Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the THREE questions that follow.

What I call fast political thinking is driven by simplified moral frames. These moral frames give us the sense that those who agree with us have the right answer, while those who disagree are unreasonable, or worse.
Each moral frame sets up an axis of favorable and unfavorable. Progressives use the oppressor-oppressed axis. Progressives view most favorably those groups that can be regarded as oppressed or standing with the oppressed, and they view most unfavorably those groups that can be regarded as oppressors. Conservatives use the civilization-barbarism axis. Conservatives view most favorably the institutions that they believe constrain and guide people toward civilized behavior, and they view most unfavorably those people who they see as trying to tear down such institutions. Libertarians use the liberty-coercion axis. Libertarians view most favorably those people who defer to decisions that are made on the basis of personal choice and voluntary agreement, and they view most unfavorably those people who favor government interventions that restrict personal choice.

If you have a dominant axis, I suggest that you try to learn the languages spoken by those who use the other axes. Don’t worry—learning other languages won’t make it easy for others to convert you to their point of view. By the same token, it will not make it easy to convert others to your point of view. However, you may become aware of assumptions your side makes that others might legitimately question.
What learning the other languages can do is enable you to understand how others think about political issues. Instead of resorting to the theory that people with other views are crazy or stupid or evil, you may concede that they have a coherent point of view. In fact, their point of view could be just as coherent as yours. The problem is that those people apply their point of view in circumstances where you are fairly sure that it is not really appropriate.

Consider that there may be situations in which one frame describes the problem much better than the others. For example, I believe that the civil rights movement in the United States is best described using the progressive heuristic of the oppressed and the oppressor. In the 1950s and the early 1960s, the people who had the right model were the people who were fighting for black Americans to have true voting rights, equal access to housing, and an end to the Jim Crow laws. The civilization-barbarism axis and the liberty-coercion axis did not provide the best insight into
the issue….

Question 69

Which of the following can BEST be concluded from the above passage?

Solution

The best conclusion from the passage is option A.

The passage emphasizes the importance of understanding different moral frames or axes (oppressor-oppressed, civilization-barbarism, liberty-coercion) that people use to form their political views. By learning these “languages”, one can better understand others’ perspectives, even if they don’t agree with them.

Option B is incorrect. The passage doesn’t suggest that all controversial issues can be simplified into the three axes, but rather these axes represent different perspectives.

Option C is incorrect. The passage doesn’t state that our assumptions lead to our dominant axis, but it does suggest that understanding these axes can help us understand others’ perspectives.

Option D is incorrect. While the passage does mention that certain problems might be better understood through a specific axis, it doesn’t claim that issues can be solved by looking at them from the right axis and questioning assumptions.

Option E is incorrect. The passage doesn’t state that most problems are caused by applying the wrong axis to a particular problem but rather that different perspectives might be more or less applicable in different situations.


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