Incoherent politics
At one time, politics and political rhetoric more or less
made sense most of the time. Or, at least it that’s what it seemed. In the
1990’s, that was true less often and by the early 2000’s politics and political
rhetoric appeared to be incoherent nearly all the time. That was from a mostly
objective, open-minded point of view.
From subjective liberal democrat and conservative republican
contemporary viewpoints, their own side mostly makes sense, while the
opposition sounds more and more incoherent at best, and stupid, lunatic and/or
treasonous at worst. How independents, about 43% of Americans according
to one poll, see both sides today is unclear. Since independents
self-identify as independent it probably isn’t much different than how the two
sides see each other.
Casting about in liberal, conservative, socialist,
capitalist and religious theory or ideology for insight shed no light why
politics seemed so incoherent. Other factors, such as corruption of politics by
special interest money, or sacrifice of the public interest in service to the
two-party system (the press-media included) didn’t really explain the situation
either. All of those factors seemed to be secondary to something else. In other
words, neither political, economic or religious theory nor a subverted
political system offered a convincing basis for an explanation.
Failed ideologies
The sources of mainstream theory completely contradict each
other despite being held in the highest esteem by their supporters. In addition,
different partisan factions looking at the same issue usually
see vastly different facts and their common sense usually arrives at
opposite or incompatible policy choices. Simply dismissing the two-party system,
including the press-media, as corrupt and/or inept does not explain that
situation. What passes for acceptable facts, rhetoric and logic among the
partisans in some factions but not others has to be based on inexplicable hysteria/dementia
or something else.
The biology of being human
Looking outside the authoritative sources that drive
mainstream political opinion provides the answer. Over the last 40 years or so,
social and biological sciences have figured out enough of the biology of human
cognition to reasonably explain the situation. It turns out that humans
are mostly irrational or subjective about how they see reality and apply
logic or common sense to what they see. Reasoning or objectivity is much less
influential and usually not involved. When humans do apply reason to issues or
situations, the point of the exercise is to find the best reasons why somebody
else ought to join us in our judgment, not to critically assess the
accuracy or logical coherence of our own perceptions of reality and beliefs.
In addition to intuitive-subjective dominance, human
intuition in politics operates in a personal moral framework. Politics and
policy choices are constrained by morality based on the values of conservative
and liberal ideology and how those moral
frameworks affect reasoning and perceptions of reality or facts. Social science
research indicates that personal ideology is a key driver of false
fact beliefs and presenting ideologues real facts has limited capacity to
affect personal opinions. When faced with facts or logic that undermines
personal belief, humans tend to look for support, while rejecting or ignoring
disconfirming evidence. It all happens fast and unconsciously.
This happens all the time in politics and real life. People
who deny that anthropogenic climate change is real or caused by humans reject
the science and/or scientists who support it. People who distrust vaccines as
dangerous and refuse to get their kids vaccinated do the about the same thing.
Facts and logic that undercuts personal morals or beliefs are routinely
downplayed or rejected.
Given the way the human mind works as a spin machine, it
raises two fundamental questions. First, is it better to rationally understand
the way the world really is or how we want it to be? Second, is there a better
way to approach politics despite our innate unconscious biological urges to
distort fact and logic in the name of personal ideology or morals?
Fact and logic is better than fantasy and illogic
Most ideologues of any political, economic or religious
persuasion would argue that they do base their politics on facts and logic. There
is an implied, if not explicit, consensus that fact- and logic-based politics
is better than false fact- and biased logic-based politics. Even without the
implicit consensus, the first question’s answer is that fact- and logic-based
politics is better. People who disagree are wrong from an objective point of
view.
An affirmative answer to the second question becomes apparent
if one (i) accepts the foregoing description of the biology of subjective politics
and (ii) prefers reality over fantasy. Political beliefs are common sense and
unconscious intuitive moral judgments that come with standard political
ideologies. Since ideological morals or values bend fact and logic to their
dictates, objective politics necessarily has to be based on political ideology
or morals that are designed to minimize unconscious distortion of facts and
logic.
Three morals for objectivity
The simplest set of objective morals or political principle that accomplishes the
goal of minimizing distortion is to accept the ideology of (1) fidelity to
unbiased fact and (2) fidelity to unbiased logic, (3) in service to a broadly
but objectively
defined public interest. The broad public interest definition is needed to
minimize the inevitable fact and logic distortion that narrow ideologies such
as liberalism, conservatism, capitalism or socialism generates. No existing
political, economic or religious theory is based on the modern understanding of
the biology of human cognition and that, coupled with ideologies not based on
that understanding, serve to make politics incoherent, inefficient and
relatively corrupt. No prior theory of politics could be based on modern
cognitive science because that knowledge did not exist until now.
Obviously, asking people to switch to a political ideology
or moral framework based on fact, logic and serving the public interest asks a
quite a lot. Conservatives will reject it as creeping socialism or worse and
defend the conservative values, e.g., anti-government, low regulation
sentiment, that made America great. Liberals would similarly reject it and
defend the liberal values, e.g., the social safety net, that made America
great.
However, for people who see the two-party system and its
business as usual as incoherent, inept or corrupt, this proposal to base
politics on the reality of human biology should be of some interest. If nothing
else, it represents the first fundamentally new approach to politics in at
least the last millennium or two. Think of the proposal as objective politics
v. 2.0, with everything that has gone before as subjective politics v. 1.0.
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