Strange politics: Childless cat ladies; A terrible human being; Germaine's darts

Distractify writes about Ann Coulter at Faux News:

Ann, a childless, cruel cat lady

and a fibber

Few pundits have a more prominent platform in America than Ann Coulter, who has existed in the conservative ecosystem for decades. Part of being an edgy pundit, especially on the right, means that you've got to be willing to stir up some controversy. But Coulter really stepped in it after criticizing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's son Gus following Walz's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Walz's son Gus has a learning disorder, and he went viral for tearing up during his father's speech. Gus's emotional response suggests just how much he loves his father and how proud he is of him. Coulter, meanwhile, wrote "Talk about weird" in response to Gus's teary viral moment. Following that tweet, which was eventually deleted, many wanted to know whether Coulter has kids of her own.

Coulter has been engaged several times, but she has never been married and she does not have any kids. .... Ultimately, though, she does not have any children, which many who saw her comment about Gus Walz thought might explain why she didn't understand the kind of bond the governor has with his children.

"Ann Coulter obviously doesn’t have children. I’d bet she has never felt loved in her entire life as well," one fairly harsh person wrote on Threads.

"The people attacking or making fun of 17-year-old Gus Walz just don’t understand what JOY and LOVE are all about. They wish they had someone who cared as much about them as Gus does his dad," another person wrote on Twitter.

In fact, Coulter's tweet was the rare comment that was so appalling that it united basically everyone, even in this fraught political climate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a son getting emotional because of his love for his father, and that's true whether that son is neurodivergent or not. Whether you agree with Tim Walz's politics or not, his son loves him, and that isn't a partisan issue. 

After facing backlash over her tweet about Gus, Coulter offered an explanation for why she had decided to pull down her original tweet. “I took it down as soon as someone told me he’s autistic, but it's Democrats who go around calling everyone weird thinking it's hilariously funny," she wrote.

That is pretty strange. Dems allegedly call everyone weird. Coulter is not just cruel, she is also a liar.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

In other strangeness, RFK Jr. endorsed DJT as he dropped out of the campaign. Good grief, how hypocritical, shameless and morally rotted can a person get? Pretty darned hypocritical, shameless and immoral. First, he tries to get a position of power from Harris, but she turned him down. So, he flies into a snit and endorses DJT to exact his revenge and soothe his hurt ego and fee-fees. 

How hypocritical and shameless? This much:

A mobile billboard sponsored by MoveOn.org displayed RFK Jr.'s insults of DJT before he endorsed him. The truck drove around Phoenix during Trump and RFK Jr.'s mutual lovefest at a rally Friday in nearby Glendale. Last month, RFK Jr. slammed Donald Trump as "probably a sociopath," a "terrible human being," and the "worst president ever and barely human" during the Republican National Convention in text messages obtained by The New Yorker. He has also called Trump "unhinged."

Also showing a fine example of morally rotted shameless blither, Trump previously criticized Kennedy as a "radical left lunatic" and a "plant" from the left to help then-candidate Joe Biden get reelected. At the Arizona rally, Trump welcomed RFK Jr. to the stage, heaped praise on him, and said his late dad and uncle JFK were "looking down" on him with pride. But all that went away as RFK Jr. and DJT made nice to each other in Arizona.

Bad birds of a feather flock together. Very bad birds. And very strange.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Finally, the strangest thing of all, assuming it is real, which it may not be, probably isn't . . . . . 

In the last week or so there has been a slow, tiny trickle of journalists and opinion columnists who are starting to act like they have read and understood the darts that Germaine has sent to them (but they have not responded to). What darts? Pointy ones that criticize the MSM, journalists, columnists and editors for calling MAGA, DJT and radical right authoritarians and their radical right authoritarianism things like "conservatives", "right wing", "conservatism" and the like. 

So far, very few professionals have made the apparently huge mental leap from seeing DJT and MAGA as merely conservative to seeing them for what they clearly are, i.e. radical right authoritarians. 

As an example, I recently sent this dart about standard MSM labeling of DJT and MAGA elites generally:

A comment comes to mind. Most of the GOP elites and MAGA generally are not merely conservative or on the right. In view of all the evidence in the public record, including their support for Trump and his deeply corrupt and openly radical right authoritarian politics, why refer to those people and/or their politics as merely "conservative" or "right wing"? That normalizes something that is very abnormal.

