The Case Against Political Ideology

How you think matters more than what you think. ….. beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.
– Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner (2015), Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.
– Johnathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

People for the most part dislike ambiguity ….. people find it hard to resist filling in the missing data points with ideologically scripted event sequences. ….. People for the most part also dislike dissonance ….. Unfortunately, the world can be a morally messy place in which policies that one is predisposed to detest sometimes have positive effects and policies that one embraces sometimes have noxious ones.
– Philip Tetlock (2005), Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

…. the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. …. cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. …. the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.
– Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels (2016), Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Governments

One gets the sense, as my Post colleague Jennifer Rubin wrote, that if progressives championed the theory of gravity, conservatives would denounce it. In fact, public-opinion research suggests that many Republicans would be likely to support climate-change solutions if they were proposed by Republican leaders — and conversely many Democrats would be likely to oppose them even if they would have backed the very same policies when put forward by Democrats. We’ve already seen the parties flip positions on Russia because of Trump. That is the danger of ideology, and why I strive for an empirical, non-ideological approach instead, even if that leaves me in a political no-man’s land where I am sniped at by both sides.
– Max Boot (2108), Washington Post columnist, former republican commenting on the profound distrust that democrats and republicans feel toward each other


From a pragmatic, evidence and reason-based point of view, standard existing ideologies are factors that significantly contribute to, or directly cause, major social and political problems. Those problems are serious and potentially lethal. Current evidence argues that society and politics would be better off if standard, obsolete, ideologies were abandoned and replaced with a moral mindset that is empirical, non-ideological and focused on the core political values necessary to defend liberal democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.

Ideologies that people bring to bear on politics are typically grounded in some combination of political, economic and religious belief. When one identifies with a particular ideology mostly to the exclusion of others, that orthodox mindset makes a person an ideologue. Personal identity and self-esteem is usually tightly associated with strongly held ideological beliefs and loyalties. That usually makes it very hard or impossible to accept both inconvenient truths and weaknesses or inconsistencies that ideology can lead to. History, current events and cognitive and social science research all clearly show that strongly held ideological belief often leads many or most ideologues to distort or even rejects facts, truths or reasoning that undermine or contradict the ideology. In short, ideology leads the mind to unconsciously make the world and reasoning better fit with personal identity, beliefs and the values that underpin them.

Rejecting inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning ideology arises from normal human psychological traits. One of them is motivated reasoning or cognition. It is an unconscious process that works to reduce the discomfort that ambiguity and cognitive dissonance generates. We are inherently motivated to make the world and thinking conform to the dictates of both ideology and existing ideological beliefs. That often comes at the expense of facts and reasoning. One prominent libertarian became self-aware of the power of motivated reasoning to distort both facts and reasoning. He described it like this:

Ever since college I have been a libertarian—socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility. I also believe in science as the greatest instrument ever devised for understanding the world. So what happens when these two principles are in conflict? My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which our brain reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true. Knowing about the existence of motivated reasoning, however, can help us overcome it when it is at odds with evidence.

Two other harmful aspects of ideology in politics merit mention. The fist is that ideology leads people to be certain that their beliefs are correct, despite the obvious complexity and uncertainty inherent in the world and political issues. Ideology tends to kill open mindedness and intellectual freedom. It also tends to lead people to not see nuance or shades of gray. That closed mindedness leads people to disregard or even attack contrary facts, counterarguments and points of view that would create at least some uncertainty in most open minds. People with a less ideological and more pragmatic mindset are more open to possibilities that the world, facts and logic operate without the mental constraints that ideology imposes. One libertarian who rejected ideology altogether cites it as a both mental prison and a threat to freedom:

I have abandoned that libertarian project, however, because I have come to abandon ideology. This essay is an invitation for you to do likewise — to walk out of the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.” ….. Worse, [ideology] encourages fanaticism, disregard for social outcomes, and invites irresolvable philosophical disputes. It also threatens social pluralism — which is to say, it threatens freedom.

Another harmful aspect of ideology is its tendency to lead people to dehumanize other people and groups of people, including races. Dehumanization may decrease empathy toward dehumanized out-groups. That would tend to make politics less tolerant and more irrational than it is now. Social discord and conflict become more plausible. In a civil democracy, rational disputes center on ideas, not on vilification of political or social opposition. Dehumanization labels or even vilifies people, making it easy to ignore contrary ideas and beliefs with merit.

Currently, political rhetoric is rife with name calling. That tactic invariably foments negative emotions and irrationality. Derogatory use of labels such as un-American, socialist, fascist, atheist, libtard, liar, stupid and so forth attacks the target’s integrity, patriotism, intelligence, honesty and/or moral judgment. Once attacked, negative emotional reactions (anger, hate, fear, distrust, bigotry, etc.) arise instantly, making calm evidence and reason-based thinking and discussion difficult or impossible for most people.