We often hear about the religious right, and while I'm aware that exceptions do exist (in a country of 300 million, there might even be a lot of exceptions), the phrase is usually redundant. There are personality traits that link being conservative with being religious as well as living in a small town. Let's put on our hats and explore!
What does it mean to be conservative? By definition, it means that you like things the way they are. Why? Listen sonny, I've been fishing with live bait since I was knee high on a grasshopper and I pulled in the biggest catfish you ever seen. The conservative personality learns that a particular way works for them, and this is justification enough for them to continue with the status quo. This is not an inherently bad thing, it's just a statement of fact about an approach to interacting with the world they know. Unless something is clearly amiss, they don't question it. Everyone is conservative about some things. You don't change the way you grip a pencil or try a new method of brushing your teeth every week.
Why would the conservative more likely be religious? Because my parents led their life based on The Bible and they were happy, so why wouldn't I? This is an extension, of course. Now we're projecting another's life experience and mapping that forwards. Personality-wise this isn't really different though, it's analogous to Murray learning to use live bait from his dad. Maybe he never tried anything else because he caught something his first time out. Why mess with success? Clearly this connection between the conservative personality and relgion isn't guaranteed, but given an otherwise equal societal or parental influence, the conservative is more likely to go along with it.
Why would the conservative religious person more likely live in a small town? Everyone's capacity to accept things on faith is limited, and influenced by life experiences that affirm or contradict what they believe. There's simply less variety in small towns, so an otherwise similar distribution of conservative and/or religious people would encounter fewer things to make them question the things they believe. Conversely, the conservative is more likely to seek out smaller towns with less variety, specifically those small towns that agree with his own notions of how things should work. Over time, small towns become magnets for conservative and religious people and large cities attract people who value diversity and surprise, which is inherently tied to being a liberal personality type.
This is not meant as a critique of either side, it's simply an evaluation of why certain demographic traits correlate.
No comments:
Post a Comment