It is both neutral and more accurate to refer to the MAGA movement as authoritarian and its elites as radical right anti-democracy authoritarians. America's radical right is clearly pursuing some form of kleptocratic radical right authoritarian government for America. MAGA clearly wants to build government and society based on some undefined but unholy trinity of kleptocratic dictatorship, kleptocratic plutocracy and kleptocratic Christian theocracy. Project 2025 is solid evidence of radical authoritarianism, and so is how Trump acted when he was in office and still acts today. Other than being older and less mentally stable, his politics and tactics have not changed much. Nearly all the old-fashioned conservatives in the GOP have been RINO hunted out of power and/or the party. The real conservatives are at places like The Bulwark.

Please stop favoring Trump, MAGA and American authoritarianism by calling it something nicer than what it factually is. Calling authoritarianism "conservative", "right wing" or the like is the epitome of false balancing. It also insults conservatives and all Americans who are still pro-democracy, pro-civil liberties, pro-rule of law and accepting of facts and truths even when they are inconvenient.

Anyway, a few bits from the MSM are indicating that at least a few in the MSM business might be starting to think roughly the same way. For example, at ~1:20 - 1:50 minutes of this 8-minute video (MSNBC interview with Katy Tur), NYT columnist David French argues that the Republican party institutionally is not recognizably conservative. French is one of the MSM people who got darted by Germaine.

French is one of the MSMsters who recently seem to be inching toward calling DJT, the GOP elites and MAGA something closer to what they really are. Later in the interview (~2:30 - 2:55), Tur herself seems to recognize that something fundamental has changed in the Republican Party, making it into something different from what many or most rank and file Republicans believe it is.

Q1: Is Germaine off his rocker for thinking that his darts are even read by the unlucky MSM recipients?

Q2: Assuming that most rank and file Republicans are unaware of the fundamental shift in the GOP from basically pro-democracy to pro-authoritarian and anti-democracy (and that is probably true), what responsibility do they bear, if any, for enabling DJT and his MAGA threat, e.g., are they deceived but complicit authoritarians?

Inappropriate attack on an opponent or damn funny?

 Since I am on the theme of inappropriateness (as per my thread on my forum), I thought I would ask if the following video is an inappropriate attack on an opponent, or just damn funny.

One one hand, we could say Trump deserves this, or we could argue we have to put up with Greg Gutfeld so what goes around comes around, right?

On the other we could argue don't lower ourselves to THEIR level. Trump loves attacking the spouses of his rivals, so is it lowering ourselves to stoop to his level?

Tell us what YOU THINK.

Inappropriate or damn funny? 

Was the 1/6 riot at the capitol an insurrection, a coup attempt or something else?

Some people, e.g., me, saw the riot at the capitol on 1/6 as a coup attempt. Some deny that, but call it an insurrection. Others, e.g., the Republican Party, downplay it and/or legitimize it various ways, such as calling it legitimate political discourse.  

Insurrection

Reasons for calling it an insurrection include 

(i) it met the definition of an insurrection as "a rising against civil or political authority", 

(ii) the attackers used force to breach multiple police barriers, assault law enforcement officers, and illegally enter the Capitol building, 

(iii) thousands of people participated in the attack, overwhelming law enforcement, 

(iv) the violence resulted in multiple deaths and over 140 police officers injured, 

(v) the attack disrupted a core constitutional process (certification of electoral votes) and forced the evacuation of Congress, 

(vi) many participants openly discussed plans for violent action in the weeks leading up to January 6, 

(vii) the attackers had specific targets, including attempts to locate Vice President Pence and members of Congress, and 

(viii) the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for "incitement of insurrection". 

Most experts call DJT's 1/6 event an insurrection.

