Liberals, I have bad news: according to science, we are less attractive than our conservative rivals. We are, however, more likely to have adventurous sex, so there’s that consolation. We also have the pleasures of preferring crunchy peanut butter, spicy food and pineapple on pizza. Aren’t we deviants.
These revelations come courtesy of Turi Munthe, whose book Why We Think What We Think cheerfully catalogues the origins of our sincerely held opinions. The answer to its title is apparently not hard facts and reasoned logic, or even robust debate. Geography has a lot to answer for. So does climate. Whether you lean authoritarian or liberal might be shaped less by whether you read the Bible or Isaiah Berlin as an adolescent, and more by how many pathogens your ancestors had to contend with. Electoral trends can be mapped out by soil types. Attitudes to social conventions – whether it is polite to feed the friend your child has brought home from school – depend on how scarce food was hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
As for the widening gap between how the left and right see the world, Munthe argues it’s not in our imagination. Different people really are wired to perceive things differently. Sometimes that’s biological – apparently conservatives have more taste buds, making them more sensitive to spice and therefore less likely to enjoy spicy food. They’re also more neurologically attuned to threat, whereas liberals are more curious and predisposed to see potential benefit in new things (hello pineapple on pizza and kinky sex). And sometimes it’s societal. Attractive individuals are geared to believe in meritocracy (and therefore lean right politically) because, to be blunt, people are nicer to them and more likely to give them opportunities. Their peers without “pretty privilege” have a different experience of how fair life is – and therefore a different ideological starting point.
After I finished the book and was done examining myself in the mirror, I admit I felt rather depressed. The evidence collated by Munthe seems to suggest that not only are many of our carefully considered perspectives predetermined, but so too is our inability to understand one another. Doesn’t this mean we are doomed to argue ever more bitterly, assuming our moral adversaries are stupid or evil, when in fact they just have a different number of taste buds?
But when I met Munthe, I was struck by how upbeat he was. He insists it’s not necessarily bad that we feel increasingly divided. Argument was positive (a fact I immediately relayed back to my conflict-averse husband, before berating him about his ever-expanding collection of red trousers). Argument is what helps humanity evolve. Reasoning isn’t something we can do on our own: we need other people pushing back against our assumptions – assumptions we’ve been lumbered with thanks to soil quality or the prevalence of pathogens – to progress. Diversity enables us to adapt and thrive. Human societies need the curious and the risk-averse alike.
I am not sure I buy this optimism, not least because the book also implies that the scarier the world appears, the more the conservative threat instinct kicks in. And the world feels very scary right now, as I write this column in 34°C heat, in the wake of civil unrest on the streets, waiting to see how long the ceasefire in the Middle East actually lasts. The crises we’re facing desperately require the kind of innovation Munthe believes is driven by constructive debate. But they also trigger the knee-jerk polarisation that makes that debate seem futile, if not impossible.
Still, if understanding the science behind our opponents’ seemingly bizarre views can get the conversation started, I’m willing to give it ago. So, conservatives, I understand it’s not your fault you can’t appreciate the innate superiority of crunchy peanut butter. Now can we come together and fix climate change, before it’s too late and we all melt? Please?
[Further reading: We need better social media – not no social media]
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This article appears in the 01 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Happy Birthday America
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