Morality is a human construction influenced by power dynamics, historical context, and culture. Or, morality is an absolute standard that exist as eternal forms or ideals, independent of human opinion or experience. Two statements, two philosophical positions that shape how we might interact with the world and the people in it. The first stands as a statement of Moral Relativism (or Moral Universalism), the other as Moral Absolutism, and the interpretation of each appears to be playing out in the Western political spectrum as we speak.
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
Milton Friedman
I’ve talked previously about polarisation within politics, highlighting the quite dramatic shift in both sides of the political argument towards uncompromising ideological camps. Whilst this shift can be traced back to the 60’s and 70’s, I think there was an inflection point during the Romney Vs Obama political campaign. In a commencement speech to US college students at Southern New Hampshire University in 2006, then Democratic Senator Obama said “I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern”. This is a form of Moral Universalism, and a framework that came to dominate his politics in public. A call to awareness of the plight of the planet and humanity as a whole, something very much in line with current Universalist and liberal philosophy.
In 2012, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney said, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family”. This parochial point of view was derided by many main stream publications for being dismissive of climate concerns and broader global issues, something that Obama called an “empathy deficit”. Yet, what is more empathetic than caring for your nearest and dearest over someone you’ve never met from half way around the world?
The Morality of the Relatively Universal Citizen
The heatmap above has been doing the rounds on X for a while now (@robkhenderson). It was published in a 2018 Nature article titled “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle” (Source). The innermost circle is ‘your immediate family’, and the outermost circle is ‘all things in existence’. This would indicate that liberals care more about all the animals in the universe, including alien life forms, than they do about their friends and family. We can extrapolate this positioning and extend it to the most visible political policy position today; immigration (a diversity proxy).
When you operate in a moral framework of Universalism, all human beings, regardless of nationality or citizenship status, deserve equal rights and protections. In its purest form this position removes all national boundaries, ignores cultural and sociological differences, and instead separates people into binary ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, the ‘privileged’ and the ‘poor’, the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘oppressor’. If anything captures the current liberal zeitgeist it’s this binary positioning, both politically and socially. This results in support for policies that justify or encourage immigration, regardless of the impact, because those within the existing culture are the haves, and those outside are the have nots.
“Deserves’ is an impossible thing to decide. No one deserves anything. Thank God we don’t get what we deserve.”
Milton Friedman
We cannot discuss immigration without talking about ‘diversity’ or ‘multiculturalism’, and I think we can reduce the moderate liberal position quite simply. “I like living in a diverse, multicultural society. I find that interesting and I get really excited about lots of new cultures around me, plus the food is good.” This is perfectly good reasoning, it is neither a good argument, nor a bad argument, it is simply a position that those on the liberal left have. It is a valid preference. Immigrants welcome, we are a global family, we all need to help each other and get along.
This tolerance and acceptance has a lasting impact at the extremes when policy is driven by a vocal minority. An impact which is downplayed by those same liberal groups and echoed by the remaining. You only have to speak up in opposition to see that this liberal positioning has turned quickly into illiberalism. If you do not support this positioning, or even when provide data that proves it is a net negative, you are a racist and a bigot, perhaps you are even far-right. This positioning seems to deliberately ignore or obfuscate data indicating harms to naturalised citizens in terms of job competition (job availability and wage suppression for low skill workers), housing availability (rising rental or purchase costs), healthcare availability and overall economic stability (lower GDP per capita), or even basic security and protection.
Moreover, when citizens do complain about crime or safety, they are ignored and dismissed. You are no longer important to those who advocate for these policies. Even if you are destitute, forced to move, beset by crime and threats to your person or property, you are still better off than those arriving from various impoverished nations. You do not have a legitimate argument or preference. Someone ate your cat? They obviously needed it more than you did.
A liberal would never accept living in a racist but wealthy society, but will willingly live in a less wealthy society that isn’t racist. A liberal would, and does, accept living in a crime ridden city, with a high level of cultural diversity, over a safe ethnic monoculture, because crime is the price you have to pay for spicy food.
(Note: this of course does not apply to countries outside the West who are perfectly reasonable to apply restrictive immigration policies and preserve cultural homogeneity)
There is no middle ground. Preference is primary, all other arguments are secondary.
The Moral Absolutism of the Conservative
The ideological positioning discussed in the Nature article characterises the divergence between liberals and conservatives on their intuitive moral values. Liberals care about harm and fairness, whereas conservatives care more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity. In contrast to the liberal position, the moderate conservative thinks “I am not meaningfully motivated by multiculturalism/diversity/spicy food. I prefer a society that is predictable and consistent. I derive joy from traditions, not from novelty.” Which, again, is a perfectly reasonable position to take. It is neither a good nor bad argument, and to posit otherwise is ridiculous. There has always been urbanites and provincials, but never has one over ridden the other to the extent that the illiberal left has today. They no longer consider this position as an argument, let alone a valid preference.