Coup attempt

Reasons for calling it a coup attempt include  

(i) The attack was planned, not spontaneous and had been discussed openly by Trump supporters for weeks beforehand,

(ii) the goal was to stop the certification of the 2020 election results and keep Trump in power despite his loss,
(iii) force was used to try to seize government power via violently storming the Capitol,
(iv) the attack was incited by the president, e.g., Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol and "fight",
(v) some government officials were involved, and that constituted an attempt to use governmental power to overturn the election,
(vi) The events align with contemporary and historical definitions of "insurrection" as a violent uprising against civil authority or the government,
(vii) some experts draw comparisons to events like Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch, which was also a short-lived, localized attempt to seize power, and
(viii) the attack posed a serious threat to the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of democratic governance.

One definition of a coup attempt is it is an unsuccessful sudden and illegal effort by a small group to overthrow an existing government or leader through force or violence. Key aspects include, (i) it is carried out by a small group, often military or political elites, rather than a large popular movement, and (ii) it aims to be sudden and decisive, often occurring over a short period of hours or days. What was different about DJT's coup attempt from the norm was that DJT's goal was not to rapidly seize power and replace the existing leadership or government, but instead prevent him from losing power. 

According to that definition, coup attempts can vary widely in their level of planning, coordination, and violence. Some may be well-organized military operations, while others could be more spontaneous or poorly executed. The term can apply to events ranging from elaborate plots to seize power to more impromptu efforts to disrupt the existing government.

Some argue that DJT's 1/6 attack lacks some characteristics usually associated with coups, such as a lack of sufficient organization and planning. Some argue that DJT's 1/6 attack was too disorganized, delusional, and poorly planned to count as a real, serious coup attempt. Instead, that arguments characterizes 1/6 depending on "arcane procedures and 'magical thinking'" and being "ill-conceived and poorly coordinated".

Other factors cited for rejecting the coup attempt label include (i) an absence of a national economic or security crises, instead the only "crisis" was Trump losing an election, (ii) lack of significant government support, (iii) there was no military involvement, (iv) it was focused only on the Capitol in Washington D.C., rather than involving multiple cities, and (v), it didn't last long enough to be considered a coup, though this is disputed by some experts

For me, the clear intent of DJT and his co-conspirators in and out of government itself to block the transfer of power by violence made 1/6 a coup attempt. That it was short lived, based on magical thinking or lacking military involvement does not change that belief. If the 1/6 event had succeeded the intended result was to keep DJT in power by lies and violence despite losing the election. 

Something else

As noted above, the Republican Party called the 1/6 attack legitimate political discourse. That argument often points to the people there who were peaceful and just wanted to exercise their right to protest a stolen election. That the election was not stolen did not matter. Some shift the blame for 1/6 violence on others like Nancy Pelosi, or a deep state false flag attack by government infiltrators wanting to discredit DJT. Other false claims include the Republican assertion that (i) the rioters were completely unarmed, and (ii) the police invited the rioters into the capitol building. 

2023 poll: in 2023 fewer believed the 2020

election was legitimate than in 2021 --

DJT's Big Lie is working

Cognitive biology: A protocol for debiasing causal illusions in school children

Researchers in Spain are publishing results of a large scale experiment (n = 1668) to train high school students to resist forming cause and effect linkages when none exist. Such linkages, called causal illusions, are usually part of the reasoning that can lead many people to beliefs in pseudoscience, stereotypes and other unjustified, false beliefs. The researchers write:

Causal illusions consist of believing that there is a causal relationship between events that are actually unrelated. This bias is associated with pseudoscience, stereotypes, and other unjustified beliefs. .... [The research] included a pilot study (n = 287, grades 8-9), a large-scale implementation (n = 1,668; 40 schools, grades 8-10) and a six-month follow-up (n = 353). Results showed medium-to-large and long-lasting effects on the reduction of causal illusions. To our knowledge, this is the first research showing the efficacy and long-term effects of a debiasing intervention against causal illusions that can be used on a large scale through the educational system.

This ability to infer causal relationships in our environment has conferred important survival advantages to both humans and other animals, since it allows us to anticipate changes and adjust our behavior accordingly. However, our ability to detect causal patterns is not error-free. In some cases, it has been shown that individuals can erroneously infer a cause-effect relationship between events that are actually unrelated. This cognitive bias is known as causality bias, or causal illusion.

