*Caveat* This is not a criticism of religion. I have plenty of those, but that isn’t what I’m about here – this is a discussion of tribalism in human thinking, pure and simple. */Caveat*
Via Kleinheider comes a survey that takes up a question very similar to one I was talking to my friend about just this week. Here was my thinking: if one took a number of non-trivial, non-pop-culture propositions, thoroughly unrelated one from another, and asked questions about them to a good random sample of people, the answers they would give to one question would predict the answer they gave to something completely unrelated, better than chance. The first ‘for instance’ I gave was this pair of questions: Do you think Jesus bodily rose from the dead / Do you think waterboarding is torture? I predicted to him that there would be a significant correlation between answers to the first and second questions. Put straightforwardly, I expect that you would find that those who believe Jesus did bodily rise from the dead are statistically more likely to deem waterboarding to not be torture. The reason I believe this is not because I think conservative Christians are deficient in moral judgment as a rule, but because I believe that these Christians are more apt to take their moral cues from politically conservative people. And, I think this is true because they bond with politically conservative people through networks of family, friends and church.
Conversely, I don’t think people who disbelieve in the bodily resurrection of Jesus are endowed with a more robust conscience. I think they are more apt to take their moral cues from politically liberal people with whom they associate in networks of friends, family, and – if they attend at all – church.
Reflect for a moment, if you will – there is absolutely no connection between a doctrine on the resurrection of Jesus, and an ethic of torture. Without group-think of some type, you would find no more correlation there than you would find between people who favor one soft drink brand over another and people who drove one make of car over another. If possible there is less intellectual connection between Resurrection and torture than there is between Pepsi and Chrysler. Yet, I think that there is a correlation that could be found in the minds of Americans in 2009.
I also think that correlation is strongest in more politically homogenous demographics. San Francisco, CA and Soddy Daisy, TN should both show a strong level of correlation. Chicago, IL should show less.
That’s because I think that Vonnegut was right in whatever book it was that he wrote, wherein he suggested that people wear ideas like badges of loyalty and friendship. Certainly moral reasoning is also involved, but there is a strong component of tribalism in our thinking. The people who will score as “exceptions” to the correlations I’m talking about will be those who have the greatest cultural diversity in their personal relationships (on the one hand) and who have the fewest tribalistic thinking patterns (on the other).
So convinced was I of this, that I suggested to my friend that we find a way to commission a survey to investigate it. Of course, that is beyond our means, so that idea flopped…. but now it seems that variations on my first mentioned correlating pair have been polled recently by Pew. And the results are just as I expected. Better, in some ways… Anecdotally, my friend in this case was an “exception” – he believes in the Resurrection, but also believes that waterboarding is torture. Had he answered this survey, he likely would have fallen into the correlation group – being a regular church goer and believing that torture is sometimes ok.
Me? I would have been correlated under my survey – “no” to Resurrection, “yes”, waterboarding is torture. But, I would have been an exception on this Pew survey. I attend church regularly and do not think that torture is sometimes ok.
One way or another, for one reason or another, there is a correlation between church attendance and tolerance for torture. And there should not be, strictly on the merits of the two questions. The Vonnegut hypothesis may still be wrong – there may be other subtle sociological or even ethical reasons behind it. If I think of some, maybe there will be a way to test which reasons are the best explanation. In the meantime, I still strongly suspect that there is truth to the Vonnegut hypothesis – enough truth to get that answer from the Well of Uncomfortable Truths, even.
I think going to church is torture so I don’t know where that leaves me.
I would much rather be subjected to hours of really, really loud Barry Manilow music.
Sometimes I think people believe what they believe because they are afraid not to believe it.
There are explanations, other than tribalism, for the phenomena you describe. I think it has more to do with the type of thinker a person is or the way one reasons.
For example, those who believe that Christ arose from the dead bodily are likely to have studied Bible prophecy and know the astounding number of prophecies Christ fulfilled. Believers are people who have studied the lives of the disciples and apostles and will usually be people who have read the gospels repeatedly.
Christians are people who have considered the evidence for resurrection and against it. They have considered the guards, who said they were asleep when the body was being stolen. (That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it??) How can you testify to what happened when you were asleep? They have considered the changed lives of those who met the risen Christ. (Including their own)
Most have done comparative studies in religion. The Christians that I know have considered the alternatives and feel the same way Peter felt (John 6:68) as far as religion is concerned.
Christians have found that nothing else makes any sense when all things are considered.
Why would Christians be more likely to believe that water boarding isn’t torture? First of all, I have not seen any poll that convinces me this statement is true, but I do believe that Christians would be likely to agree that water boarding could be used under certain circumstances. Here again, it is the way people reason that brings them to such a conclusion. It isn’t that water boarding is desirable, it is just that the alternative is less desirable. If many lives can be saved by using the water boarding method of retrieving information, then that makes more sense than allowing men and women to die because of a lack of information.
You insult a large number of people when you assume that they have not through such life altering conclusions as the two you mentioned.
I believe that it is the reasoning process that brings people to certain conclusions, not a tribal instinct.
I certainly didn’t mean to be insulting… I’m pretty convinced that tribalism is a fact of life and greatly influences *everyone’s* thinking.
I see that you have presented separate reasoning for two points of view that I discussed as being mysteriously linked, but the reasoning you present for one has nothing to do with the reasoning you present for the other.
I could do the same thing – I could give my reasoning for doubting the Resurrection and I could give my reasoning for believing that torture is never acceptable… they would be equally unrelated.
The fact that remains in need of explanation is that people who hold one view on the resurrection are more inclined to a certain view on torture. Why people who are given to accept the reasoning you present for the resurrection are also given to accept the reasoning you present for torture. And why are people who are more inclined toward my reasoning on the Resurrection are also inclined toward my reasoning on torture… Can you explain that?
By the way… a point of clarification – if I thought that torture of a guilty party was ever likely to save lives, then I would accept some of the rest of your reasoning on that point. However, I don’t accept that proposition, so I find no situations in which torture can be justified. That difference in reasoning is very simple and unrelated to reasoning about whether or Matthew and the apocryphal Gospel of Peter are correct in placing guards at the tomb, or if Matthew is correct in relating the guards’ account of the event, assuming there were guards.
It isn’t the reasoning itself – it’s what inclines us to accept the reasoning. We’ll never settle between us which is the better viewpoint… it’s just a matter of why your reasoning about one predicts your reasoning about the other.
Herein lies a major difference in liberals and conservatives. That difference is how one arrives at a conclusion when deciding who to believe and how to draw a correct conclusion?
I believe that the thought processes of these two groups are different. You and I (liberals and conservatives) look at available information or data and come up with different conclusions.
One of the things that helped me decide harsh tactics are effective was stated by Scott Allen when he said:
Another thing that causes me to believe it works is that the Obama Administration will not offer proof that it doesn’t work by releasing documents that could prove this, if such documents are available. The first release was a political move and certainly it would have been more damaging to those it was aimed at damaging if there had been proof that the tactics were ineffective.
A third reason I believe that it works is because it is logical. Certainly the tactics used by our government are not truly torture in the sense it has been used by our enemies on American soldiers such as John McCain, but the tactics are extremely unpleasant and frightening. A coward will avoid that if there is a way, and there is a way. That way is by talking.
I suppose the fourth reason I have is rather weak, however, it is real nonetheless. It is the experience of watching children on a playground. It seems we are born with a strong sense of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to getting information from the enemy.
If torture is illegal why is whether it works or not even a part of the discussion?
I guess some folks think we ought to legalize it.