“Pocketbook” issues such as grocery prices are central to voters, but only up to a point. More fundamental, though rarely articulated, are genetically hardwired values resting on 750,000 years of human evolution. These “primordial values” make humans distinctly human.
These primal drives are bred into our species, and their power reflects eons of evolution. No need to teach children to fear snakes; toddlers instinctively flee them.
These deeper values include an aversion to outsiders — people who are physically distinctive, speak a foreign tongue, or behave oddly. This aversion makes perfect sense, since, over human history, encountering outsiders often ended badly. Just ask the Aztecs. For human survival, xenophobia is deeply embedded in our psychology. The desire for diversity is unnatural.
Add the importance of one’s family and relatives. The state’s protection of people and property is a recent innovation. For millennia, people relied on kinsfolk for personal safety and sustenance. Those who lacked blood relatives were invariably defenseless and thus seldom had progeny.
Add the instinct to protect the vulnerable. Human society…
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