Causal illusions often lead to suboptimal decisions and can produce undesirable outcomes that underlie many social issues. For example, they have been associated with social stereotypes, ideological extremism, epistemically unwarranted beliefs such as paranormal, superstitious, and pseudoscientific beliefs, and the use of alternative and complementary medicine, among others.

There is evidence that not only adults but also children can show causal illusions. In fact, children and adolescents might be especially vulnerable to causal illusion as they lack the basic cognitive skills and background knowledge exhibited by adults, which are important characteristics involved in causal judgment. (citations removed for clarity)

In the face of these threats to human well-being that are associated with causal illusions as well as with other cognitive biases, the design of debiasing methods represents a major goal of modern psychology.

That accords with the intend behind pragmatic rationalism being an anti-biasing, anti-ideology ideology. This research is an example of the feasibility of teaching school children defense against the dark arts of dark free speech, crackpot reasoning in this case.

As usual, this research needs to be replicated and expanded to verify the results and to see if more effective protocols would give better results. The protocol amounted to a single 90 minute session with an initial bias induction phase, followed by a training (debiasing) phase. The bias-induction phase showed the students that they, not just other people, are vulnerable to forming causal illusions and the potential adverse consequences of holding false beliefs. That teaching was intended to motivate students about learning how to correct the problem in the second phase of the teaching protocol. The researchers described key parts of the induction of illusion phase protocol like this:

Thus, the induction phase was conducted with the aim of generating a biased judgment about the effectiveness of a target product among the participants, by using techniques that are common in advertising and pseudoscience. The target product was a metal ring (replacing the small piece of ferrite used by Barberia et al., 2013) that participants were asked to wear on their fingers. They were told that the product was made of a new material recently developed in a top research laboratory, which endowed it with special properties. They were explained that when the product contacted the skin, it increased the physical and cognitive capacity of the wearer. Following the strategy commonly used in pseudoscience, a hyper-technical explanation of the product was offered.

To increase their perception that the product was effective, participants were told that individuals in previous tests reported feeling that they had performed the tasks particularly well when using the ring. Second, participants engaged in two physical exercises (stability and flexibility), similar to those advertised by companies trying to show how some popular products improve sports performance, such as the Power Balance bracelet, which has been shown not to work.

The researchers described part of the training or debiasing phase of the 90 minute session like this:

This phase started by revealing the ineffectiveness of the ring. Then, an explanation was provided about the mistakes that were made when testing the ring, what could have been done to detect the fraud, and how to apply the experimental method and adequate control conditions when testing causal links. Specifically, we instructed participants in the importance of control conditions in order to evaluate a causal relationship. First, using the example of an alleged remedy against a common cold, they were educated on the necessity of comparing the probability of recovery from the cold when using the remedy with the probability of recovering spontaneously with no intake of the remedy. This comparison, and not simply the fact of recovery being very likely when taking the remedy, was presented as the key element to consider when evaluating its effectiveness.

Just think about that. Marketers use known techniques to induce causal illusions in consumers so that consumers buy what is in essence, products that often do not work at all. They are literally selling an illusion. I could not find published data on the annual marketing value of inducing causal illusions by marketers, but it is probably worth tens of billions in sales each year. A fascinating 2023 research paper, Scarcity affects cognitive biases: The case of the illusion of causality, made the interesting observation that people with limited money tended to be more resistant to forming causal illusions than one with less money concern. Perplexity nicely summarized the results of that paper.

The importance of causal illusion on political ideology and extremism is not clear to me. A 2018 research paper commented:

Research on the related literature of “motivated cognition” suggests that people’s causal inferences can be either accurate or biased, depending on which outcome better fits previous beliefs, opinion, and worldview. Thus, we take this argument further and propose that the causal illusion will be developed selectively to favor those conclusions that align with previous beliefs and ideology. 

That paper found that people exhibit causal illusions selectively, especially in situations that favor their existing political views. Thus, people who identified as left-wing tended to form the illusion that a left-wing ruling party was more successful in improving city indicators compared to a right-wing party. Right-wing participants showed the opposite pattern. This selective causal illusion occurred despite all research participants being presented with the same information. It seems to be the case that pre-existing ideology or belief influences the kind of illusion a person will tend to generate, i.e., an illusion that distorts reality to fit pre-existing ideology. 

