Most of our political system is beyond our direct control, so while we might exert some small influence on it, it's usually drowned out overall.
Sure we can vote, but the impact is limited. We can campaign, but it's the same problem: It's bloody difficult to get enough people to agree with much less commit to a thing.
As it happens, our most effective options tend to be right in front of us.
The trick is to play the field. First, use the system rather than trying to change it and you'll often get more mileage out of your effort.
I'll give you some examples:
I'm trans. In my state there have been protections on the books for people like me since 2006. However, starting in 2015 people have been attempting to roll those back. One of the issues is laws around restroom usage. I got my birth certificate changed so any such law would force me into the women's restroom. Given that most people perceive me as a woman, regardless of me being male, this solves the problem for me in perpetuity. I no longer have to worry about such laws.
I'm queer, and I am concerned about the expansion of religion into government, especially with men like Mike Pence so close to the levers of power. One option in front of me is to start a church for queer folx, and lobby for rights using the very same "religious freedom" laws that are used to cast us out.
I don't like paying taxes toward endless wars and enriching the very wealthy. My options are (aside from running afoul of the IRS) to be very rich, or very poor. Very poor is easy enough if you can be comfortable with what you have and you're not inclined to want.
What other ways can you use the existing system in order to get what you want, despite the law?
Any ideas?
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Climate Change Today: Not a Natural Cycle
One of the arguments that many climate science deniers use to deny that modern climate change is a man-made problem is to characterize it as just a natural cycle. That argument helps maintain the veneer climate science deniers need to reject or downplay climate change as a serious problem. In a short article, Climate Clincher, Scientific American summarized a paper published in July showing that current climate change is not part of a natural cycle.
Researchers analyzed 210 data sets of various ways to measure temperatures such as lake sediments and glacier ice for the last 2000 years. The results show that the current warming is unlike every past period of warming and cooling because all data sets show warming now everywhere on Earth. In past warming or cooling periods, there were always some indicators showing warming and some showing cooling. The current data shows only warming almost everywhere on Earth’s surface with few areas of cooling. That is unprecedented for the last 2000 years. It constitutes evidence that this period of warming is not part of a natural cycle.
Despite the Climate Clincher title, this data is unlikely to change many, if any, climate science denier minds. This topic is impervious to evidence or logic for people inclined to reject the political implications of anthropogenic climate change. Just as satellite data analysis showed warming to a high degree of confidence changed few or no minds, this new analysis is unlikely to make any noticeable difference in terms of government attitudes or policy. That data showed there is only about a 1-in-3.5 million chance (a ‘five sigma’ level of confidence) that the warming currently observed is due to random chance instead of human activity. That standard of confidence is what physicists require to accept as real a fundamental new finding such as the Higgs boson.
This new data analysis will not turn out to be a climate clincher for people who deny climate science. Nonetheless, for people with the moral courage to actually face reality for what it is, it doesn't hurt to have another bit of evidence that climate science is not making a huge mistake.
Researchers analyzed 210 data sets of various ways to measure temperatures such as lake sediments and glacier ice for the last 2000 years. The results show that the current warming is unlike every past period of warming and cooling because all data sets show warming now everywhere on Earth. In past warming or cooling periods, there were always some indicators showing warming and some showing cooling. The current data shows only warming almost everywhere on Earth’s surface with few areas of cooling. That is unprecedented for the last 2000 years. It constitutes evidence that this period of warming is not part of a natural cycle.
Despite the Climate Clincher title, this data is unlikely to change many, if any, climate science denier minds. This topic is impervious to evidence or logic for people inclined to reject the political implications of anthropogenic climate change. Just as satellite data analysis showed warming to a high degree of confidence changed few or no minds, this new analysis is unlikely to make any noticeable difference in terms of government attitudes or policy. That data showed there is only about a 1-in-3.5 million chance (a ‘five sigma’ level of confidence) that the warming currently observed is due to random chance instead of human activity. That standard of confidence is what physicists require to accept as real a fundamental new finding such as the Higgs boson.
This new data analysis will not turn out to be a climate clincher for people who deny climate science. Nonetheless, for people with the moral courage to actually face reality for what it is, it doesn't hurt to have another bit of evidence that climate science is not making a huge mistake.
Separation of powers requires impeachment's separation from politics
House Democrats are taking a politically obvious, but constitutionally oblivious, approach to impeachment. Make no mistake, they are perfectly within their rights to proceed; however, how they proceed is crucial to preserving the importance of this monumental undertaking. As the framers knew, impeachment uniquely violates the separation of powers upon which the Constitution rests. An act of such magnitude demands full admission to the people and explicit imprimatur from their representatives, the House of Representatives, to proceed.
Despite having begun de facto impeachment inquiries in several committees several months ago, Democrats have yet to take the formal step of a House vote to begin the official process. House Democrats recently reaffirmed that decision. The reason is clear: It would be bad politics for vulnerable Democrats – especially those in Trump districts – and leaders know this.
