No, no, centrists think them through. Conservatives tend to fear new things. Because I'm the Ubermensch.

In other words, there are structural brain differences which are better predictors of your political affiliation that knowing your parent's political affiliation.

No in exactly those words.

What would be interesting is studying those same brain areas across cultures (ones with different political groupings) or age ranges (as 'conservativeness' has been suggested to change with age) or 100s of other interesting question you could ask about this...

People who say they're centrists mostly just want to feel good about themselves. You, for one, are as far left as anyone else I've seen on this forum.

"better predictors of your political affiliation that knowing your parent's political affiliation"

Children inherit genes from their parents that determine brain structure, so parents are likely to pass on their political affiliation as well.

OR, maybe leftists and rightists are all assholes in my eyes and everyone is a leftist in yours because you've got no fucking clue how political science works.

Centrists are the superior ideologically because they tend to hold the most logical positions.

Everyone thinks their positions of logical. That means absolutely nothing.

@leon, yes and understanding wherher that brain structure is genetic or environmental is a fascinating question, because it leads us to wonder can you change a person's brain structure (and thus political alignment) through environmental conditions.

Why does the 'conservative' mind** appear to be more risk-averse? Why does the 'liberal' mind appear to be less conscientious? And can they be sculpted? Can you choose to do a course to make you more liberal?

**these categories are not solid and only roughly define anything, there are likely many edge cases. At Least 30% of humans...

And we know that, for example, Buddhist monks, who meditate for four hours a day have thicker brain regions (or more activity in some brain region, i forget the details) and these region are thinner (or less active) in people with depression.

How long before we are literally changing our minds? And how flexible are people's minds in the first place?

Centrists are built up on being logical. We logic our way to decisions. That is how we choose things, and we realize that liberals are off on points, and conservatives are off on points. We look at every issue that comes up and we put thought into it, whereas the liberal or conservative goes "HERE'S MY ANSWER I DON'T NEED TO SPEND TIME WITH IT ALL SYSTEMS GO!!!!!!" That's not logical.

Prado, you can consider every position independently and come to very liberal or very conservative opinions on most or even all. Just because some people blindly align themselves with a particular political party without considering the issues doesn't mean that no liberal or conservative is considering things logical.

Prado, your position on political logic is so silly you've gotten me to +1 something leon wrote. Centrists don't have a monopoly on political thoughtfulness. There's nothing logically privileged about being in the middle of your culture's Overton window.

As always, xkcd is relevant:
https://xkcd.com/774/

You're just naive. If weight is given to all issues with careful thought and logic, you won't find yourself on the political left for each one, or on the political right for each one.

I had told myself that I wasn't going to make fun the smug naivete of people younger than me until I was a good deal older, but Prado makes it very difficult.

Like, do you realize that claiming that people of your political alignment are the only ones who think rationally is *exactly* the same thing you're constantly shitting on everyone else for?

In many ways, Prado, the 'political left' and 'political right' aren't even coherent terms at the level of abstraction you're striving for. Are you a centrist in the US? That'd make you a raging conservative in most of western Europe, 'careful thought and logic' and all. (Meanwhile, Putin33 would consider the liberals of western Europe raging conservatives, and clearly leon views you as a raging lefty.) Through which window should I evaluate your so-called centrism?

Of course, there are few positions so liberal or so conservative that you can't find nutbags who are more liberal/conservative than you and declare yourself in the rational middle. But in that case, the rational 'middle' is filled with liberals and conservatives with substantial and systematic disagreements, rendering the term rather pointless.

The reason why so many topics are up for debate is because there is no correct answer. To suggest that you can rely on logic and facts alone to reach the 'correct' alignment is inane.

But the brain structures... wait. TrPrado provide me a shred of evidence that centerists are more logical.

I have provided ample that suggests personality differences, and ACUTAL structural brain differences between left and right. (and fear-driven conservatives vs conscientious/care free liberals happens to make some sense of their emotional conclusions about, lets take a random topical issue, gay rights, for example)

By the very nature of being centrist. We are defined by logically coming to political conclusions with realistic solutions. Center-left and center-right aren't inherently illogical, but they are plagued by their emotional decision making to some degree. We see some ideas on the left and right for any given problem, see them hound over each other saying their idea is the best path without giving real credence. A centrist is the one who takes in all of it, looks down the road for end results, calculates out, and delivers pragmatism.

