This is a fascinating piece that seems to confirm what I have sensed as long as I have been blogging.
"The results: Listening to a political opponent isn’t as awful as getting a tooth pulled, but it’s trending in that direction."
VOX Motivated Ignorance is Ruining Our Political Discourse
"For people who might be thinking — “this is a false equivalence! How can you even compare the topics liberals are biased about to the topics conservatives are bias about!” — know that it is possible to be both biased and correct.
Both liberals and conservatives fail here because the human brain fails here. The answer to “fake news” is not just deleting posts that are factually incorrect. It’s motivating people to be curious, and to seek out information that contradicts what they believe in an open-minded way.
Unless Facebook — or any social media — can find a means to make opposing points of view enjoyable to consume, or somehow incentivize seeing the other side, the internet will continue to divide and fracture into competing and alternative understandings of reality. Because right now the conclusion all this research points to is simple: We find interacting with other points of view to be unpleasant. And it’s hard to build a viral consumer product around an unpleasant experience."Now how do we convince people to be more curious and questioning? That is a very good question...
24 comments:
It's kind of a fashion these days to accuse people who disagree of ignorance. I don't know where that comes from, but it's a definite rhetorical fad. It's like the phrase "low information voters" people toss around or all those famously convenient polls that show Fox viewers not knowing much. Like accusing someone of derangement syndrome, it's a strategy for avoiding the substance of issues.
--Hiram
Part of the problem is that very few people in our national discourse are saying things worth listening to. Most of what you hear is focus group tested boiler plate. People get on TV, not for being insightful, but for being predictable, which serve broadcaster needs for "balance".
the other day, I heard a lawyer commenting on TV. Now I don't have any general objections to lawyers, but it's in their nature not to tell you want they think, but to advocate the position that furthers their client's interest. When interviewing a lawyer you are basically interviewing their pay check.
--Hiram
I do not believe the "chasm" between left and right is any wider than it has ever been; it is simply much, much deeper. It is made so by the ease of which, thanks to technology, one can hear, believe and repeat endlessly whatever your "tribe" thinks about the "other." Our elections and subsequent policy decisions become unmoored from actual policy and rational discourse, and consist of simply destroying the humanity of the other side. The result of this is that everyone believes our world is run by stupid and evil people. We know that about "them," and cannot help hearing them say it about "us," so who's left?
The solution is to somehow get back to rational disagreement and discussion about policy, rather than assuming that disagreement is proof of subhumanity. I am cynical about it happening.
Jerry,
I agree that it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Once in awhile I will challenge some far left or far right position being advocated / advertised by one of my Facebook friends.
Some folks take it well, however many don't and soon I am no longer one of their friend...
Now imaging that this is happening everyday over and over across the country. Even I finally dropped a Far Right guy because his postings were even too strange for me.
I just don't see how this ends well...
So long as it doesn't end there is hope. A while back you suggested leadership, and I think that is correct. I am convinced that one big reason Trump was elected is because he fought back against the "media narrative" and "politics of personal destruction" hurled against him. He wasn't "too nice" to counterpunch. Maybe someday we will get some leaders we can call "statesmen" again (even if they are women). If enough people refuse to go along with these scabrous attack politics, say by electing Trump or Judge Moore, or passing sensible legislation over unanimous Democrat obstructions, maybe it will stop.
I can always count on you to call the "kettle black"...
"passing sensible legislation over unanimous Democrat obstructions"
It seems you missed the point of the post.
"For people who might be thinking — “this is a false equivalence! How can you even compare the topics liberals are biased about to the topics conservatives are bias about!” — know that it is possible to be both biased and correct. Both liberals and conservatives fail here because the human brain fails here. The answer to “fake news” is not just deleting posts that are factually incorrect. It’s motivating people to be curious, and to seek out information that contradicts what they believe in an open-minded way."
I feel that I am well informed of the facts and not ignorant. I make an effort to read well reasoned opinions that are different than my own, though I have a hard time finding them.
Heritage Foundation seems to do a good job of using data when discussing topics.
Now how do we convince people to be more curious and questioning?
Many of us don't want to be curious and questionging. We make a deliberate decision, often, not to know stuff, or not to pay attention to stuff we do know.
As smug and condescending as people like me often are, we generally don't think people are stupid. None of us really thought that Donald Trump believed Obama was born in Kenya. We all kind of know what Roy Moore is, don't we? It's not that we don't know things, rather we have made a decision to ignore what we know.
--Hiram
"It seems you missed the point of the post." Perhaps. But now you understand the frustration of trying to convince people that, from your point of view reality is one way, when they have already been convinced, rightly or wrongly, that reality is the other way. It's confirmation bias, it's natural and it is more entrenched than ever before.
Why should I NOT complain about "unanimous Democrat obstruction"? If your objective here is to promote open-minded consideration of "all the facts," then surely, if that were the case, at least ONE Democrat would step forward and support something like Obamacare repeal, middle class tax cuts, a qualified judge nomination, or a border wall. Unified GOP support would be unnecessary, and we would actually have good and BETTER legislation coming out of Washington, rather than pointless deadlock.
