Is disgust "conservative"? Not in a Liberal society (or likely anywhere else) - Cultural Cognition of Health

It is associated most prominently with the very interesting work of Jonathan Haidt, who concludes that “disgust” is characteristic of a “conservative” psychological outlook that morally evaluates behavior as intrinsically appropriate or inappropriate as opposed to a liberal one that focuses on “harm” to others.

Martha Nussbaum offers a similar, and similarly interesting account, portraying “disgust” as a sensibility that ranks people (or ways of living associated with them) in a manner that is intrinsically hierarchical.  Disgust has no role to play in the moral life of a modern democratic citizen, she concludes.

But I can’t help but thinking that things are slightly more complicated — and as a result, possibly much more interesting! — than this.

Of course, I’m thinking about this issue because I’m at least momentarily obsessed with the role that disgust is playing in public reactions to the death of a 2-year-old girl in Kentucky, who was shot by her 5-year-old brother who was “playing” with his “Crickett,” a miniaturized but authentic and fully operational .22 caliber rifle marketed under the slogan “my first gun!”

The Crickett disgusts people. Or so they say– over & over. And I believe them. I believe not only that they are experiencing a “negative affective reaction” but that what they are feeling is disgust.  Because I am experiencing that feeling, too, and the sensibility really does bear the signature elements of disgust.

I am sickened by the images featured in the manufacturer’s advertising: the beaming, gap-toothed boy discovering a Crickett when he tears open a gift-wrapped box (likely it is his birthday; “the first gun” ritual is the “bar mitzvah of the rural Southern WASP,” although he is at least 3 yrs south of 13); the determined elementary school girl taking aim with the model that has the pink faux-wood stock; the envious neighbor boy (“I wish I had one!”), whose reaction is geared to fill parents with shame for putting their son at risk of being treated as an outcast (yes, their son ; go ahead & buy your tomboy the pink-stock Crickett, but if she prefers, say, to make drawings or to read about history, surely she won’t be mocked and derided).

These images frighten me. They make me mad.  And they also truly—literally—turn my stomach.

I want to bury the Crickett, to burn it, destroy it. I want it out of my sight, out of anyone ‘s, because I know that it–and what it represents–can contaminate the character, corrupt it.

I’m no “conservative” and neither is anyone else whom I observe (they are all over the place) expressing disgust toward the Crickett.

But of course, this doesn’t mean “liberals” (am I one? I suppose, though what passes for “liberal” in contemporary political discourse & a lot of scholarly discourse too is so philosophically thin and so historically disconnected that it demeans a real Liberal to see the inspired moral outlook he or she has inherited made to bear the same label. More on that presently) have forgotten the harm principle.

The harm guns cause to others– just look at the dead 2 yr old girl in Kentucky, for crying out loud!–not the “disgust” they feel toward them is the reason they want to ban—restrict them!

Yes, and it’s why they have historically advocated strict regulation (outright banning, if possible) of swimming pools, which are orders of magnitude more lethal for children . . . .

And why President Obama is trying so hard to get legislation passed that would get America out of the “war on drugs,” the collateral damage of which includes many, many times more kids gunned down in public than died in Newtown . . . .

Look:  “liberals” want to enact background checks, ban assault rifles, prohibit carrying concealed handguns because they truly, honestly believe that these measures will reduce harm.

But they truly, honestly believe these things–despite the abundant evidence that such measures will have no meaningful impact on homicide, and are certain to do less than many many other things they ignore — because they are disgusted by guns.

We impute harm to what disgusts us; and we are disgusted by behavior that violates the moral norms that we hold in common with others and that define our understanding of the best way to live.

The “we” here, moreover, is not confined to “liberals.”

“Conservatives” are in the same motivated-reasoning boat. They are “disgusted” by all kinds of things–drugs, homosexuality, rap music (maybe even drones!).  But they say we should “ban”/”control” etc. such things because of the harms they cause.

It’s not characteristic of ordinary people who call themselves “conservatives”  that they see violation of “sacred” norms as a ground for punishing people independently of harm. Rather it’s characteristic of them to see harm in what disgusts them. Just as “liberals” do!

The difference between “liberals” and “conservatives” is in what they find disgusting, and hence what they see as harmful and thus worthy of legal restriction.