conuly

I read and used Haidt in my master's-level paper this past year. There's another author named James Ault, who did a study on conservative thought, and it's quite a read. It goes with what Haidt says, as well. Ault studied a small town in the Northeast (which he pseudonymously called "Shawmut River") and found that in these small conservative enclaves, there's an inherited-obligation model to all social patterns. In liberal urban areas, it's mostly the reverse - the pattern is a negotiated-commitment model. Here's a link to the Amazon page for the book. (http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Flesh-Fundamentalist-Baptist-Church/dp/037540242X)

What conservatives are afraid of is that the inherited-obligation model is being discarded. Allowing gays to marry means that they're not obligated to carry on the inherited obligations found in a heterosexual partnership and family. The idea that negotiated commitments are just as strong as, if not stronger than, inherited obligations is anathema to conservatives. Here's an essay about Ault's theories and findings (http://www.gurus.org/dougdeb/politics/209.html), as well as George Lakoff's Moral Politics ideas.

This is also why conservatives tend to believe that liberals are immoral, that we have no commitment to others and that we're as changeable as the wind, that we have no moral foundations. Their idea of a moral foundation is one you don't get to choose for yourself or negotiate around - one that matches the moral foundations that came before you and one that will match the ones that come after you, ad infinitum, world without end.

Liberals just don't see the world that way. Moreover, a world that looks like that looks oppressive, immoral, restrictive, and wrong to us. This surprises conservatives.