Regarding the interplay of privilege, fairness, oppression, and social structures

A commenter here said that I never have discussions about things like privilege, fairness, oppression, and social structures. I felt a needed to slam a cork in that bung. Perplexity (occasionally lightly edited):

Q: How does the interplay of privilege, fairness, oppression, and social structures influence life outcomes?

A: The interplay of privilege, fairness, oppression, and social structures has a profound influence on life outcomes across society.

Privilege and oppression operate through interconnected systems of power that create advantages for some groups while disadvantaging others. These power imbalances are deeply rooted in historical and structural inequalities related to factors like race, gender, class, and economic status.

People with more privilege tend to have better access to quality healthcare, more educational and career opportunities, greater economic resources and stability, and more political influence and representation. By contrast, oppressed and marginalized groups often face discrimination in healthcare, education, employment, etc., limited access to resources and opportunities, higher rates of poverty and economic insecurity, and underrepresentation in positions of power.

The effects of privilege and oppression compound over time and across generations. For example, racial wealth gaps stemming from historical discrimination continue to grow wider. Educational disparities lead to income disparities which then perpetuate educational disparities for the next generation.

Beyond individual interactions, privilege and oppression are reinforced through institutional policies, cultural norms, and societal structures. Even well-intentioned individuals operate within these larger systems that perpetuate unfairness. [the power of social structures to control lives is why today I re-posted my review of the 1963 book Invitation to Sociology]

While privilege can't be eliminated entirely, we can work to create more equitable systems that expand access to opportunities and resources for all. This involves ongoing efforts to dismantle oppressive structures and cultivate a more just society.

Another Perplexity commentary:

Q:  How do social structures shape perceptions of reality and behaviors?

A: Social structures play a significant role in shaping how individuals perceive reality and behave within society. This process occurs through several interconnected mechanisms.

Social Construction of Reality

Social constructionism posits that our understanding of reality is created through social interactions and shared meanings. Rather than being objective or fixed, our perception of the world is heavily influenced by the cultural context and social structures we inhabit

Self-fulfilling prophesies

Social structures can create self-fulfilling prophecies through the Thomas theorem, which states that if people define situations as real, they become real in their consequences. This can lead to the reinforcement of existing social categories and hierarchies.

Looking-Glass Self
Individuals shape their behavior and self-esteem based on how they believe others perceive them, using social interactions as a mirror to measure their own worth and values. By understanding how social structures shape our perceptions and behaviors, we can better recognize the constructed nature of many social categories and potentially work towards more equitable and inclusive societies. However, it's important to note that while socially constructed, these structures and their effects are very real and have significant impacts on individuals' lives and opportunities.

For more context, consider (1) how powerful an influencer a "little thing" like incivility usually is with most people (discussed in this blog post), (2) the low upward social mobility in American society compared to European societies, (3) deeply entrenched wealth inequality in America, (4) the precarious, insecure nature of many or most jobs for many or most Americans, e.g., the fall of labor unions and the rise of contract workers without benefits, and (5) shrinkage of the middle class.

Q: Is talk about privilege, fairness, oppression, and social structure just bleeding heart liberal gobbeldygook that distracts from the fact that if a person works and studies hard, they will nearly always get ahead and rise to or above, or stay in, the middle class?

Invitation to Sociology (re-posted)

Politics is a complex and important aspect of humanity. Even after decades of study through various branches of science, however, our understanding of the human elements of politics is still incomplete. Over time, however, a picture is slowly coming into a degree of focus. Research from Research from a variety of fields including history, evolutionary biology, cognitive biology, neuroscience, economics, political science, psychology and philosophy are all being brought to bear and, increasingly, all inform one another to some extent.

Another discipline that affords a different and important viewpoint through which one can analyze politics is sociology. That discipline attempts to understand the nature and origins of social institutions such as marriage, religion, law, and politics – or more broadly, society. In his 1963 book, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective (Anchor Books, 176 pages), sociologist Peter Berger describes some basic sociological concepts and their social importance to literally invite students to consider sociology as a career. His book is thus not intended to be a textbook or to advocate new theory. As Berger puts it, “this book is to be read, not studied.” For people not familiar with sociology, this book can convey nothing short of a major epiphany about human society and the individual’s place in it.

