43% of progressives and 25% of conservatives say the other side has a fundamentally evil moral foundation.

These poll results really surprised and saddened me and each for different reasons.

I was talking with @freespe4ker and he said many progressives think conservatives have an evil foundation. I didn't assume that was the case. He estimated the number would be around 30%.

I was very wrong.

For progressives, selfish and mean were things I expected to be said about cons. I didn't expect evil, not at that rate.

On the conservative side, I hesitated before posting it, because I thought cons would see progressives as naive or overbearing, I didn't expect evil.

I tweeted this a week ago, and I still mean it to my core. I certainly believe there are some evil moral foundations, and I surely find a lot of beliefs morally abhorrent, but I can't see them as generally true about either conservatives or progressives, much less foundationally.

If there's a point I can make here, it's that I think it's unhealthy to consider the norm among cons/progs to be fundamentally evil. I stand by the idea that people should speak forcefully for and against ideas, call those ideas evil if you're sincere, but we're still neighbors.

I'll end with my own naivete. I love my neighbor regardless of ideology. It takes a lot for me to see a person's ideology as representative of them as people. Let's at least make sure we never let hatred cause us to lose sight of each other's humanity, or our own.