I find this fascinating to think about. It seems obvious that there would be genetic differences and differences in neural-organisation between left-wing people and right-wing people. They have different priorities and different values. (Obviously experiences, teachers, books, have a role too.)
ALFORD, J. R., FUNK, C. L., & HIBBING, J. R. (2005). Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted? American Political Science Review, 99(02), 153–167. doi:10.1017/s0003055405051579 found that monozygotic twins have closer political beliefs than dizygotic ones.
Hatemi, P. K., Gillespie, N. A., Eaves, L. J., Maher, B. S., Webb, B. T., Heath, A. C., … Martin, N. G. (2011). A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes. The Journal of Politics, 73(1), 271–285. doi:10.1017/s0022381610001015 found a bunch of genes that correlate with political orientation
Eaves, L., Heath, A., Martin, N., Maes, H., Neale, M., Kendler, K., … Corey, L. (1999). Comparing the biological and cultural inheritance of personality and social attitudes in the Virginia 30 000 study of twins and their relatives. Twin Research, 2(02), 62–80. doi:10.1375/twin.2.2.62 also points to some specific genes.
It's just fascinating thinking about how people are walking around with these genes in their cells that are pushing them to take part in the competing forces within a society.
I believe genes play a role in political orientation. Without genes most slobs of cells don't have politics except the laws of physical nature.
this reminds me of when a poll asks you to rate your political orientation from "Very Liberal" to "Very Conservative"
:zizek-preference:
Genetics are fucking weird. I've never met my now dead grandfather, but according to all my family members I have the exact same personality, the same habits, like the same food, even did the same sports in school. And I was raised in a completely different culture and country.
I don't think politics is genetic though, that sounds like phenology type shit.
I remember noticing that my friwnd and her mom had the exact same laugh, the same little giggly mannerism. Funny how it's the little things.
I'm not saying politics "is" genetic. It's a statistical correlation, an influence.
Without having read anything yet, any correlation is almost assuredly tied to a third unmeasured cause, like probably the family you're raised in. This is like the increase in ice cream sales is correlated with increases with violence - which is true but both are caused by higher heat lol.
Also, we're Marxists. We're materialists. It wouldnt be too surprising if the material circumstanses of your upbringing and you social relation to the means of production made both your amygdala larger or smaller AND made you more likely to be conservative.
If you look at the section of the article on genetics it described a twin study that asked subjects for outlooks on specific topics, so they have done studies controlling for correllation related to upbringing.
Yes but Karl Marx wrote a book about materialism 170 years ago so those studies are wrong
Genetics can provide the traits that become a basis for your politics, but how those traits are expressed mostly comes down to your experiences IMO. Empathy, for instance, could lead you to care more about the oppressed, but it could also lead to a stronger sense of connection with the dominant cultural in-group.
Empathy, for instance, could lead you to care more about the oppressed, but it could also lead to a stronger sense of connection with the dominant cultural in-group.
There is some scientific evidence for this if you look for studies about stuff like 'the dark side of oxytocin'.
Basically this. The only serious contemporary leftist treatment of the relationship between biology and political orientation I've seen is from Arnold Schroder and he more or less takes this path (I wouldn't say I fully agree with him, particularly on some finer points I won't get into here, but I find him quite insightful in many respects): https://www.againsttheinternet.com/post/the-biology-of-the-left-right-divide
It isn't that someone with predispositions towards a more conservative viewpoint is going to become a CHUD. Different people are predisposed towards different outlooks on life, but things like strong group affiliations and cultural practices can override individual predispositions. Now in a society such as the one many modern humans inhabit with weaker IRL group ties and an Internet that encourages relatively easy self-sorting into online groups based on one's psychological predispositions, we can see how this can manifest in ways that exacerbate problems of cultural fraying and difficulty with organizing mass politics.
One of Schroder's main points is that if you want successful mass politics for the left, you need to have a way to account for this inherent variability within human predispositions, so in essence different people need to be appealed to in different ways and IRL groups are important. Additionally, there are scenarios where major events can overcome the thresholds of these individual predispositions and cause people to more broadly act the same way, like the strong conservative turn of the majority of Americans in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
You're welcome! Just keep in mind some of the stuff I wrote in my comment might not be in that essay I linked and could instead be elsewhere in his work. I was trying to summarize the most relevant points I remembered from memory.
if u r trans u r eukaryote, if u a r cis u are prokaryote, if u r nonbinary hermaphrodite u r archaea. I don't make the rules.
Political orientation is a nonsense phrase. Trying to map biology to a one axis eurocentric political spectrum is about as stupid and misguided as saying the political compass is valid because it's got a whole nother dimension. This area of study will never be more than barely disguised fascist pseudoscience. Doesn't matter if a liberal is doing it.
That might be why some of the studies asked about specific outlooks instead of doing what you just described.
A twin study in 2005 examined the attitudes regarding 28 different political issues such as capitalism, unions, X-rated movies, abortion, school prayer, divorce, property taxes, and the draft. Twins were asked if they agreed or disagreed or were uncertain about each issue. Genetic factors accounted for 53% of the variance of an overall score. However, self-identification as Republican and Democrat had a much lower heritability of 14%. It is worthwhile to note that identical twins correlated in opinion at a rate of 0.66 while fraternal twins correlated in opinion by 0.44. This likely occurs because identical twins share 100% of their DNA while fraternal twins share on average only 50% of their DNA.[43][44]
I don't like calling this genetic or biological, I think it's much more likely that learning and living with a certain political outlook causes growth and shrinkage in certain parts of the brain, or increased blood flow during certain tasks, due to neuroplasticity.
Some if it is correlative with genetics, apparently. They did a twin study.
