I’ve been trying to understand something about political change.  Why do large populations reject sound ideas and embrace absurdities?  The answer lies in something psychologists recognize, something we are born with, which they call a moral grammar.  (google: “universal moral grammar”.)  Just as we learn a standard set of rules that determine our way of speaking in our culture, we also learn a standard set of rules that determine our morals.  Moral grammar is deeply connected to our verbal grammar.  We learn both from our culture.  Just because cultural values are bad, doesn’t mean we don’t embrace them.

When we hear grammar we respond to it.  We hear Yoda saying something like, “Strong with the force he is” and we find it amusing, but not annoying.  The grammar is unusual, but correct.  But if we heard someone say “Me went to the store” we would be taken aback a bit. The grammar is wrong.  If the person was a child we would try to correct the child’s grammar.  If the person was an adult we might wonder if the person talking this way had brain damage.

We learn our moral values similarly.  We learn movements of actions and responses.  Those movements constitute a sophisticated form of grammar.  The physical mechanisms for our moral grammar and our language grammar are closely connected in the physical brain.

If I were standing in a room full of devout Chinese Communists, and I talked with them about politics, I would certainly mention the flaws in Chinese Communism.  A devout Communist would be taken aback a bit.  I would be out of line in their way of thinking.  My moral grammar would be incorrect.  They would try to correct me.  They would throw words, phrases, and platitudes at me that reflected their own state programmed moral grammar.  They would feel uncomfortable and certainly unaccepting of my statements.  They would view me as uneducated, mentally defective, or simply brainwashed.  It is pretty much a pure bioligical knee-jerk kind of reaction.  People can’t help it.  That is the essence of brainwashing.

When I try to discuss the idea of a Reeve of the Constitution conservatives always blow me off the same way the Chinese Communists would.  The conservatives throw high sounding words, phrases, and platitudes at me, without understanding what their words mean.  Until recently I’ve been very puzzled by this, because I know I’m right.  I know my facts are correct.  I know my reasoning in this is solid.  But political people not only treat what I have to say as incredibile, but they are actually antagonistic.  I’ve finally solved this puzzle.  They are following their moral grammar, and I am saying things that are grammatically incorrect for their moral system.  What I’m saying is technically correct, but according to their grammar it’s incorrect.

I say that the Constitution is flawed.  In their moral grammar that is bad.  The Constitution is divine.  It is goodness.  It defines right and wrong.  And here comes this guy saying it’s flawed.  They are taken aback a bit, and respond by trying to correct my moral grammar, or writing me off as as confused person.

Now, I know the Constitution is flawed.  Simple facts say it is flawed.  The Framers understood that Democracy is a horrible system of government.  They knew that Democracy is inherently irrational and immoral by nature.  They tried to create a Constitution that would contain the Democracy.  Then they made the Constitution dependent on the virtue of the citizens.  In other words, after declaring Democracy to be irrational and immoral, they made the Constitution dependent on Democracy being rational and moral.  The Constitution is at odds with itself; plain as day.

From that flaw come pretty much all of today’s political problems.

But no well programmed American conservative can hear that truth.  They don’t understand what drives them.  They follow their knee-jerk reactions without being aware of how pre-programmed their reactions are.

So here is the great problem of the day:  How do I communicate the truth about the flaw in the Constitution and the truth about how to fix it to a very large bunch of people who are pre-programmed to reject it?  How does one change the existing political moral grammar?

Rush Limbaugh likes to say half-joking that you have to listen to his show so many times before you “get it.”  Then the show makes more sense.  What is happening of course is that the listener is learning Limbaugh’s moral grammar.  After they learn the new grammar the show makes more sense.

So how do I change people’s minds so that their moral grammar doesn’t get in the way of seeing reality?  How do I help them see past their moral grammar and see that what I am saying makes perfect sense?  That is the next tricky puzzle.

After that problem is solved, the next one will be how to change the moral grammar of the Leftists.  That might be more of a problem because they are so heavily programmed.  Or it could be an easier problem because they are Leftists because they are so easily programmed.

Stumble it!