And it occurs to me that this is not really a rational decision. It is possible to argue that if any crime originates in the category “Christians”, it is possible to compare it to any crime which originates in the category “Muslim”. And if one crime equals another crime, then they are logically equal. Quantities do not matter. This is the emotionally detached approach.
But as I have argued–and I think most neurophysiologists would agree with me–you MUST involve instinct in the perceptual process, or you lose much of what makes us human, and indeed much of what allows our perceptions to be broader and more useful than those of animals.
I will invoke Jonathan Haidt, who I have followed a bit, and who has become in my view more useful. His work is presently called “Moral Foundation Theory”:
Here is the part I wanted to focus on:
Various scholars have offered moral foundations theory as an explanation of differences among political progressives (liberals in the American sense),conservatives, and libertarians, and have suggested that it can explain variation in opinion on politically charged issues such as gay marriage and abortion. In particular, Haidt and fellow researchers have argued that progressives stress only two of the moral foundations (Care and Fairness) in their reasoning, and libertarians stress only two (Liberty and Fairness), while conservatives stress all six more equally.
What is missing from both the Libertarian and Leftist psychosocial approaches is Sanctity. Sanctity is an instinctual attraction or repulsion, based upon certain in-built senses about what is right and wrong. Some of it is clearly socially conditioned, but the process itself is instinctual. Part of what makes us human is finding some things–the details will matter according to culture, but in my view the process should be universal–repugnant.
The essence of the Compassion Ideology is eliminating the sense of sanctity, which is to say the sense of moral repugnance. Clearly, they keep hatred and anger, but these are reactions to their ideas about Ideological Others; they are not inbuilt and instinctual. They have deconditioned these senses, such that whatever is natural is rejected.
As I noted several years ago, it is literally possible to measure differences in the automatic responses of leftists and conservatives to disgusting images. This is a difference in conditioning, and it matters politically because it is one of the things which makes them so fucking stupid.
Edit: I will note as well that Donald Trump has a very robust sense of the disgusting. It is one of his favorite words. I doubt very much he hired PR people to study the rhetorical uses of Haidt’s theory–that is one of the things Democrats do, and do well, and must do well, since their ideas are bad in nearly all cases–but that rather it comes to him instinctively. People speak of political instincts. Bill Clinton had them, Hillary does not. Trump does, clearly. [Bernie did not either, btw: his appeal is oriented around the childish need for endless Christmas’s. And he always struck me as someone who didn’t brush his teeth enough and always had bad breath.]
And I will say that on contemplation, this is my issue with all the gay and trans issues. I find those behaviors disgusting, particularly after looking at the Mapplethorpe exhibit some 25 years ago. Some things I wish I could unsee. I do. I am liberal enough to grant anyone the right to do what they want. It’s a free country, and that is enormously important to me. I will fight for the right of those people to be free. But don’t ask me to suppress my feelings, to pretend they don’t exist. Don’t tell me who and how I can be. That, too, is an abrogation of my freedom, of my rights as the citizen of a free nation. Live and let live has always been and continues to be a good policy.