Donald at the Bat – Day 1286, Political Genetics

Day 1286, Political Genetics 

 

Left wingers, right wingers, are there genes involved?

A rather new question that’s yet to be solved.

Conservative, liberal: two views of life…

May lie in our genomes, hard-wired for strife.

 

First, genes in left wingers: just how might they act

To make lefties tolerant of a new fact?

To seek change and welcome it with open arms,

When change in conservatives sets off alarms?

 

To meet different peoples and not be afraid

To welcome varieties mutation made?

All races, religions, gay people and straight,

To not think the old days were really that great?

 

And genes of right wingers—resistant to change—

Why fear and suspicion of anything strange?

More likely religious: an established fact,

Gene products?  Environment?  Both interact.

Then Edward O. Wilson showed this or that trait, (1)

Including behavior, seems to be innate

In all social insects, the ants and bees,

Which all live like humans in big colonies.

 

Aggressive, cooperative, characterized

In all of the colonies Ed analyzed,

Their genomes are smaller and sequenced with ease.

So first we should look at the ants and the bees.

 

We’ll find different genes, and learn what they all do,

Then find human analogs, their function too.

That’s technically feasible, then we can find

How genes may influence the right or left mind.

 

Conservative, liberal, if due to genes,

Then we must ask ourselves just what that means.

Can we work together for “general welfare?”  (2)

Or do different genomes mean constant warfare?

 

(1)  Edward O. Wilson, Emeritus Professor at Harvard.  Look him up.

(2)  The preamble to the Constitution says to, “…promote the general welfare,”