For the conservative, the absolutist, the universal moral duty is to protect one’s community and family. The government should have an absolute moral duty to prioritise the welfare and safety of its own citizens above all else. This is the position taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary in his defense of his immigration policies. Orbán claimed his state should promote national self-sufficiency, national sovereignty, familialism, full employment and the preservation of cultural heritage. Of course with a position such as this it is not surprising that publications like Politico have labelled him “the talisman of Europe’s mainstream right“, and others as “authoritarian”, “far-right”, “fascist” and a “dictator”.
“This is our homeland, our life, and since we don’t have another one, we will fight for it until the very end and we will never give it up.”
Viktor Orbán
In his positioning we can see the absolutist argument, an upholding of what he considers a binding social contract. In allowing unfettered or excessive immigration he would be causing tangible harm not only to the citizens of Hungary, but also to the cultural homogeneity of Hungary itself. Under the principles of justice and fairness it would be a failure of duty to not uphold the basic rights of the citizens, including a right to safety and economic stability. It would be a moral failing to prioritise the needs of outsiders over those of the citizens. This contrasts wildly with the liberal view that broader humanitarian goals outweigh the rights of the citizens to security and social cohesion.
Moral absolutism places limits on compassion. There is an outer boundary, as we see in the heatmap, at which conservatives have moral limits, where compassion would conflict with the rights of those closer to home. There is a need to balance charity and justice. Charity towards immigrants and refugees is a moral good, but justice, a higher moral principle, must be maintained. In a study from 2016 (Partisan Differences in Nonpartisan Activity: The Case of Charitable Giving) it was noted that Republicans and conservatives report donating an average of $60 to $160 more per year to charity than Democrats and liberals. We can see above that far more charity from conservatives goes to local causes (echoing the morality distance heatmap), predominantly through local churches and religious groups, than in the case of liberals. Which is unsurprising given church attendance rates for liberals (about 12%).
This also aligns broadly with concepts of the redistribution of wealth for the greater good (preferably other people’s wealth), from the liberal position, against voluntarist contributions for local issues, which would be the conservative position.
That Data Feels Mildly Racist
To have an anti-immigration preference, no matter how reasoned or evidenced, is morally repugnant to a liberal. It goes against the core values of inclusivity, universal human rights, empathy, and tolerance. It undermines a commitment to universal human rights and equality. It asserts that the rights of non-citizens are somehow less than those of citizens. It frames the conservative counter argument as lacking in compassion for those less well off, appearing cold or cruel, especially if it involves refusal of asylum claims or harsh treatment at borders (insert convenient photo opportunity image of AOC crying at a border fence in a perfectly tailored pant suit). Worse still would be the historical associations with colonialism and nationalism, not advocating for an open border policy is a refusal to take responsibility for historical events perpetrated by Western cultures.
This is the feminised politics of empathy and feelings, over facts, logic and data, whilst ultimately gas-lighting the conservatives into believing that their arguments against mass migration are all “vague feelings”. However, produce data that shows the negative results of open border policies their only inner response is “this feels vaguely racist”. Even 20 years ago (The Downside of Diversity) we had comprehensive data and studies to show that by almost all metrics of civic engagement the more diverse a society, the worse the civic health.
“But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
This all or nothing positioning frustrates the conservative voter. Either you agree with the liberal position, or you’re wrong. Core conservative values such as national sovereignty, law and order, economic stability, cultural preservation, and a strong sense of community loyalty, all appear under threat by an overwhelmingly liberal cultural and political agenda. More confusingly, is how did our political apparatus became so illiberally left that a conservative counter position becomes morally repugnant? This is keeping in mind that the liberals, under Obama, deported 3 million illegals compared to 2 million under George Bush.
It’s Because You’re Stupid and Married
The Democrat party of the USA has been in power for 12 of the last 16 years. Trump’s win in 2016 was an aberration. The Democrats are now are the party of the rich and the college educated. They are the party that educated liberal women and minorities vote for by an overwhelming majority. The majority of the career bureaucrats in state departments donate to, and vote Democrat. The majority of big businesses, media, and military contractors vote and donate to the Democrats. If you vote Republican you are poor and stupid and therefore your preference is illegitimate and unworthy of discussion.
This wasn’t always the case. There has been a political inversion in the USA over the last 90 years. Democrats represented the working man. Republicans were the party of the bosses, the professionals, the owners of small businesses, the families with college degrees. From the 1960’s onwards the number of college educated people voting for Republicans slowly dropped, and those voting for the Democrats slowly increased. In 2020, it was women voting for Democrats who decided the results of the Trump / Biden election.
