People Are Divided By Politics And Religion Analysis

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As the year of 2016 concludes, we approach what is one of the greatest contests in American history: the presidential campaign. This competition repeats itself in a four year cycle, and every election year one of the either Democratic or Republican candidate defeats the other. Eventually, this person becomes the president of the United States and is able to influence all of the laws and regulations. Why do Americans seem to be divided along moral lines? What makes somebody pro-life or pro-choice? What makes religious values different from secular ones? Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, mentions the six moral foundations of a human being. Differences in basic morals cause differences in human tendencies which have evolved to form a mixture of opinions over secularism and religion as well as within politics. Despite these differences, one basic idea of working together has kept all of humanity together. At the beginnings of human existence, people all had around the same morals and values, however as human migration occurred, these people started to form the cultural identities that divide society. …show more content…
For example, the people in ancient India were far different from the people in ancient Greece or Rome. However, the basic morals of people remained the same because, for the most part, they were based on religion. People regard religion highly, and because most of the major world religions and philosophies, such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc., involved doing good deeds to others, humans held a certain set of rules and values that they followed in accordance with these religions. This led to the eventual creation of the theory of the six moral foundations of humans, made by Jonathan Haidt, the “care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty foundations”(Haidt 185). These moral foundations were created where every feeling, emotion, or any other mental triggers would all fall under one of the six. “The care foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of caring for vulnerable children” (Haidt 153). Caring for one’s own child is an innate instinct that humans have, and this has evolved to become one of the basic ethics of humans. This can be shown by when a human finds attraction toward a picture of a baby or animal. The person may feel the need to protect it, give it love, etc. despite not even knowing the baby. This has evolved not only to help other babies or animals, but also to those in need, such as wounded soldiers. “The fairness foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of receiving the rewards of cooperation without getting exploited” (Haidt 153). Humans have had to cooperate in order to accomplish the most complex achievements, however we try to do so by getting exactly what we worked to get. A major example today in politics is proportionality versus equality. One democratic value is to tax the upper class more than the lower class. This evokes the fairness foundation of the upper class because they believe that they should get exactly however much that they deserve, so taxing them would not be fair. “The loyalty foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions” (Haidt 154). Due to the fact that humans need to work together in order to accomplish great achievements, they need to work with one another. Alliances are then made in order to sustain the coalitions. Humans evolve from tribes that needed to work together to succeed, and these groups can be shown today in the creation of modern governments. However, if one person or group does not do their part for the coalition or goes against it, a feeling of betrayal is triggered in the human mind. “The authority foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forging relationships that will benefit us within social hierarchies” (Haidt 154). Throughout history and even today, most cultures incorporate ways of formally speaking with older people. This is the main idea of China’s own Confucianism, to respect the elderly. Most languages, such as Spanish or French, have ways of respecting older people within their languages. In Spanish, for example, people address elders with

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