Pragmatic rationalism: Summary and links to discussions

The context

Intolerance is almost inevitably accompanied by a natural and true inability to comprehend or make allowance for opposite points of view. . . . We find here with significant uniformity what one psychologist has called ‘logic-proof compartments.’ The logic-proof compartment has always been with us. -- Master propagandist Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion, 1923

We found ourselves at the end of chapter 3 with a dystopian assessment of democracy, an apparent ill-suited match between the mental apparatus of the public and the high-minded requirements of democracy: People should be well informed about politically important matters, but they are not. People should think rationally, but they most often do not. -- Political psychologist George Marcus, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics, and Politics, 2013

“. . . . 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 H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, Democracy For Realists: Why Elections Do not Produce Responsive Governments, 2016

The tedious thing

The issue of my political ideology comes up from time to time, usually when I'm being criticized as unreasonably biased, partisan, socialist, stupid or whatever. It's tedious to repeatedly explain my ideology, pragmatic rationalism (PR). A post summarizing it and linking to past posts is in order. 

Short summary: PR is an ideology based on moral values of (i) acceptance of facts, true truths and sound reasoning, especially whenever they are inconvenient or cognitive dissonance-inducing, (ii) service to the public interest (it's complicated but it favors democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, transparency, honesty, balancing of public and private interests, reasonable regulation of commerce, etc.), and (iii) reasonable compromise to ward off authoritarianism.

PR is intended to be an anti-biasing, anti-ideology ideology. It is intended to help reduce emotion to increase rationality and acceptance of inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning. It mostly ignores things like conservatism, liberalism, socialism, capitalism, Christianity and so forth. Disputes about those are essentially contested, and thus for the most part resolvable only by compromise or brute force. 

PR focuses mostly on what most people claim their politics is based on, facts, true truths, sound reasoning, what's best for the people and the country (service to the public interest) and for pro-democracy people, reasonable compromise. Things like personal morals, self-esteem and group loyalty are baked into the 'service to the public interest' moral value. Maybe most of those can be called less contested concepts, especially facts. Despite facts being either mostly or completely objective, they are still often contested, usually they are inconvenient, i.e., when they generate cognitive dissonance.

PR is an anti-biasing, anti-ideology ideology: Political, economic and religious ideologies tend to lead the believer's mind to distort, deny or downplay facts, reality, truths and sound reasoning that are inconvenient. Humans hate cognitive dissonance, ambiguity and uncertainty. The human mind evolved to rationalize uncomfortable things into other things or nothings that are more psychologically comfortable. (June 3, 2019 post)

An attempted brief explanation of PR: It's not clear this attempt succeeds, but it's there. (Dec. 28, 2019 post)

Shared traits of bad leaders: Books teach that bad leaders tend to be ruthlessly demagogic and authoritarian. They usually (~97% of the time?) rely more on deceit, lies, slanders, irrational, emotional manipulation and flawed motivated reasoning. The emotional manipulation usually appeals to and foments negative emotions such as unwarranted fear, anger, hate, bigotry, intolerance and distrust, all of which tend to divide and polarize societies. Propaganda based significantly or completely on motivated reasoning generally makes arguments on some combination of emotional manipulation, logic flaws, deceit, lies, opacity and slanders of target individuals, groups and/or nations. (Aug. 10, 2019 post) 

Self-criticism of PR: Many criticisms can be leveled at PR, e.g., it is impractical for whole societies, especially ones awash in propaganda, opacity and deceit like the US. That is probably true. Nonetheless, considering criticisms helps to clarify what might be possible and what probably isn't. (Aug. 13, 2015 post)

How PR fits with social science research: Short answer is that PR fits. It should fit because it is built largely on human cognitive biology, neuroscience, psychology, social behavior science and related sciences. There's also a strong streak of moral philosophy inherent in PR. 

This quote from a 2013 book chapter on ideology exemplifies the fit:

While I will review a great deal of important research on the structure and determinants of political ideology in this chapter it is important not to lose sight of the implications of low levels of political knowledge, instability in measures of issues preferences, and multiple dimensions of issue preferences when evaluating research on individual-level political ideology. At a minimum, these findings encourage us to consider models of ideology that do not require a great deal of sophistication from most people and to be aware of the limits of ideology among nonelites. --- Feldman, S. (2013). Political ideology. In L. Huddy, D. O. Sears, & J. S. Levy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political psychology (pp. 591–626). Oxford University Press.

Based on that, a test for PR asks if it is too sophisticated for nonelites to adopt a pro-rationalism mindset that looks to facts, true truths and sound reasoning as a major basis for political thinking and belief. (Aug. 15, 2021 post)

Complexity is unavoidably embedded in PR: Politics is very complicated, despite strenuous argument from some that it isn't. It just is. That is inherent in the human condition and the workings of the human mind. Therefore, PR is necessarily complicated, although at one time I used to naïvely think it was simple. Now I know better.

For example, service to the public interest and many of the concepts it includes are complex because they are essentially contested. There is thus no authoritative definition or agreement on definitions about when and how they apply in various circumstances. That is an unavoidable aspect of politics. That is why reasonable compromise is necessary in a democracy. In a dictatorship, autocracy, neo-fascism, plutocracy or other non-democratic form of government, definitions and compromise are at the whim of the person or people in power. (July 11, 2020 post)