Laurie, I think you are probably well-informed, even without reading "opinions" that differ from yours. What is important, I think, is having all the FACTS and then forming your own opinion as to whether that supports your already-formed opinion. That is, can you logically support your conclusions? It is still possible to be wrong, but that is why, if both "sides" are open to it (which in the current environment they are decidedly not) we have debates rather than arguments and shouting matches.
I have no issue with you complaining about "unanimous Democrat obstruction" as long as you were just a frustrated with "unanimous Republican obstruction" during the Obama terms. Which of course you were not.
Or if you are okay with a few GOP politicians voting against the GOP agenda when they disagree.
And why would any Democrat vote for something that not even all of the GOP politicians can support?
Why should I NOT complain
about "unanimous Democrat obstruction"?
Bear in mind all three branches of government are under Republican control. Trump needs Democratic help because he can't unify his own party.
But yes, the notion of Democratic obstuctionism is strange. We want to do stuff. Republicans oppose us largely because they oppose us doing the stuff we want to do. If you take the pejorative connotation out of it, it really is a fair description to say that we are the non obsturctionist party. Bear in mind, our candidate for president won the popular vote. It seems to me that we have a stronger mandate for pursuing our goals than the party who lost the popular vote.
--Hiram
I remember the last campaign when we had been in power. The one charge I never heard, and I heard a lot of charges, was that we are obstructionist.
A lot of Republicans do, from where I sit, is designed to shift political responsibility. Republicans in federal government are big supporters of state rights. Of localizing problems. Whatever the merits of that view, the effect of such a policy is to shift responsibility for substantive decisions onto someone else. For me, it's the essential irony of Republicanism. I am in favor of many of the same things Republicans are, the problem is just that Republicans aren't in favor of them, or at least aren't in favor of doing anything about them.
I son't think obstructionism in all it's aspects is necessarily a bad thing. We Democrats do get a little on the hyperactive side sometimes, and we want to do more than we really should at times. In occasionally putting the brakes on, Republicans perform a useful service to the nation, something I acknowledge. But those consideration don't in any way change the underlying and fundamental political reality of who wants to obstruct stuff and who does not.
--Hiram
By the way, Donald Trump was elected in part because of a perception that he could do things, and get other things done. That perception comes from an earlier stage in his career mostly prior to his bankruptcies, after which the financial community put him on a short leash to the extent that they provided him with a leash at all. But the funny thing about that part of Trump's life, when he was the opposite of an obstructionist, he was also a Democrat.
--Hiram
The problem with obstruction as a general policy principle is that it can be both UNprincipled and irrational. It isn't a question of who is "stopping things from being done," It is WHAT is being stopped. Good ideas should be approved on a non/bipartisan basis; bad ideas should be opposed. If you cannot give a reason for obstructing "progress," is it because you don't have one?
The problem with obstruction as a general policy principle is that it can be both UNprincipled and irrational.
In my dealings with Republican osstructionism, I am not all that quick to describe it as either unprincipled or irrational. Take for example, Republican obstruction of Merrick Garland. Clearly the principle involved was to put people on the court who agree with the Republican point of view. As it happens I don't agree with Gorsuch's principles but I certainly recognize that he has them. And it would never occur to me that the Republican Party policy of obstructing Garland was irrational. it may have been too rational for my tastes.
I am, of course, speaking in generalities here. There are things Republicans do want. They want tax cuts, the one thing that above all else, unites them. But that's the rub, isn't it? Republicans have control of all three branches of government, but particularly of concern here is Congress where their control is absolute. The problem there isn't Democratic opposition. We don't have the votes. The problem is that Republicans can't agree among themselves. In particular they have a faction of hard liners who are obstructionist and pretty much unwilling to make any concession at all. This problem is further aggravated by Republican Party rules which fairly be described as obstructionist. It's a rule in the Republican caucus that only measure that have majority support within the caucus can be brought to floor. That means Congress is controlled not by a majority, but a majority of a majority, which as it happens, comprises a minority of Congress. There are many, many measures that could command majority support on the floor of the house but never get there because they don't have majority support within the Republican caucus. For me, and believe, t is surely disputable, I would define obstruction as a minority preventing the majority from exercising it's political will. That's what REpublican rules are designed to allow.
--Hiram
If you cannot give a reason for obstructing "progress," is it because you don't have one?
I always have reasons for the positions I support. And I in my experience, people who disagree with me have reasons, sometimes pretty good ones, for their positions. For myself, keep in mind that my party won the popular vote in the last election. Our candidate was the one the American people supported. Why, then, should we be reluctant to put forward our agenda, the one the American people voted for, and not the agenda that the American people rejected, and which by all accounts, is dreadfully unpopular?
