The irrelevance of reason in politics

IVN published a Dissident Politics article on the biology of why the use of unbiased facts and logic are not persuasive or common in most political discourse.

In politics, unbiased facts and unbiased logic play a small role in shaping our world view and in how we apply logic to it. Both facts are logic are shaped and distorted by innate, unconscious biases and personal ideology or values. Human biology being what it is,  facts and logic that undercut or contradict personal biases and beliefs are usually downplayed or rejected completely, e.g., many anti-government ideologues reject human-caused climate change and/or climate science as a hoax or too unsettled to carry any persuasive weight. Contrary facts and logic are simply irrelevant to those personal beliefs and values.

The article echoes an earlier Dissident Politics article arguing that fact and logic have an unacceptably small a role in modern American politics, which is why our politics is unacceptably irrational.

The article is here.

Serving the public interest

IVN published a Dissident Politics article that discusses the public interest in the context of objective politics and why the concept needs to be defined broadly. The IVN article is here.

A broad definition is necessary due to human biology

A definition broad enough to accommodate the major political ideologies or morals is necessary so that facts and logic can "roam freely" without bumping into limits that narrower political ideologies and their principles or morals will allow. Once those limits are reached, the human mind is adept at quickly but unconsciously distorting "uncomfortable" facts and logic to stay within the limits of what a narrow ideology will allow.[1] Those narrow ideologies include liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism and Christianity. The point of a broad ideological conception of the public interest is two-fold. First, it puts all major competing ideologies, e.g., small government vs. expanded government, beliefs on a more or less equal footing. Second, that equal footing psychologically increases the relevance of unbiased facts and unbiased logic to sort out policy choices among the competing ideologies.

The whole point of this is to increase reason and objectivity in politics relative to the overwhelming dominance of intuition and subjectivity. For people who believe that their politics already is based on unbiased fact and logic, this will not appear to apply to themselves. Most, probably about 90-97%, of those people are wrong about that. That is what social science, not Dissident Politics, says about politics.

For true believers in any standard ideology such as hard core liberals, conservatives or libertarians, this will probably make no sense. Those people know they are fully grounded in unspun reality and rock-solid common sense. Essentially all of those people, about 99.99%, are wrong.

Politics is a matter of human cognition or biology first and political, economic, religious or philosophical theory second. If political theory does not account first and foremost for the biology of human cognition, then it is an ancient but standard, subjective brand of politics that is grounded more in fantasy and intuition-emotion than in objectivity and reason based on unbiased facts and unbiased logic.

Put another way, standard theory-based politics goes back millennia and it is based on a subjective operating system that one can reasonably be called v. 1.0.  By contrast, politics that is (i) based on what modern cognitive science knows about human cognition and (ii) consciously focused on enhancing objectivity and reducing subjectivity can reasonably be called politics v. 2.0. Again, this is a matter of objective biology, not subjective theory. 

Service to the public interest defined

For context, Dissident Politics' initial description of serving the pubic interest first posted here is this:

Governing in the public interest means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and growing the American economy, (4) fostering individual economic and personal growth opportunity, (5) defending personal freedoms and the American standard of living, (6) protecting national security and the environment, (7) increasing transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (8) fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible, all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.

Which ideology, narrow or broad, requires the most moral courage?

For people who hold to narrow political ideologies, e.g., liberalism or conservatism, it both inconvenient truths and inconvenient logic are routinely warped to fit personal beliefs. That does not require much or any moral courage. By contrast, facing for people who hold the three morals of objectivity, fidelity to unbiased facts and unbiased logic is service to an objectively, i.e., broadly, defined public interest. For objectivists, their moral world is big enough to accommodate facts and logic without a need for undue distortion. 

And, adopting objectivity for politics requires the moral courage to reject the two-party system and its naked emperor. Everyone, the press-media included, constantly insists that the duopoly with its little, endlessly bickering world views is the only way to see the world. That just isn't so.

Unbiased facts and unbiased logic don't care about anyone's ideology or morals. In that regard, they are truly bigger than and independent of personal belief. Being faithful to the truth and reason therefore requires an ideological box big enough to accommodate reality and reason with a minimum of unconscious distortion. That's just a matter of biology, not theory.

Footnote:

1. “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. . . . . We make our first judgments rapidly, and we are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm those initial judgments.” Psychologist Johnathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion,  pages 52, 55, Vintage Books, 2012. Making judgments based on personal morals or ideology is fast and unconscious. And, when necessary, the process involves distorting or rationalizing facts and/or logic to make them fit within the limits of personal morals or ideology. This happens even when facts and/or logic don't fit within the confines of personal belief.

“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. . . . . Take gun control. I always accepted the libertarian position of minimum regulation in the sale and use of firearms because I placed guns under the beneficial rubric of minimal restrictions on individuals. . . . . Although the data to convince me that we need some gun-control measures were there all along, I had ignored them because they didn't fit my creed.” Dr. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, commenting in Scientific American (Oct. 1, 2013) on the power of his personal political ideology to distort facts and logic. Again, fact and logic distortion is fast, easy and unconscious with a standard narrow ideology such as libertarianism.

Objectively defining the public interest

IVN published a Dissident Politics article on how to objectively define the concept of the public interest and why it matters. The point is to create an intellectual framework or political ideology that is broad enough to limit the tendency of narrower ideologies, e.g., liberalism, conservatism, socialism or laissez-faire capitalism to unconsciously distort fact and logic so that they conform to narrower ideological constraints. The article is here.

