I have known and do know quite a few ex-cons, the majority of which are of a libertarian bent, btw. The rest are a mixture of right and left-wingers. All but a couple understood/understand ethics better than most.
We would have to compare the number of ex-convicts who are familiar with the works of Milgram, Zombardo, Kahneman, Haidt, Pinker, Altemeyer, Lakoff, et al., with the number of right-wingers who are similarly educated.
While the difference would be small, if forced to bet I'd put my money on right-wingers. I suspec the number of right-wingers wishing to apply such knowledge to the fields of advertising, marketing, political consultancy, etc. is slightly higher than the number of ex-convicts who take a deep and abiding interest in moral and cognitive psychology.
If you are narrowing your definition of "right wingers" to the Usual Suspects here on AM (and previously on AB), then I agree a good number of them display the very traits Altemeyer identified as being predominant in right wing/authoritarian personalities, summarized here by author/lawyer/pundit Glenn Greenwald:
"A high [right-wing authoritarian] can have all sorts of illogical, self-contradictory and widely refuted ideas rattling around in various boxes in his brain, and never notice it Research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and — to top it all off — a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic. As Altemeyer acknowledges, everyone of every type is prone to contradictory and self-interested reasoning. But, as his research demonstrates, those whose primary allegiance is to authority figures and whose identity is centrally grounded in their authority-based political movement have, as their overarching goal, a defense of their movement and attacks on the enemy. Holding blatantly contradictory thoughts at the same time...become normalized — mere tools for achieving the only goal that matters."
@excon -- While I tend to AGREE with your notions of ethics more often than not, I don't know if that necessarily means you have a "better" grasp of them than the presumed right-wingers who responded in the thread you cited.
To you and me, this is a simple question: Should the Trump family have an advantage booking foreign dignitaries in their hotels (or hotels who pay the Trumps a license fee to use the name) because Donald Trump is President? And, of course, to us the obvious answer is "no."
However, you and I both tend to focus on fairness/reciprocity and care/harm aspects of ethics. In our view, the Trumps being able to profit from The Donald's office causes harm (other hotels are at a disadvantage and lose business) and violates principles of fairness (all hotels should have an equal shot at foreign dignitary business based on their own merits).
However, to a right-winger, those values are not as paramount. They place greater emphasis than we do on loyalty/betrayal (thou shalt not criticize The Donald. He is One of Us), authority/subversion (The Donald is Rich, therefore he should be granted his prerogatives), and liberty/oppression (forcing the Trumps to disinvest from their advantageous situation interferes with their liberty). Hence, they will tend to jump to the defense of The Donald, even when you and I think their arguments are flat out silly.
Do the right-wingers you mention think about the question in the way I framed it above? Probably not. More likely their responses are largely a knee-jerk reaction of the form "Awesome Leader has been criticized. We must defend Awesome Leader!"
But I don't think your criticism (which, again, I DO agree with) of the Trumps benefiting from having interests in hotels, which may be preferentiallly chosen by foreign dignitaries in order to try to influence President Trump, showed any great understanding of WHY you think that is so. Hence, my answer to your question here...;-D...
This post was edited by OldSchoolTheSKOSlives at November 21, 2016 8:26 PM MST
I wasn't asking if said exconvict understands WHY, what he knows to be true, IS actually true.. I just asked if you KNEW one.
In truth, said exconvict has NO IDEA why that's true. Said exconvict has been trying to figure out right wing thinking for YEARS, and is no closer today than he ever was..
The few I know are very moral people. Not quite the same thing I know, but close enough for me. I don't know any right-wingers well enough to speak for them on that I'm afraid.
OldSchoolTheSKOSlives 