These aren't even absolute terms; it's all relative. Is a centrist in Mass as logical as a centrist in Mississippi? I think you'll find they wildly diverge on policy, despite both being centrist.

Yes, of course. Just as one would expect an ultra-conservative in Saudi Arabia to be afraid of new things as an ultra-conservative in the United States.

The international element of this is interesting. An awful lot of British Conservatives would be considered liberal if they moved to the US. Quite what you'd expect their brains to look like I'm not sure.

The brain, just like every other part of the body, changes with use. Someone living in the country will have different uses from someone in a dense urban environment. For that reason alone you'd expect to see differences between conservative and liberal brains.

Also, it's a well known fact that true lefties have their eyes too close together ;)

One might as well say centrists are merely wafflers who can't articulate a coherent vision for the direction of their society. It'd be no less correct than your sneering depiction of non-centrists. Argument by stereotype (not to mention flattering self-image) is no way to arrive at a convincing conclusion.

In fact, I propose that your attitude towards non-centrists is itself more emotional than logical, a product of frustrating experience with relentless partisans rather than a cold-blooded analysis of logic and emotion across political spectra. If I am wrong, let's see the analysis. Goodness knows what you've provided so far doesn't qualify.

And after all, what you've argued for the definitions of being 'left' or 'right' isn't all that accurate. The left isn't composed of people who are uniformly and universally left. The right isn't composed of people who are uniformly and universally right. A person may logically conclude that their positions on the few issues they consider most important are left-wing or right-wing, and this is not more or less logical than a person who concludes that their most important positions are some left, some right--or down the middle. But then, you haven't distinguished between 'centrism' as people who tend to take moderate positions, and 'centrism' as people who tend to take a mix of left-wing and right-wing positions, so this last point is perhaps premature.

(For an analysis of the significance of that distinction, see:
https://people.stanford.edu/dbroock/sites/default/files/ahler_broockman_ideological_innocence.pdf
)

I aspire to be rational and pragmatic in politics, as TrPrado describes, but the thing there is that you can't judge the value of something if you don't know what your goal is. By TrPrado's definition, I would call myself centrist, but the goals I wish to achieve center around helping people. As such, I decide rationally, without caring whether a policy is left or right, what option helps people most in the end.

In practice, that means I'm more likely to support left plans concerning social support etc.
I would never turn down a policy on the basis of it being right, though. I judge it on its own values.

As such, I'd be mostly left (by European standards, so perhaps a radical communist by American standards), but I'd get there by judging the individual value of a policy based on what policy furthers the goals I consider important most.

As such, if I have to pick between left and right with no other options I say left for sure, but I still prefer to call myself a centrist as well, which I think is indeed a useless term if I get to call myself that.

Can I just call myself a left-leaning pragmatist? :-)

Pragmatism may be logical, but logic doesn't have to be pragmatic.

Along the pragmatist-ideological spectrum, emotion and logic can play their parts.

You could fall in love with an idea and promote it despite it never being close to possible; or you could logically deduce that an ideological stance is worth fighting for despite it being impossible because the conversation is important to have and that is the end.

Or what Lethologica said about "a product of frustrating experience with relentless partisans" and pragmatism.

@"The international element of this is interesting. An awful lot of British Conservatives would be considered liberal if they moved to the US. Quite what you'd expect their brains to look like I'm not sure."

That is a really interesting question, my bet is they would look more like the conservatives in the US even when agreeing more with the liberals.

And that is because i think you grow accustomed to what is; that one you have (say) marriage equality for 10 years, it becomes normal and safe. So conservatives don't feel threatened by it anymore - so your brains can accept different realities/ideas, and still be pre-disposed towards hyper-alert to danger (or whatever way you want to characterise them)

But... i would much prefer to see data rather than me making stuff up ;)