Plato
In his 2103 book, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics and Politics, political science professor George Marcus describes the origin of the Western intellectual framework that shapes and constrains how social sciences approach the science of politics. That framework both reveals and hides questions for research. For the most part, Marcus conveys a cautionary tale about the modern mindset and its conceptions of time, reason and emotion.
He is trying to teach self-awareness and some humility in the face of the subtle power of the modern intellectual framework. It is a lens or mindset that can distort reality and understanding. Nonetheless, we view politics through that modern Western lens even though it sometimes misleads us. The trick for the open-minded is to be self-aware and on guard. The following is based on chapter 3, A Short History of a Long Tradition.
The short history and its lessons were written for students of political psychology and related disciplines such as sociology. However, the core facts and ideas are helpful, maybe necessary, for people who want to be informed, rational citizens operating on the basis of objective evidence to the extent that influencer is available to the public. Even though social sciences knowledge and reality is constrained by empirical data and error-correction by peer-review, there is a powerful, subtle agenda that operates mostly unconsciously.
The Enlightenment Agenda: That modern agenda is grounded in the 17th and 18th century intellectual ferment in the Europe and the US. The ferment is called The Enlightenment and it constitutes a powerful social science agenda. Marcus points out that an agenda identifies ideas that are seen as important and what one would expect to find based on those ideas or assumptions. Regarding The Enlightenment, he comments: “Those ideas, and the agenda that they defined, have become so widely shared and so deeply embedded that they have become largely invisible with few to challenge its assumptions. And, as Plato argued, shared beliefs are not only likely to become invisible, when a rare iconoclast raises a challenge to accepted wisdoms, the response is hardly a welcome one.” Plato in his classic work, The Republic, in defense of philosopher kings and enlightened aristocrats as the best form of government, writes that the iconoclast will be killed. That is definitely not a welcome response.
Marcus points out that the human mind both hides and protects the unity we think we see. That Enlightenment unity gives the world coherence and meaning, even in situations where there is no rational basis for coherence. Regarding how the mind operates and self-deceives, Marcus comments: “As we shall see, Plato anticipated this research by more than two millennia. . . . . Rather, we all evince this same protective shield. The goal of the sections that follow is to make the invisible visible. This chapter is intended to ruffle some feathers: yours in particular.” One can only wonder what it is like to take professor Marcus’ political psychology class.
Also, one can only wonder how it was that Plato, by simple observation alone in his lifetime (c.428-347 B.C.), observed and correctly interpreted the fundamentally self-deceiving basis by which the mind operates when dealing with politics. That must have been some mind.
Aristotle
Two Western Conceptions of Time: Pre-Enlightenment & Enlightenment: Professor Marcus’ short history described two different Western conceptions of time. He argues that understanding the two different conceptions of time are necessary to understanding politics. Existing evidence shows that most people are inconsistent about which conception of time they apply in their thinking, and instead “most of us adhere haphazardly to one or the other as circumstances warrant.” The pre-Enlightenment mind conceived of time as operating in cycles. In that mindset, political regimes started, grew, matured and then lost vitality and withered. It was an endless cycle. The parallels to spring, summer, fall and winter are obvious. The modern or Enlightenment conception of time see it as a one-way arrow, always moving forward with increasing knowledge and social progress.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt is credited with pointing out that the distinction between the premodern and the modern conceptions of time constituted a radical mindset change. In the premodern mind, political regime change was seen as a ‘revolution’, which reflected the view of time as cyclical. Both mindsets have major implications for how the world is perceived and understood. In the case of the premodern mindset: “We search for the recurring patterns that provide us with confidence that our past foretells our future.” In other words, the cycle of time defines our fate. In turn, that leads many people to a belief that it is best not to go against our fate or destiny because that can lead to disaster. At this point, Marcus argues: “Time as cyclical, especially when married to the idea of fate and destiny, is inherently conservative, protective of the established social order, established political authority, and dominant traditions.” That thought leads to this important point:
“In addition, with time as cyclical, the debate between advocates of democracy, such as Aristotle, and those who advocated aristocratic rule, such as Plato, is stable. Nothing new will alter that debate as human nature is fixed and our natures either suit us for democracy, as some have it, or for aristocracy as others have it.”
Marcus then points out that with the premodern view of time as cyclic, the role of political psychology is limited because what government and politics can do, at most, is ease the passage of time for people. Trying to challenge the limits that cyclical time imposes is pointless folly. From that point of view, an important political psychology goal would be to develop knowledge of what leads to virtue and what leads to corruption. Obviously, that is an important goal for adherents of the modern linear, or probably any other, view of time. At least, that is how it appears to this observer.
By contrast with the premodern continual vision of self-renewing cycles of time, the modern or Enlightenment thinkers “reconceived time as an engine that, as a train on tracks, drives along a line from past to future. Time as progress replaced time as cyclical repetition. . . . . The modern conception of time understands time as a linear progression from an older and archaic way of life to a new, younger, and more progressive way of life.” Here, life is seen to progress from early, immature stages of political belief and behavior to later, more refined stages. The later stages are better able to adapt to changing forces such as social, economic and environmental changes.
For example, Karl Marx saw politics as an inevitable progression of class conflict from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism, to socialism and finally to communism. In a way, time is seen as an arrow. For Marx, the engine of progress is class struggle. For Immanuel Kant, the engine is war. For Alexis de Tocqueville, based on his direct observations of, and thinking about, the new US democracy in 1831 and thereafter, the engine of progress is democracy: “Hence, democracy becomes the institutional regime most likely to accelerate progress because a democratic regime enables more people to engage in private and public deliberation on the means by which their sundry preferences can be justified and realized.”