Currently, Democrats can generate headlines without political headaches. Their approach as selective detectives – partial revelation without full responsibility – offers reward without risk. The problem is that while it makes for good politics, it is bad for the Constitution.
How divergent this political approach is from the constitutional one taken by the framers is clear from a review of the 1787 Convention. The framers went to great lengths to circumscribe our government’s reach. Their framework, our Constitution, is remarkably brief because the government was not intended to be expansive.
Even when power is allocated to the government, it is further checked by a separation. Descriptions of the Convention’s debates over the of separation of legislative, executive and judicial functions demonstrates the seriousness and length the framers went to achieve this.
Amidst this circumscription and separation of power stands the anomaly of impeachment. Matching its overall brevity, the Constitution is similarly laconic on impeachment.
What makes impeachment stand out is its unique contradiction of the separation of power. During the Convention, James Madison recorded Virginia’s elder statesman George Mason’s seriousness: “No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued.” The legislative branch alone has the power to remove members of the other two branches.
The process of this removal is equally telling of the framers’ intent to incorporate the powers into this abridgment of their separation. The process begins with the people’s direct representatives, the House, which passes articles of impeachment. It moves to the states’ representatives, the Senate (which was originally elected by the state legislatures and still retains equal state representation). The Senate serves as jury, with the Supreme Court’s chief justice presiding over the trial, and cannot convict the president without two-thirds voting for it.
Despite this meticulous incorporation of all powers, impeachment cannot alter its contradiction. It remains a removal of the executive by the legislative presided over by the judicial. Impeachment is nothing short of an awesome, contradictory and ultimate power under our Constitution.
Putting impeachment in its true constitutional context illustrates why the House must formally vote to begin it. The House votes on everything. It cannot so much as name a post office without a vote. If the House cannot transact the most trivial of business without a vote, how is it to be presumed it could undertake the most portentous business the Constitution permits?
Without a vote, the question arises by what authority the House acts on this the most authoritative of business. The framers knew well when they included this ultimate lever that the carefully crafted separation of powers could also yield an impasse, whereby the powers could reach crisis and an inability to function. An ability to override this separation was included and given to the legislative branch to resolve this.
This most monumental of powers was given to the legislature for a reason. It’s a power that could as easily have been placed at the disposal of the other two branches. But the idea was that the people were to hold that power through their representatives in Congress. They were to initiate it and determine its outcome. Such a careful procedure for so momentous a step demands deliberate action concurred in by the full will of the House to begin.
House Democratic leaders’ desire not to hold a vote to initiate impeachment proceedings is politically understandable. The problem is that it makes it no less constitutionally untenable. The Constitution’s separation of powers demands impeachment’s separation from politics.
J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department. He served as a congressional staffer from 1987-2000.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Book Review: Talking to Strangers
Malcolm Gladwell’s 2019 book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About People We Don't Know, deals with the human condition in the face of deceit. Gladwell is a non-fiction writer who tends to write about topics in sociology, psychology, and social psychology. The book’s main point is that strangers, some of who are liars, deceivers or criminals, are treated in a default mode of trust. We believe strangers as the default mindset. Getting out of default trust mode usually takes a lot of evidence before the trusting mind flips into distrust mode.
Gladwell convincingly argues that if humans evolved with a default distrust mode mindset, civilization would probably not have arisen to an advanced state. For humans to accomplish complicated things, they must cooperate. That requires a non-trivial level of trust. Intuitively, that makes sense. Gladwell argues that if everyone always had to take time to vet a stranger’s intentions, an awful lot of time would be spent doing that instead of doing more useful things.
Gladwell describes other instances of the same thing. That includes Neville Chamberlain, who concluded from in-person meetings with Hitler that Hitler was a rational and trustworthy guy who wanted to avoid war. Other people, some of whom who did not meet Hitler, e.g., Winston Churchill, came to the opposite conclusion that he was a “duplicitous thug.” Chamberlain took the time to meet Hitler on several occasions to judge for himself whether he could be trusted or not and decided he was trustworthy. We all know how that turned out.
Another example that Gladwell describes is the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme saga. No one would believe that Madoff was running a ponzi scheme. That included the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who was responsible for finding and shutting people like Madoff down before they could cause a lot of harm. That included on at least four separate occasions when the SEC was handed all the evidence they needed to arrest Madoff. Despite being in law enforcement, the SEC simply could not look at the objective evidence of massive crime as see it for what it was. They were in default trust mode and could not be snapped out of it by mere proof of crimes.
