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sunshinemiss -> RE: Curiousity about nuanced semantics. (8/26/2008 10:17:35 AM)
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Good morning Master Thadius,
I see your question and I think they are nuanced but the tiny differences are irrelevant in mmy mind. Both ways of voting as you have put forth are about personal assumptions. If this person is a woman, she will understand what a woman thinks. For example, every woman, whether she believes in it or not, has had the idea of abortion come to her mind in a personal way, even if it is to say "OH NO"... but she's had it (imo). In a way a man will not have had that thought. Yes, of course men think of it, but it is different for a woman... her body, the feeling of the flutter, the nausea, the expectation of shifts in her body, the hormones. I presume that a woman candidate will have considered abortion in a way that a man hasn't. And she will have come to conclusions about that because of her gender (whatever conclusion that is).
Same holds for a person of a certain race or ethnicity. We are automatically connected. On the East Coast (Boston, Philadelphia, New York) people are much more aware of their heritage on the whole than people in other parts of the country that I have visited. So the same goes for Irish, Italians, Jews, etc. in those parts of the country. When we are born into a group and raised in it, we feel that affinity in much the same way that people of particular races feel it. Typically it is a group that has been downtrodden at some point, discriminated against.
We think that the person from our group will understand what it is to be one of us. And therefore we join with them, it is like we ourselves or our loved one has become the one in power. It is something of an egocentric method of voting. But isn't that what voting is? Someone who is there to represent me.
I have written this with a wide brush and know of course there are many people who would show individual examples, and I do not discount them. This is more about norms. It is the way of human beahavior. It is the rare person who can see beyond emotions (for that is often why we vote the way we do) to the intellectual realm... to apply logic. Even when we do this to some degree, emotions always play a part. There is something instinctual about it.
As for making change. I read a psych study once that said the only way people would come together is if there is a common enemy. Us versus them is always a part of differentiating. We don't know who we ARE if we don't know who we AREN'T. The study concluded with something along the lines of unless we are contacted by entities from outer space, there will always be division and always be emotional feuding. *and no, I don't have that study but I do remember reading it about 15 years ago in my social psych class. It made an impression on me.
Well wishes,
sunshine
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