Here’s an interesting idea: a new study indicates that people’s political leanings may be genetic in origin. The researchers behind this study are not suggesting that we’re all destined to belong to a particular party or that we’re programmed from birth like little politibots, just that we may be drawn by nature towards a particular side of the spectrum. In other words, our genes pre-dispose us towards being conservative or progressive, and then our upbringing and unique life experiences shape our opinions on specific issues. The real fun seems to occur when someone’s innate inclination clashes with their family’s expectations and affiliations. (The study was intended partly to figure out why people defect from the parties in which they were raised, such as when the children of staunch Republicans become hippies, or vice versa. While some of that behavior can be chalked up to youthful rebellion, there are plenty of cases where children just plain think differently from their parents for no apparent reason, which makes little sense if you believe that our attitudes are entirely shaped by “nurture” without some element of “nature” being involved.)

I hesitate to assign too much responsibility for individual behavior to DNA, because I believe there’s much more to behavior and psychology than mere “hardwiring.” However, this theory could explain something I’ve wondered about, namely the way it so often seems that people who are on opposite sides of a political issue simply fail to connect at some basic level. Even assuming that the discussion remains civil and reasonable, our two hypothetical debators almost always reach a point where the conversation cannot continue because they just don’t understand where the other person is coming from. I’ve heard some people say this is because conservatives argue with logic while liberals use emotion — this is always said by conservatives, by the way, with the unstated implication that their “logic” is superior to their opponents’ “emotion” — but liberals of course don’t see things that way. Personally, I believe there is logic in the positions of both sides, for the most part; it’s just that we’re using different logic, or at least logic predicated on different things. Certainly we have different priorities and concerns that arise from someplace deep inside us, often for reasons we don’t entirely understand ourselves. Why should one person be so sensitive to issues of free expression while someone else is utterly repelled by the thoughts of a large government? Maybe there’s something in everyone’s personal history that generates these sensitivities… and maybe that’s just the way we are. Maybe the reason we find it difficult to bridge the red-blue divide is because reds and blues are fundamentally different.

Now, if I were the paranoid conspiracy-theorist type, I’d say that this is dangerous thinking, the sort of thing that leads to fears of “The Other” and, in the worst-case scenario, to pogroms and social “cleansing.” But I don’t think the fundamental difference is that significant, assuming that it actually exists. I just think this idea of genetics could help unravel the mystery of why so many people these days seem to be talking past each other instead of with each other.