--Hiram
There is a view abroad in the land that Republicans during the Obama years banded together to prevent the president from putting together any substantive record of legislative accomplishment, that they reflexively opposed anything Mr. Obama supported. Maybe that's true, or maybe that's paranoia or maybe a bit of both. In any event that would be a form of obstructionism.
Should Democrats do that? Should they oppose anything Trump supports? Would such obstructionism be good politics? Would it even be possible?
My view is that however it plays out for Republicans, obstructionism doesn't work for Democrats. As the party of government, when government doesn't work we get blamed. Trump, for example, is blaming us for the alleged failure of Obamacare despite the fact that he is in charge of it. In political terms, obstructionism present difficulties for us. Many Democrats represent Republican leaning districts. Collin Peterson is one. They survive by searching for and picking out items in the Republican political agenda they can support. If we expect to challenge for the majority, obstructionism isn't a viable option for us. As I have often noticed, many elements of the Republican agenda are popular and are capable of getting significant Democratic support on their own. Generally, it's always the case that Republicans can lop off a significant number of Democratic voter when it's in their interests to want them. In saying this, I am not claiming any special virtue for Democrats in that regard; it just happens to be the way the electoral politics play out. And in plays out in reverse in state politics. Believe me on this, there are many Republicans in the legislature who have told their friends across the aisle that they will be there on certain issues when needed.
--Hiram
An excellent discussion, Hiram, and largely correct. My only concern is that you still see the making of good policy as being driven by politics-- that what is politically expedient is therefore desirable. If the best policy is the one which would get a large majority in bipartisan support-- somewhere near a consensus-- then it cannot occur so long as one side reflexively insists on opposing anything and everything proposed by the other. Indeed, good government requires that the opposition party must be willing to offer their votes in favor in exchange for "improvements" to the proposed legislation. It is NOT what I see happening. I see opposition (today from Democrats) before the legislation is even revealed. That MUST be irrational and, inarguably, based in a chosen ignorance. What follows is then an exercise in trying to keep the public in ignorance, as an exercise in pure political flamethrowing, rather than a rational public debate of the underlying proposal. It far too often succeeds.
My only concern is that you still see the making of good policy as being driven by politics--
I think politics determines what policy is. Policy gets implemented not because it's good, but because it has the political support to enact it. It's like with tax reform. Tax reform never happens, not because it isn't a good idea, but because it has no political constituency. People don't want taxes to be better, they want them to be lower.
With respect to Obamacare, we essentially enacted a Republican proposal, one with which we were uncomfortable with in many ways, but which could get the support needed to pass. Because it still has that support is why Republicans find it so difficult to repeal despite their nominal majority in Congress.
As with logic, I am not a big fan of rationality. Much of what is important and valuable in our lives is outside the realm of both. Those things are tools, and like all tools, are morally and policy neutral.
In terms of ignorance, I talk with a lot of people about government and politics. Most people don't know how government works in the most basic ways. Most people don't know who their state legislators or congressmen are. I bet if you polled it, you would find a surprisingly large number of people don't know who the president is. But that doesn't mean what they do know shouldn't be respected.
--Hiram
You've said a lot of things here, Hiram, and some are correct from my POV.
I think politics determines what the LAW is, but to quote Shakespeare, "the law is an ass." How can it be otherwise when we take a public opinion poll of those who have no idea what the issue involves, and then pass legislation based on that "popular support"? For example, a majority of those polled support the "Affordable Care Act" but a sizeable majority oppose "Obamacare," or at least did until Democrats and the media started claiming that "25 million [of the 12 million on Obamacare] people would lose their health insurance." I don't know that it is so much a matter of people CHOOSING ignorance, as it is that they are just uninformed or MISinformed.
"Ignorance can be cured by education, but stupidity is forever."
I have long believed that human emotion, tradition, spirituality and the like are very REAL and must be considered when seeking the rational solution to some problem of public policy. Only in that way can the raw politics result in good policy. Frame the policy as "a woman's right to choose" versus "killing a baby" and you don't get very far. Both are emotional ways of looking at the "problem" and do not yield well to a consensus public policy.
Recent surveys show that only about 1 in 3 people can name even ONE of their US Senators, yet half vote to elect them. Petitions asking if the Constitution should be amended to include parts of the existing Bill of Rights usually cannot get a majority. Those comedic "man on the street" polls are hilarious. Too bad they expose such rampant ignorance. I don't think it is chosen, but it certainly exists.
Polls have their own set of problems. Basically, because they seem so simple, to provide such specific answers, we tend to oversimplify them. What they mean is far more complicated than what they say. Taxes are that way also. We live complicated and diverse economic lives. Simplifying the tax code is a way of ignoring that reality, in ways, I assure you, people with clever lawyers and accountants will find immensely profitable.
A thermometer is a simple device that's useful but can only tell you a limited amount about very complex weather phenomenon. And if you happen to break your thermometer, you will find the weather gets along just fine without it.
--Hiram
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