“I do not myself believe that many people do things because they think they are the right thing to do . . . . I do not think that knowledge of what is morally right is motivational in any serious sense for anyone except a handful of saints.” Richard Posner commenting about the influence of social context (society) on personal morals from his point of view as a US federal judge
Society not only controls our movements, but shapes our identity, our thought, and our emotions. . . . . [in large part social institutions are] structures of our own consciousness. Sociologist Peter Berger commenting on the power of social institutions to shape perceptions of reality and how we think about what we think we see
Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t. Republicans have long understood that the elephant is in charge of political behavior, not the rider, and they know how elephants work. Their slogans, political commercials and speeches go straight for the gut . . . . Republicans don’t just aim to cause fear, as some Democrats charge. They trigger the full range of intuitions described by Moral Foundations Theory. Psychologist Johnathan Haidt commenting on the basis for political thinking in the context of the individual
The foregoing observations raise the question about where the balance of power in the human mind resides. Are we mostly individual, independent thinkers, or are we mostly social creatures who see and act as members of the herd who usually go with the herd?
The debate dates back to Plato (we're members of the herd) and Aristotle (we're independent). The dispute underpins a debate about governance that dates at least back to Plato and Aristotle and continues today. The modern debate pits belief that authoritarian rule is best (Plato's choice) against belief that democratic rule is best (Aristotle's choice). In modern America, that more or less boils down to support for populist rulers like President Trump versus support for democratic norms, e.g., respect for truth and a free press, that existed in the US until Trump crushed them.
What is more influential, personal morals and thinking, or social influences? If we are Plato's herd creatures, he argued that benevolent authoritarian rule would be best because the herd is a spooky, emotional thing that is easily spooked and provoked into unwarranted fear, anger, hate and so forth. If Trump really is an example of an authoritarian, he appears to be a corrupt, not benevolent (virtuous) kind of authoritarian that Plato tried to argue against.
On the other hand, the malicious or corrupt 'Trump type' is probably part of what drove Aristotle to reject authoritarianism in favor of democracy. Of course, the problem with that is that Trump was sort of democratically elected. That shows the weakness in Aristotle's reasoning -- democracies can be corrupt. Authoritarian regimes can rise by persuading people to support a strong man. Complicating this for Trump is illegal Russian influence. Trump might have been a truly legitimate president, and that cloud of contention would would not be hanging over him and his presidency. Enough American voters in 2016 saw more good than bad in Trump and they (with Russia) helped elect a bad leader.
Is there a conflict between Haidt's conception of how the mind works with politics and the social creature conception expressed by Posner and Berger? Are we social sheeple or independent thinkers? Given how modern science sees this, there arguably is no significant conflict because both personal and social influences can and probably usually do operate simultaneously most or all of the time. That said, existing evidence suggests that most people are more influenced by social context and social identity than pure individual perceptions of reality and thinking.
That assessment makes sense because, if nothing else, doing all the thinking for one's self imposes a very high cognitive load. It is literally impossible to think everything through as an individual. Reliance on the herd helps to reduce the cognitive load to something semi-manageable. This isn't a matter of human stupidity. It is a matter of limited innate human cognitive data processing power that has to operate in an ocean of dark free speech intended to mislead, deceive and emotionally manipulate.
Was the situation about the same in ancient times? Probably. Human traits and temperaments do not seem to have changed much since Plato and Aristotle debated. They clearly saw and understood liars, deceivers, brutes and blowhards making runs for power. They tried to figure ways to avoid bad leadership through government structures intended to block bad governance. They wound up at odds. Since then no solution to the bad leader problem has been found.
There may be no full solution, because the problem is innate to human cognitive biology and social behavior. Maybe the best the species can do is to design a partial solution where government structure makes it hard for bad leaders to do bad things and almost impossible to do very bad things. If nothing else, it looks like building consensus for a better form of government will have to take account of individual and social influences because both are relevant.
B&B orig: 12/7/18
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