Another deeply troubling story is how amazingly and thoroughly the CIA had been deceived and used by Cuba and East Germany during the cold war. There were not many (or any) CIA spies in Cuba or East Germany that operated without being known as CIA agents. Cuba recruited and planted a spy in the CIA and she was not detected even after one CIA agent got suspicious and reported her to senior spy catchers in the CIA. The amount of evidence it took to flip the CIA from trust to distrust was astonishing. It took years before all the evidence snapped into focus and the CIA realized they had been deceived in a massive way by a rather inept Cuban spy. One last piddly little piece of evidence, a trip to Cuba years before by the Cuban spy, was all it took for the CIA’s spycatcher to finally go “oh shit” after the light bulb finally turned on.
That is the truth mode in operation.
Gladwell discusses a common belief that people can distinguish a liar from an honest person based on how they act. The belief is false. Good liars can often convince most people they are honest. Bad liars usually do not fool most people because they act like they are lying. On the other hand, sometimes innocent people act like they are guilty or lying. Their ‘guilty’ actions can arise from factors like nervousness or confusion. Gladwell discusses the case of a young American woman vacationing in Italy, who was wrongly convicted in Italy of a murder based on the way she spoke and acted. There was no physical evidence that she committed the murder, but prosecutors were certain of her guilt based on her behavior. She really did act and speak like she was guilty. She did that she was scared and freaked out, not because she committed any crime.
That is another example of people believing they can judge someone by looking at and listening to them. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.
Another example of the damage that default to distrust can inflict on people was the sad story of Harry Markopulos, the guy who easily figured out that Bernie Madoff was a crook running a massive ponzi scheme. Markopulos was a financial trader and forensic analyst with a chronically distrusting mind. He trusted almost no one about almost everything. He could not figure out how Madoff was making his money.
Madoff claimed he was heavy into certain kinds of financial transactions and this was where much of his returns kept coming from. Markopulos contacted the main players in the instruments that Madoff claimed to be trading in. None of them ever did business with Madoff. From that, Markopulos correctly concluded that Madoff was a crook. Markopulos then collected evidence that Madoff was a crook and gave it to the SEC. Over the years, Markopulos collected more evidence and gave that to the SEC on several occasions. When the SEC finally realized that he was a crook after Madoff turned himself in.
After the Madoff arrest, Markopulos concluded that because so many wealthy and powerful people had been hurt or humiliated that some of them, or the SEC itself out of embarrassment, would come to kill him. Markopulos bought a gun and lots of ammo and waited for his door to be broken down as his killers came for him. That is what irrational distrust can do to a person.
Gladwell convincingly argues that if humans evolved with a default distrust mode mindset, civilization would probably not have arisen to an advanced state. For humans to accomplish complicated things, they must cooperate. That requires a non-trivial level of trust. Intuitively, that makes sense. Gladwell argues that if everyone always had to take time to vet a stranger’s intentions, an awful lot of time would be spent doing that instead of doing more useful things.
Looking into their eyes to see their soul makes things worse
Gladwell describes research where some computer scientists and an economist got together and built a computer algorithm to assess people for receiving bail for various infractions of law. They ran about 550,000 cases through their program and compared the results with how things turned out when judges either allowed bail or denied it and kept a suspect in jail to await trial. Although the amount of data fed into the algorithm was much less than the data the judges had access to, including directly looking at the defendant from a few feet away, the algorithm made 25% fewer mistakes based on how bail decisions actually turned out. Despite the populations of people they deal with, judges operate in a default trust mode. Looking at a person’s physical appearance and demeanor is not helpful. It seems to make things worse.Gladwell describes other instances of the same thing. That includes Neville Chamberlain, who concluded from in-person meetings with Hitler that Hitler was a rational and trustworthy guy who wanted to avoid war. Other people, some of whom who did not meet Hitler, e.g., Winston Churchill, came to the opposite conclusion that he was a “duplicitous thug.” Chamberlain took the time to meet Hitler on several occasions to judge for himself whether he could be trusted or not and decided he was trustworthy. We all know how that turned out.
Another example that Gladwell describes is the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme saga. No one would believe that Madoff was running a ponzi scheme. That included the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who was responsible for finding and shutting people like Madoff down before they could cause a lot of harm. That included on at least four separate occasions when the SEC was handed all the evidence they needed to arrest Madoff. Despite being in law enforcement, the SEC simply could not look at the objective evidence of massive crime as see it for what it was. They were in default trust mode and could not be snapped out of it by mere proof of crimes.
Another deeply troubling story is how amazingly and thoroughly the CIA had been deceived and used by Cuba and East Germany during the cold war. There were not many (or any) CIA spies in Cuba or East Germany that operated without being known as CIA agents. Cuba recruited and planted a spy in the CIA and she was not detected even after one CIA agent got suspicious and reported her to senior spy catchers in the CIA. The amount of evidence it took to flip the CIA from trust to distrust was astonishing. It took years before all the evidence snapped into focus and the CIA realized they had been deceived in a massive way by a rather inept Cuban spy. One last piddly little piece of evidence, a trip to Cuba years before by the Cuban spy, was all it took for the CIA’s spycatcher to finally go “oh shit” after the light bulb finally turned on.