Political principles for objective politics

Dissident Politics published an article at Daily Kos on the ideology needed to make politics more objective than it now is. The article is here and reproduced below.

Incoherent politics

At one time, politics and political rhetoric more or less made sense most of the time. Or, at least it that’s what it seemed. In the 1990’s, that was true less often and by the early 2000’s politics and political rhetoric appeared to be incoherent nearly all the time. That was from a mostly objective, open-minded point of view.

From subjective liberal democrat and conservative republican contemporary viewpoints, their own side mostly makes sense, while the opposition sounds more and more incoherent at best, and stupid, lunatic and/or treasonous at worst. How independents, about 43% of Americans according to one poll, see both sides today is unclear. Since independents self-identify as independent it probably isn’t much different than how the two sides see each other.

Casting about in liberal, conservative, socialist, capitalist and religious theory or ideology for insight shed no light why politics seemed so incoherent. Other factors, such as corruption of politics by special interest money, or sacrifice of the public interest in service to the two-party system (the press-media included) didn’t really explain the situation either. All of those factors seemed to be secondary to something else. In other words, neither political, economic or religious theory nor a subverted political system offered a convincing basis for an explanation.

Failed ideologies

The sources of mainstream theory completely contradict each other despite being held in the highest esteem by their supporters. In addition, different partisan factions looking at the same issue usually see vastly different facts and their common sense usually arrives at opposite or incompatible policy choices. Simply dismissing the two-party system, including the press-media, as corrupt and/or inept does not explain that situation. What passes for acceptable facts, rhetoric and logic among the partisans in some factions but not others has to be based on inexplicable hysteria/dementia or something else.

The biology of being human

Looking outside the authoritative sources that drive mainstream political opinion provides the answer. Over the last 40 years or so, social and biological sciences have figured out enough of the biology of human cognition to reasonably explain the situation. It turns out that humans are mostly irrational or subjective about how they see reality and apply logic or common sense to what they see. Reasoning or objectivity is much less influential and usually not involved. When humans do apply reason to issues or situations, the point of the exercise is to find the best reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment, not to critically assess the accuracy or logical coherence of our own perceptions of reality and beliefs.

In addition to intuitive-subjective dominance, human intuition in politics operates in a personal moral framework. Politics and policy choices are constrained by morality based on the values of conservative and liberal ideology and how those moral frameworks affect reasoning and perceptions of reality or facts. Social science research indicates that personal ideology is a key driver of false fact beliefs and presenting ideologues real facts has limited capacity to affect personal opinions. When faced with facts or logic that undermines personal belief, humans tend to look for support, while rejecting or ignoring disconfirming evidence. It all happens fast and unconsciously.

This happens all the time in politics and real life. People who deny that anthropogenic climate change is real or caused by humans reject the science and/or scientists who support it. People who distrust vaccines as dangerous and refuse to get their kids vaccinated do the about the same thing. Facts and logic that undercuts personal morals or beliefs are routinely downplayed or rejected.

Given the way the human mind works as a spin machine, it raises two fundamental questions. First, is it better to rationally understand the way the world really is or how we want it to be? Second, is there a better way to approach politics despite our innate unconscious biological urges to distort fact and logic in the name of personal ideology or morals?

Fact and logic is better than fantasy and illogic

Most ideologues of any political, economic or religious persuasion would argue that they do base their politics on facts and logic. There is an implied, if not explicit, consensus that fact- and logic-based politics is better than false fact- and biased logic-based politics. Even without the implicit consensus, the first question’s answer is that fact- and logic-based politics is better. People who disagree are wrong from an objective point of view.

An affirmative answer to the second question becomes apparent if one (i) accepts the foregoing description of the biology of subjective politics and (ii) prefers reality over fantasy. Political beliefs are common sense and unconscious intuitive moral judgments that come with standard political ideologies. Since ideological morals or values bend fact and logic to their dictates, objective politics necessarily has to be based on political ideology or morals that are designed to minimize unconscious distortion of facts and logic.

Three morals for objectivity 

The simplest set of objective morals or political principle that accomplishes the goal of minimizing distortion is to accept the ideology of (1) fidelity to unbiased fact and (2) fidelity to unbiased logic, (3) in service to a broadly but objectively defined public interest. The broad public interest definition is needed to minimize the inevitable fact and logic distortion that narrow ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, capitalism or socialism generates. No existing political, economic or religious theory is based on the modern understanding of the biology of human cognition and that, coupled with ideologies not based on that understanding, serve to make politics incoherent, inefficient and relatively corrupt. No prior theory of politics could be based on modern cognitive science because that knowledge did not exist until now.

Obviously, asking people to switch to a political ideology or moral framework based on fact, logic and serving the public interest asks a quite a lot. Conservatives will reject it as creeping socialism or worse and defend the conservative values, e.g., anti-government, low regulation sentiment, that made America great. Liberals would similarly reject it and defend the liberal values, e.g., the social safety net, that made America great.

However, for people who see the two-party system and its business as usual as incoherent, inept or corrupt, this proposal to base politics on the reality of human biology should be of some interest. If nothing else, it represents the first fundamentally new approach to politics in at least the last millennium or two. Think of the proposal as objective politics v. 2.0, with everything that has gone before as subjective politics v. 1.0.