The influence of Berger's work should not be overlooked. Writing in 1990 on the impact of Berger's book, sociologist Kevin Christiano writing in 1990 commented that “as a publishing feat, Invitation has proved monumental; as an intellectual statement, its impact has been felt around the world.” It may be the case that another introductory sociology book has come along, but after reading it from this non-sociologist’s point of view, it is hard to see how much more powerful and influential it could be. Invitation can fairly be called an outstanding work of nonfiction. It is still used as an introductory textbook in at least some universities.

Despite being published 61 years ago, Invitation presents a view of a discipline that was, from this reviewer’s point of view, surprisingly advanced and sophisticated. The fundamental concepts that Berger discusses remain valid, although they are probably more refined and may be viewed differently by modern professionals.

Berger offers one vision of society as a prison that imposes more constraints on perceived choice and even consciousness than most people realize. Berger describes mechanisms of social control and the role of social institutions in exerting control. For example, he cites a situation where an unmarried couple conceive a baby. In Western society, the marriage social structure dictates marriage as the accepted social norm with all the trappings including florist, church wedding, engagement and wedding rings and so forth. Berger points out that none of those are mandatory, but many people cannot see that or are trapped by social norms they do not want to violate. Society, as a general rule, discourages socially unacceptable options such as running from the ceremony, arranging to have the child brought up by friends, or entering into a common law marriage. Of course, these days non-traditional marriages have become more acceptable than was the case in 1963.

Here, Berger asserts that “society not only controls our movements, but shapes our identity, our thought, and our emotions.” Social institutions are therefore, to a significant extent, “structures of our own consciousness.” From a personal freedom point of view, that seems a rather harsh vision of society and social institutions. In this scenario, humans are puppets being moved by invisible social strings, and we have little control.

In another, more accurate vision of society, Berger describes society as a stage on which individuals play their roles and have choices within the constraints of social norms. People can game the system or can play as society intends the rule to work. There is more personal freedom. One can attempt to escape society's tyranny using tactics such as “manipulation”, which is the deliberate use of social institutions in unforeseen ways. Using work equipment and time for personal purposes is one such example. Another path to freedom is a “detachment” from society, which is a mental withdrawal from the social stage, wherein an individual retreats into a religious, intellectual, or another fulfilling, self-interested pursuit. By doing this, “it is possible, though frequently at considerable psychological cost, to build for oneself a castle of the mind in which the day-to-day expectations of society can be almost completely ignored.”

Although the limits that society and social norms impose are daunting, maybe even depressing, Berger asserts that achieving sociological self-awareness offers at least a partial way out. “Unlike puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step toward freedom.”

Sociology and politics: Looking at politics from a sociological point of view affords a useful way to understand politics. Sociology can shed light on the role of society including various groups or tribes, who invariably construct their own social norms, perceptions and ways of thinking.

The power of roles that people play to are shaped by social institutions. For example, military draftees have to assume a new role, which Berger describes as an identity change process: “The same process occurs whenever a whole group of individuals is to be ‘broken’ and made to accept a new definition of themselves. . . . . This view tells us that man plays dramatic parts in the grand play of society, and that, speaking sociologically, he is the masks he must wear to do so.” Berger asserts that identity-breaking is prevalent in totalitarian groups or organizations. That affords a glimpse of the power that manipulating or “breaking” society can have in service to the tyrant-kleptocrat.

Establishing a political and religious ideology can also shape politics to a significant extent. Berger comments: “Sociologists speak of ‘ideology’ in discussing views that serve to rationalize the vested interests of some group. Very frequently, such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that an individual may neurotically deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of his life that are inconvenient to him. . . . . the ideas by which men explain their actions are unmasked as self-deception, sales talk, the kind of ‘sincerity’ that David Riesman has aptly described as the state of mind of a man who habitually believes his own propaganda.”