That is the truth mode in operation.
Gladwell discusses a common belief that people can distinguish a liar from an honest person based on how they act. The belief is false. Good liars can often convince most people they are honest. Bad liars usually do not fool most people because they act like they are lying. On the other hand, sometimes innocent people act like they are guilty or lying. Their ‘guilty’ actions can arise from factors like nervousness or confusion. Gladwell discusses the case of a young American woman vacationing in Italy, who was wrongly convicted in Italy of a murder based on the way she spoke and acted. There was no physical evidence that she committed the murder, but prosecutors were certain of her guilt based on her behavior. She really did act and speak like she was guilty. She did that she was scared and freaked out, not because she committed any crime.
That is another example of people believing they can judge someone by looking at and listening to them. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.
Trust is better than distrust
Gladwell concludes that our default to trust mindset sometimes allows bad people to do and get away with bad things. But overall, default to trust is much better for society than default to distrust. Citing 400,000 police records from North Carolina where police were aggressive about not trusting people and hassling them for trivial things, the hassling turned up 17 instances of illegal activity. In return for 17 hits, 399,983 people were alienated and angered for nothing in return.Another example of the damage that default to distrust can inflict on people was the sad story of Harry Markopulos, the guy who easily figured out that Bernie Madoff was a crook running a massive ponzi scheme. Markopulos was a financial trader and forensic analyst with a chronically distrusting mind. He trusted almost no one about almost everything. He could not figure out how Madoff was making his money.
Madoff claimed he was heavy into certain kinds of financial transactions and this was where much of his returns kept coming from. Markopulos contacted the main players in the instruments that Madoff claimed to be trading in. None of them ever did business with Madoff. From that, Markopulos correctly concluded that Madoff was a crook. Markopulos then collected evidence that Madoff was a crook and gave it to the SEC. Over the years, Markopulos collected more evidence and gave that to the SEC on several occasions. When the SEC finally realized that he was a crook after Madoff turned himself in.
After the Madoff arrest, Markopulos concluded that because so many wealthy and powerful people had been hurt or humiliated that some of them, or the SEC itself out of embarrassment, would come to kill him. Markopulos bought a gun and lots of ammo and waited for his door to be broken down as his killers came for him. That is what irrational distrust can do to a person.
Weird, cops keep getting caught doing racist shit in private
Fri, Aug 9, 2019
Ok - this article is a bit dated, but we need to pay attention to this kind of thing:
A framed Ku Klux Klan application form was left displayed in the house of a white Michigan police officer while a Black man was there with a real estate agent.
"Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses," Rage Against the Machine famously said on its searing 1991 debut single "Killing in the Name," and many cops have pretty much been doing a terrible job of refuting that accusation ever since.
A Michigan cop is now being investigated after a framed Ku Klux Klan application form was found displayed in his house while a Black man and his family were inside on a real estate walk-through.
The Black man, Rob Mathis, took to social media to share his disgust in a viral Facebook post on Wednesday, adding that the house also had multiple Confederate flags on display.
"I feel sick to my stomach knowing that I walk to the home of one of the most racist people in Muskegon hiding behind his uniform and possibly harassing people of color and different nationalities," he wrote.
"To the officer, I know who you are and I will be looking at resources to expose your prejudice," he added. "As for now pictures speak 1000 words."
The officer, who was later identified as 48-year-old Charles Anderson of the Muskegon Police Department, had been previously cleared of fatally shooting 23-year-old Julius Johnson, a Black man, following a 2009 traffic stop. At the time Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague ruled the shooting was in self-defense, with Anderson testifying that Johnson had beat him with his own baton during a struggle.
Eric Hood, the president of the Muskegon County chapter of the NAACP, has called for a comprehensive look at Anderson’s dealings with people of color, telling WOOD-TV, "We want a thorough investigation to be sure that when he goes out there and puts on that uniform and performs his duties as an officer that he’s being fair and impartial."
The City of Muskegon released a statement saying Anderson has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted. Both Anderson and his wife have declined comment to other outlets, saying they have been told to stay silent during the investigation.
It's the latest headline about law enforcement officers getting caught doing racist shit while off the clock. In July, Citylab published The Plain View Project, which uncovered more than 5,000 racist and sexist Facebook posts and comments made by members of law enforcement. That same month, ProPublica published posts from a secret Facebook group for border patrol agents, where agents joked about the deaths of migrants and posted sexist memes about Latina lawmakers.
As a direct result of The Plain View Project, the Philadelphia Police Department announced it would fire 13 officers following an investigation. Later in July, two Louisiana police officers were fired for a Facebook post that suggested that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
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:
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:
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.
– 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.
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