leftist thinking and 70% the moral foundations of Rightist thinking"? It's weird as fuck and has been bugging me for a while.
I can think of a few things. One would be that my hypothesis is wrong and it's not near 50:50. It just looks that way because political parties gravitate around a few crux disagreements out of natural electoral game theory. But then you look at things like moral foundations and wonder if it can all be explained that way. You wonder if there's some natural upbringing effect whereby all little children settle into a role of pro-social / a-social depending on what the other child they most interact with settles into, negotiating out some mutual compatibility that then forms a basis for later viewpoints. You wonder if there's some biological constant that is at play or if you just have a wrong interpretation of Right and Left.
But to me the broad distinction seems to be that Right lean towards individualism and the Left lean towards collectivism. How can it possibly be that this falls out at 50:50 ratio? It seems absurd. And I would love to hear what other people think - whether explanations of why it is or else of why it's not as it seems to me.
Right Wing and Left Wing people can be defined in a few different ways. By affiliation, by psychological tendencies, by moral foundations (this last in particular is very interesting). But however you do it there seems to be one bizarre factor and in your face factor that nobody seems to be commenting on. That these factions fall out to be close to 50:50 numerically in the population. I can understand why someone believe in one set of values, a different person another... but how is it that in national elections, for example. the popular vote keeps falling out to be close to 50:50. Religious beliefs don't fall out at "50% believe in Christianity, 50% believe it's a lie". You don't find half the population are vegan, half are not. You don't get "50% believe in String Theory, 50% don't" in Physics. So what psychological factor leads this one to be 50:50 in political leanings? Instead of say "30%" of people share the moral foundations of Leftist thinking and 70% the moral foundations of Rightist thinking"? It's weird as fuck and has been bugging me for a while.
I can think of a few things. One would be that my hypothesis is wrong and it's not near 50:50. It just looks that way because political parties gravitate around a few crux disagreements out of natural electoral game theory. But then you look at things like moral foundations and wonder if it can all be explained that way. You wonder if there's some natural upbringing effect whereby all little children settle into a role of pro-social / a-social depending on what the other child they most interact with settles into, negotiating out some mutual compatibility that then forms a basis for later viewpoints. You wonder if there's some biological constant that is at play or if you just have a wrong interpretation of Right and Left.
But to me the broad distinction seems to be that Right lean towards individualism and the Left lean towards collectivism. How can it possibly be that this falls out at 50:50 ratio? It seems absurd. And I would love to hear what other people think - whether explanations of why it is or else of why it's not as it seems to me.