I really do not understand how to explain how the Republican
mind works. I have though about this subject often. Without invoking some very basic
evolutionary psychology, it would be an impossible task. It seems there are
some Republicans seem to vote against what ever they say they believe in the
most. This is unfathomable until you understand what seems to be their
motivation, or at least I think that is the case.
For example, they claim to believe in families; they claim
to believe group loyalty, and they claim to believe in the sacredness of life. They
claim to have high personal standards of honesty and fairness. I can plug all
of these many things into very few basic evolutionary psychology principles
such as hierarchy dominance, gregariousness, and xenophobia or even the more
fundamental thing called ‘geed’; a label they seem to abhor the most. Animal behavioral
scientists see these things in even the most basic species. Geneticists cannot
deny that behavior is in our genes, just as our physical being is in our genes.
Yet, religious leaders vehemently deny that behavior is biological; it is
something that comes from God, they say. Thus, they close the question of the
origin of morality; you cannot have morality if you do not have a God, you cannot
have religion is you do not have a God; therefore, you cannot be moral if you
are not religious. That being true, you cannot have moral behavior is you are an
atheistic. Does it take a lot of imagination to guess religious leaders are the
ones who tell you this?
Against that background, try to address the most pressing
question of our political being with this understanding: war, suicide bombers,
murder, justifiable homicide, abortion, death penalty, loyalty, racism, and even
politic and political affiliations, or explain non-affiliation, if the question
has to do with libertarianism and individualism. I would suggest you cannot do
it. Try to explain, “Thou shall not kill”, the second commandment, when it
comes to something as diabolical as state executions in states, such as Texas,
or something cruel as survival of the fittest; is evolution, the process that
gave rise to us, based solely on cruelty. In that same context, define murder
as the malicious killing of another human being. Define quality of life or
mercy in the context of any of these circumstances.
Keep in mind Maya Angelou’s admonition, “if you learn teach”.
If nothing else, we have learned that we cannot continue as beasts. I think
liberalism is the growing result of learning based on all of these things we intuitively
want to preserve. After all, these behaviors are products of evolution embedded
in our genes by 3 billion years of nature; they are things people want to “conserve”
or keep without changing but modern reason has pointed out the conflicts as I
just briefly outlined above. It may seem overwhelming but I think that we can and
will eventually handle all of this by replacing the unwavering commitment to
the sacredness of human life with quality of life and shedding greed. Excessive
piles of money in banks are not stores of food need to survive. Greed is no
longer necessary to survive. We are clever enough to realize that state
executions are a form of self-defense; thus, is justifiable homicide. Abortion
is rarely a matter of life of death but most often is a matter of quality of
life of the mother or of the unborn. Libertarianism or individualism is ridiculous
in a population of seven billion people on the tiny blue plant earth. Racism is
no more that xenophobia. Hierarchy dominance or political conflict is normal and
necessary for an ordered society.
Above all else, moral order is genetic. The prime example of
“moral order” in the mind of a Republican is the “traditional” family. That is
what all the birth control controversy, marriage equality, families without
fathers controversy, and social unrest dealing with same-sex marriage and gender
equality. We can learn, in fact are learning, that a family does not have to be
only a physically strong husband, an obedient wife, and obedient children based
on reproduction but rather families based on love, affection, and quality of
life. Male dominance is no longer in vogue; it is just that some people have yet
to learn that. I say these things because I know, as a biologist, it is wrong
to think because we or any other member of the biota evolved the way we did,
that our behavior is somehow perfect. By not recognizing that some of us are
trying to live in the past and fighting the direction our learning is taking us,
we are retarding our humanization.
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