Liberals, I have bad news: according to science, we are less attractive than our conservative rivals. However, we are more likely to have adventurous sex, so there is that consolation. We’re also happy to prefer crunchy peanut butter, spicy food, and pineapple on pizza. Aren’t we deviant?
These discoveries come courtesy of Turi Munthe, whose book Why we think What we think cheerfully catalogs the origins of our sincerely held opinions. The answer to his title is apparently not hard facts and reasoned logic, or even strong debate. Geography has a lot to answer for. So is the climate. Whether you’re authoritarian or liberal may be shaped less by whether you read the Bible or Isaiah Berlin as a teenager, and more by the number of pathogens your ancestors had to contend with. Electoral trends can be determined by land type. Attitudes toward social conventions—whether it’s polite to feed the friend your child brought home from school—depend on the scarcity of food hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
As for the widening gap between how the left and the right see the world, Munthe argues that it is not in our imagination. Different people really tend to perceive things differently. Sometimes this is biological – apparently conservatives have more taste buds, making them more sensitive to spices and therefore less likely to enjoy spicy food. They’re also more neurologically attuned to threat, while liberals are more curious and predisposed to see potential payoff in new things (hello pineapple on pizza and kinky sex). And sometimes it’s social. Attractive individuals are oriented to believe in meritocracy (and therefore lean politically) because, to be blunt, people are kinder to them and more likely to give them opportunities. Their peers without “beautiful privilege” have a different experience of how fair life is – and therefore a different ideological starting point.
After I finished the book and finished looking at myself in the mirror, I admit I felt pretty depressed. The evidence collected by Munthe seems to suggest that not only are many of our carefully considered perspectives preconceived, but so is our inability to understand each other. Doesn’t this mean that we are doomed to argue more and more bitterly, assuming that our moral opponents are stupid or evil, when in fact they just have a different number of taste buds?
But when I met Munthe, I was struck by how optimistic he was. He insists that it is not necessarily bad that we feel increasingly divided. The argument was positive (a fact I promptly pointed out to my conflict-averse husband, before berating him for his ever-expanding collection of red pants). Argument is what helps humanity evolve. Reasoning isn’t something we can do on our own: we need other people to challenge our assumptions—assumptions we’ve been hurt by the quality of the soil or the spread of pathogens—in order to progress. Diversity enables us to adapt and thrive. Human societies need the curious and the risk-averse alike.
I’m not sure I buy this optimism, not least because the book also implies that the scarier the world appears, the more the conservative threat instinct kicks in. And the world feels very scary right now as I write this column in 34°C heat, in the wake of civil unrest in the streets, waiting to see how long the ceasefire in the Middle East will last. The crises we are facing desperately require the kind of innovation that Munthe believes is fostered by constructive debate. But they also foster knee-jerk polarization that makes that debate seem pointless, if not impossible.
However, if understanding the science behind our opponents’ seemingly outlandish views can start the conversation, I’m willing to give it a go. So conservatives, I realize it’s not your fault you can’t appreciate the innate superiority of crunchy peanut butter. Now can we come together and fix climate change before it’s too late and we all melt away? Please?
(Further reading: We need better social media – not social media)