Pre-Modern vs Modern Visions of the Role of Emotion and Reason: Disagreements on the nature and political importance of emotion and reason date at least back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato’s view led him to the conclusion that the masses are too influenced by emotion and thus enlightened and trained aristocrats and/or an enlightened philosopher king constituted the best form of government. Plato argued that knowledge alone should be the basis for governance, and as mentioned above, people will kill in defense of the false beliefs, myths and illusions that most people live by. He saw that as placing beliefs over truth: “Plato argued that to give the public a role in public affairs would introduce assertive opinion, what today political psychologists would call ‘motivated reasoning’. Hence, it is no surprise that Plato predicted that when truth confronts belief, the result would be the killing of truth-sayers.”
By contrast, Aristotle advocated for democracy based on the collective wisdom of the crowd as a source of intellectual and situational diversity. Aristotle believed rule by many was a better basis for governance than intellectual and situational diversity of one or a few rulers. In his view, collective public wisdom was superior to the wisdom of the one or the few. He saw governance as best based on a combination of objective knowledge and subjective goals of the people. Aristotle correctly understood that emotions and passions cannot be ignored in political thinking.
Marcus points out that Plato’s teacher, Socrates, was put to death by a democratically elected Athenian jury precisely for the crime of challenging sacred Athenian beliefs. Could that have influenced Plato to some extent? It is also interesting to note that Aristotle was an Athenian where political leaders were elected. Plato was citizen of Sparta, which was governed by kings.
Marcus commented on reason and emotion: “The interest in reason and emotion arose because it addressed the foremost question that has long engaged us: Where can we find the knowledge so that whichever regime we adopt it will be virtuous?” That arguably is the central question of our time. For example, why is the obvious corruption of President Trump seemingly acceptable to so many of his supporters and populists in general?
Emotion was generally viewed by all observers as an impediment to rational, good government and thus something that people should and can set aside. Modern cognitive science and neuroscience has shown it is impossible to separate emotion from politics. Emotion is biologically unavoidable. And, it can be very helpful. What needs to be kept in mind is that emotion can mislead and sow deep civil divisions, misery and war. When that happens, self-awareness is necessary for conscious reason to temper irrational, destructive emotions. Marcus argued that emotions are not rational.
The Three Key Influencers: Reason, Emotion & Interest: In view of the possibility, if not inevitability, of emotion in politics, philosophers have long struggled with how to deal with that reality. Enlightenment thinkers came up with the concept of interest, meaning self-interest and the public interest, to account for differences between conscious reason and emotion, which exerts effects in mostly unconscious ways. Pre-Enlightenment thinking held that reason and emotion were the main influencers. Enlightenment thinking held that reason, emotion and interest were the driving influencers. Current research has shown that interest is a powerful unconscious influence on perceptions of political reality and thinking or reasoning about it.
Therein lies a major issue: “Because interests do not reside in the self-aware mental region, we may not know what our ‘interests’ are.” That can lead to false beliefs about what objectively a person’s or the public’s interests are. The power of interest arises from a combination of unconscious calculating emotion and conscious reason heavily influenced by the emotion. The evidence that interest exerts major influences on both perception and reason is solid and not debated among experts. Evidence that people are significantly unaware of their own and the public interests is strong, maybe close to the point of being settled science.
Conservatism vs Liberalism: Marcus points out that most social scientists self-identify as liberals. One study found more than 95% of social scientists are liberals.[1] Therein lies a problem for the social sciences. Shared liberal values become invisible. That can obscure the conservative point of view and its values. Marcus cautions: “Perhaps the answer is that in any given case, our species is better off for having both orientations distributed among us than having just one modal position.” He argues that there are potential dangers and rewards in taking either a liberal or a conservative path. He also criticizes the Enlightenment view that has unduly downplayed emotions, thereby skewing visions of reality. He sees progress as both an empirical tale and a moral story.
The Human Condition: Marcus gives a sobering assessment. Progress has not been a straight line. Politics has not gone according to the Enlightenment plan. Accumulating evidence continues to show that reason and rationality is not displacing the role of emotion. Interest helps explain some aspects, but emotion continues to be a powerful influencer. The issue is coming to terms with what it is to be human. In reference to economics, sociology and social psychology there is an ongoing problem: “Blindness to the constraints induced by progressive convictions is not limited to political psychology. . . . . The problem of explanation without a clear recognition and understanding of the normative foundations of political psychology [] will limit the value of our research to show us what is and what is not plausible, let alone possible.”
Clearly, the evidence-based anti-bias ideology advocated here at B&B crashes directly into this concern about the nature and limits of the human mind acting alone and in groups, tribes and societies. How much more and what more, if anything, are possible in terms of evidence- and reason-based politics? The answers are unknowable. So far, no major ideology and social institution predicated on elevating the role reason to some non-trivial extent has had a fair test on a large, nation-size scale. Given that, the immense power of social institutions as sociologist Peter Berger described in his 1963 book, Invitation to Sociology, has never been tested in human history.
The situation is not all bleak. Marcus point out that neuroscience is rapidly changing our view of time, reason, emotion and knowledge, all of which can point to new possibilities. Therein lies the best hope for new understandings in how to try to deal with the problems that political psychology has been struggling with at least since Plato and Aristotle engaged in their sparring match over two thousand years ago.
Footnote:
1. One observer pointed out that maybe conservatives avoid the social sciences because much of what has been found contradicts conservatism to some extent. Some research suggests that conservatives are generally more uncomfortable with cognitive dissonance associated with ambiguity and contradictions than most liberals tend to be. In other words, social science just might be too psychologically uncomfortable for most conservative minds to find much appeal in that branch of the sciences.
B&B orig: 11/22/18
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