Kris has recently suggested that both sides in the US election are fulfilling their values and this has helped widen my view.
What are Republican values and how are they being fulfilled by the circus going on south of the border? [I
live in Canada btw, where we are quietly having our own election, and
nobody is paying any attention because we like it that way!]
I came across an article by Nathanial Frank on the Huffington Post
that was a revelation to me. It explains very clearly the 'map of the
world' that Republicans subscribe to, which I believe is based on
Darwinian ideas about natural selection.
Republicans believe in the survival of the fittest, and the moral
superiority of the most successful. In this worldview the richest, most
successful people are the best people to help the whole country prosper
and move forward and survive in a difficult world.
In this view liberals are weak and inferior and they are trying to
drag everybody down to their level, and eventually to extinction.
Regulating the markets or giving money to poor people is interfering
with a wholesome 'natural' process by artificially intervening to
hinder the successful and rescue the weak and diseased.
In their worldview this will only lower the 'fitness' of the whole
population and endanger its survival. So for the good of the whole,
they say 'let nature take its course' and 'may the best man win.'
Also in their view liberals are socialists, which is seen as a
slippery slope towards communism and brings up all the fear and
negative associations that they went through during the cold war.
What is interesting is that this Darwinian world view is not a
particularly good fit with Christianity, which may explain some of the
more problematic posturing of Christian Fundamentalism. This may
reflect the Right's distortion of Jesus' teachings as they try to get
these two ideas to fit together.
[After all, there's no denying that Jesus was on the side of poor
folk, and seemed to be making fun of that rich dude trying to get
through the eye of the needle.]
I am in total agreement with the values being expressed here. I admire survival, being right and celebrating success. All good stuff. Where I differ is in the choices and behaviors used to express and integrate these values into everyday life.