Social science research since Berger wrote in 1963 has continued to document and reinforce knowledge that adhering to political and religious ideologies is a powerful distorter of both reality and facts, influencing the logic we apply to what we think we see. The situation of people dealing with politics was recently described as “infantile”, not because people are stupid. Instead, politics is generally too complex and opaque for our minds to process reality as it is even if we were not so biased and socially constrained. Seeing politics through a lens of one or more ideologies frames reality and reason. In turn, that is a basis that allows simplifying matters to make them coherent and consonant with ideological belief. The process of simplifying and generating coherence and ideological consonance happens unconsciously for the most part. That is an aspect of innate human cognitive biology, not a criticism of the human condition.

When sociological effects and pressures are brought to bear by political leaders, that biology can be powerfully manipulated by social pressures to shape and reinforce false realities often based on flawed conscious reason. Berger argues that politicians know how to manipulate social conditions to achieve their ends. He argues that “sociological understanding is inimical to revolutionary ideologies, not because it has some sort of conservative bias, but because it not only sees through the illusions of the present status quo but also through the illusionary expectations concerning possible futures, such expectations being the customary spiritual nourishment of the revolutionary.”

The anti-revolutionary aspect of sociology is not lost on tyrants: “Total respectability of thought, however, will invariably mean the death of sociology. This is one of the reasons why genuine sociology disappears promptly from the scene in totalitarian countries, as well illustrated in the instance of Nazi Germany. By implication, sociological understanding is always potentially dangerous in the hands of policemen and other guardians of public order, since it will always tend to relativize the claim to absolute rightness upon which such minds like to rest.”

The power of ideology to distort and bias reality and reason, and to help pave a path to power for the tyrant-kleptocrat is not in dispute among cognitive and social scientists. Perfect anti-biasing is not possible, because the human mind cannot operate that way. Nonetheless, partial debiasing has been associated with what has been interpreted to be more rational and pragmatic, less ideological mindsets.

Berger speaks to the possibility of a ‘non-ideological’ mindset for politics: “One cannot fully grasp the political world unless one understands it as a confidence game, or the stratification system unless one sees it as a costume party. . . . . Finally, there is a peculiar human value in the sociologist’s responsibility for evaluating his findings, as far as he is psychologically able, without regard to his own prejudices likes or dislikes, hopes or fears. . . . . To be motivated by human needs rather than by grandiose political programs, to commit oneself selectively and economically rather than to consecrate oneself to a totalitarian faith, to be skeptical and compassionate at the same time, to seek to understand without bias, all these are existential possibilities of the sociological enterprise that can hardly be overrated in many situations in the contemporary world. In this way, sociology can attain to the dignity of political relevance, not because it has a particular political ideology to offer, but just because it has not.”[1] (emphasis added)

In other words, Berger could see in 1963 through the lens of sociology, what a psychologist like Philip Tetlock described in 2015 about the mindset among people best able to deal with reality. Apparently, others can envision that an anti-bias mindset could be helpful for politics.

Culture Shock is Hard: If the aforementioned makes it sound like sociology is an unsettling and maybe dangerous point of view, it is. Berger was concerned about the ethics of even teaching it to college undergraduates: “What right does any man have to shake the taken-for-granted beliefs of others? Why educate young people to see the precariousness of things they had assumed to be absolutely solid? Why introduce them to the subtle erosion of critical thought?”

He answers his own questions in part by arguing that “the taken-for-granted are far too solidly entrenched in consciousness to be that easily shaken by, say, a couple of sophomore courses. ‘Culture shock’ is not induced that readily.” In other words, mindsets do not easily change. Teaching a couple of sociology courses to undergraduates will not faze them in their rock solid beliefs.

And therein lies a potential problem for the evidence-driven, anti-bias mindset advocated here. In essence, asking that people adopt an anti-bias mindset in an effort to partially rationalize politics could constitute a culture shock, at least for many or most political and/or religious ideologues. Maybe it is the case that few minds could ever accede to that mindset because it is so hard to override biology and social milieu. That leaves non-ideologues, moderates and pragmatists as minds most possibly open to at least hearing about a different way of seeing and thinking about politics.


Footnote:
1. Berger's observation of there being value in not having an ideology to bias or distort reality and reason and to defend helped me to arrive at my conception of pragmatic rationalism as an anti-biasing, anti-ideology ideology.


B&B orig: 10/24/18; DP 8/7/19, 3/29/20; 8/21/24