In 1981, the percentage of women in the USA graduating from university passed the percentage of men, the 50/50 level was broken and has never reverted. By 2027 the percentage of women graduating is expected to be 60% of the graduating class. By recent measures, the political self-identification of college and university faculty in the USA is 60% aligned to ‘liberal or far left’ with only 12 percent who identify as ‘conservative or far right’. Why is this the case? It could be a self fulfilling prophecy where because colleges are viewed as liberal institutions, fewer conservatives strive to join their staff. Or it could be that faculty hiring boards discriminate against conservative applicants. And since college graduates are more likely to identify as liberal, the pipeline for conservative professors is narrower.
“The greatest threat to liberal democracy today comes not from the authoritarian right or left but from an illiberalism that wears the cloak of democracy itself.”
Timothy Garton Ash
If we consider that 60% of all 4 year college or university graduates are women, then we must also consider what they are studying. Since 1970, the percentage of women in social sciences increased from 17% to 61%. First wave feminism in the 1960’s championed women’s studies programs. Since then the number of women’s and gender studies degrees in the United States has increased by about 300%. These programs include gender and sexuality studies, and many of the programs explore and question the relationship of race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity. This is identity politics at an institutional level.
Since the 1970’s the rate of marriage in the USA has declined by about 50%. The percentage of single women who vote Democrat was about 70% in the last presidential election (Trump/Biden 2020). Shockingly, marriage is more strongly linked to voting behavior than sex. If you are married, you are more likely to be conservative, for both men and women. The number of women voting Democrat shifted in the 1980s, up to 54% in 2016 as opposed to 38% in 1972 (as they graduated or attended college in increasing numbers) and in line with falling rates of marriage.
Since about 2000 the percentage of participation in the labor force of women and men has remained relatively stable. About 53% men and 47% women. Prior to 1950 it was only about 29% women who worked.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion
I will state for the record that I absolutely don’t hate women. I will now lay out my reasoning why women are a problem.
Ok, not all women, I will include feminised liberal men in that same category. But unmarried, liberal, college educated women with social science degrees in the workforce are a problem. You will be aware of this if you’ve ever had to deal with a militant and power mad HR department, or unfortunate enough to have to deal with someone in a DEI advocacy position. Positions given an illegitimate amount of power and control within a business, and overwhelmingly staffed by women.
You should be worried if you value moral absolutism and conservative values, but also because they predominantly vote for the increasingly Illiberal Left under some guise of achieving more independence, equality for the global majority, and to achieve “social justice”.
This is in the face of overwhelming evidence that increasing amounts of “diversity” is a net negative to civic health, mass immigration is economically unsound, being single makes you unhappy, and attending college and indoctrinating yourself into the identity politics cult is not good for your mental health.
- Women in the workforce – 29% increased to 47%
- Women graduating University / College – 40% to 60%
- Women getting married – 86% to 35%
- Women voting Democrat – 38% to 54%
- Single women voting Democrat – 70%
- Women as a % of Social Science graduates – 17% to 61%
- Age 18-29 Liberal women diagnosed with mental health issues 2022 – 56%
- Age 18-29 Liberal women identifying as LGBTQ 2022 – 38%
Given that conservatives aged 18 – 55 are about 20 percentage points more likely to be married, as well as 18 percentage points more likely to be satisfied with their families, the lesson here is obvious. Marriage and family are strongly linked to happiness and to personal mental health in particular. More than that, liberals, especially women, are considerably less satisfied with their lives (15pt difference) compared to conservatives and far more likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues. The problem facing liberals, then, is that too many of them have embraced the false narrative that the path to happiness runs counter to marriage and family life, not towards it.
If we refer back to our original heatmap from the beginning of the article we can see the root causes for the moral positioning of liberals. An educational and social environment that is rooted in discussing morality as a human construction, influenced by power dynamics, historical context, and culture, and without exposure to counter cultural viewpoints. A culture which was conservative, natalistic and familial. A power dynamic that focused around men. A historical context that dominated and subjugated a significant percentage of the world. Yet one that built the modern world.
To want to tear down something you have been taught to hate, is a powerful driving force. What better way to do that than through the overwhelming political force of feminine illiberalism. The moral imperative to save everyone overwrites the moral duty to protect the family, because they have none, and cannot relate to others. The moral relativist, the universal citizen, instead becomes the universal tyrant.
“It is easier to demolish than to build, and the institutions and principles that once were the work of time and genius are quickly swept away by ignorance and enthusiasm.”
Edmund Burke
This is lasting damage, and it wont make you happy.
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