Saturday, October 18, 2008

liberal and conservative as yin and yang

 One of the most common things that the undeepened believer trips up on is the question of liberal and conservative. As I wrote to a commenter to a recent post: "The word `liberal' comes from liberty, or freedom. As the Aqdas points out, freedom is gravely misunderstood in this age; it is taken to be the freedom of the animal, not the human." Conservatism is misunderstood even worse. I read a generalization that is, overall, fairly valid: the Baha'i Faith is liberal in principle and conservative in morals. Can anybody tell me who said that? Anyway, here is a very illuminating talk about this split in human dispositions, one that has no intrinsic validity in the Cause of God; God loves both liberals and conservatives...




Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.

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