Pierre van den Berghe thought racial bias was an extension of predispositions toward kin selection. If someone looks like a very different “race” they are unlikely to be related to you. So in that way it may have a basis in human cognitive architecture.
Age motivates political disputes hardly at all. Sex motivates them only slightly more. Race on the other hand is the prime underlying factor in politics in any multi-racial society, primarily because of differences in productivity and the political remedies proposed to deal with the differences. People vote their pocketbooks and they know why they do so. Therefore, they will never ignore race.
With Jason Weeden, I wrote a book called The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind in which we discuss how demographic variables predict political attitudes. As you say, factors such as race and socioeconomic status can have a big effect in that domain. So I agree with you in that sense. Here, I am trying to address the very narrow hypothesis regarding race and automaticity, which I think is a very different claim. (Just to be clear, I am not plugging the book. I just am pointing to where I am on the record on this issue. See, for example, Pinsof, Sears, and Haselton (2023) for more recent work on this sort of view: https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2023.2274433)
Yes, I understand the distinction. And do not believe that automaticity is a viable behavior. However, one sometimes encounters persons who do operate automatically based on their politics, as influenced by the larger racial sphere. I do not turn the rhetorical other cheek in such cases.
Pierre van den Berghe thought racial bias was an extension of predispositions toward kin selection. If someone looks like a very different “race” they are unlikely to be related to you. So in that way it may have a basis in human cognitive architecture.
Age motivates political disputes hardly at all. Sex motivates them only slightly more. Race on the other hand is the prime underlying factor in politics in any multi-racial society, primarily because of differences in productivity and the political remedies proposed to deal with the differences. People vote their pocketbooks and they know why they do so. Therefore, they will never ignore race.
With Jason Weeden, I wrote a book called The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind in which we discuss how demographic variables predict political attitudes. As you say, factors such as race and socioeconomic status can have a big effect in that domain. So I agree with you in that sense. Here, I am trying to address the very narrow hypothesis regarding race and automaticity, which I think is a very different claim. (Just to be clear, I am not plugging the book. I just am pointing to where I am on the record on this issue. See, for example, Pinsof, Sears, and Haselton (2023) for more recent work on this sort of view: https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2023.2274433)
Yes, I understand the distinction. And do not believe that automaticity is a viable behavior. However, one sometimes encounters persons who do operate automatically based on their politics, as influenced by the larger racial sphere. I do not turn the rhetorical other cheek in such cases.