Remarkable and depressing. Yet there should be a way to use this dynamic for good...
Sent from my iPhone > On Oct 26, 2014, at 21:11, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > W Post > The depressing psychological theory that explains Washington > > > > By Ezra Klein / January 10 > Dylan Matthews's "Five conservative reforms millennials should be fighting > for" isn't just an admirably intricate piece of trolling. It's a perfect > illustration of why you can't take Washington's policy debates at face value. > You can't understand what's happened to Congress in recent years if you don't > understand what Matthews did in that piece. > > A bit of background. On Jan. 3, Jesse Myerson published an article in Rolling > Stone with the innocuous title "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be > Fighting For." Myerson frames his agenda as an effort to do away with > unemployment, jobs, landlords, private capital ownership and Wall Street. > Those last four, as you might expect, made conservatives' heads explode. > > "If you’re a Millennial who loves bread lines, prison camps, forced famines, > and abject human misery, then you’ll love the latest offering from Rolling > Stone," wrote the Federalist's Sean Davis. > > But the policies Myerson advocates are rather less radical. His agenda, at > its core, calls for a work guarantee, a basic minimum income, a land-value > tax, a sovereign wealth fund and a public banking option. As Dylan Matthews > noticed, all these policies that Republicans were labeling as socialism have > been endorsed by major conservatives. So he rewrote Myerson's piece from the > conservative point of view, advocating all the same policies but changing > those cited as authorities and those blamed for the state of the economy. > > All of a sudden, conservatives liked the article, and liberals -- well, > liberals didn't really like Dylan anymore. And they told him so in pretty > offensive terms. > > Two articles both advocating the exact same policies. But one of them > thrilled liberals and infuriated conservatives. The other infuriated liberals > and thrilled conservatives. > > Oftentimes when we think we're engaged in reasoned policy discussion we're > actually engaged in complex efforts to rationalize the direction in which our > tribal affiliations are pushing us. Psychologists call this motivated > reasoning. And they've shown its power in laboratory settings again and again > and again. > > Geoffrey Cohen, a professor of psychology at Stanford, has shown how > motivated reasoning can drive even the opinions of engaged partisans. In > 2003, when he was an assistant professor at Yale, Cohen asked a group of > undergraduates, who had previously described their political views as either > very liberal or very conservative, to participate in a test to study, they > were told, their “memory of everyday current events.” > > > > The students were shown two articles: one was a generic news story; the other > described a proposed welfare policy. The first article was a decoy; it was > the students’ reactions to the second that interested Cohen. He was actually > testing whether party identifications influence voters when they evaluate new > policies. To find out, he produced multiple versions of the welfare article. > Some students read about a program that was extremely generous—more generous, > in fact, than any welfare policy that has ever existed in the United > States—while others were presented with a very stingy proposal. But there was > a twist: some versions of the article about the generous proposal portrayed > it as being endorsed by Republican Party leaders; and some versions of the > article about the meagre program described it as having Democratic support. > The results showed that, “for both liberal and conservative participants, > the effect of reference group information overrode that of policy content. If > their party endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare program, > and conservatives supported even a lavish one.” > In a subsequent study involving just self-described liberal students, Cohen > gave half the group news stories that had accompanying Democratic > endorsements and the other half news stories that did not. The students who > didn’t get the endorsements preferred a more generous program. When they did > get the endorsements, they went with their party, even if this meant > embracing a meaner option. > > Anyone who's been around Washington for long will recognize this pattern. In > the 1990s, the individual mandate was a conservative idea that emphasized > individual responsibility. But once Democrats adopted it, it became, to > conservatives, an unconstitutional exercise in government coercion. During > the Bush years, Republicans voted for deficit-financed stimulus bills. After > Barack Obama became president, they decided the evidence against > deficit-financed stimulus bills was overwhelmingly persuasive. During the > Bush years, Democrats were deeply concerned about government surveillance, > while Republicans were more comfortable with a powerful executive. In the > Obama years, polls show Democrats far more comfortable with the National > Security Agency's spying than Republicans. > > > In theory, the two parties represent distinct political philosophies, and > those distinct political philosophies help shape their differing policy > agendas. In recent years, there's been a lot of interesting work from > psychologists arguing that the differences go even deeper than that: > Democrats and Republicans intuitively respond to different underlying moral > systems, and so their philosophies actually rest on something more > fundamental than mere partisan affiliation. > > > The problem is that human beings are incredibly good at rationalizing their > way to whatever conclusion their group wants them to reach. And most policies > can be supported -- or opposed -- on many grounds. It's all about which parts > people choose to emphasize. A conservative who emphasizes individual > responsibility and loathes government coercion can find good reasons both to > support and oppose the individual mandate. A liberal who believes both in > security and civil liberties can decide to believe the FISA courts are an > effective check on the NSA or totally insufficient. There are more than > enough validators out there who're willing to arm a partisan with information > for whatever conclusion they prefer. “Once group loyalties are engaged, you > can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments," political > psychologist Jonathan Haidt once told me. "Thinking is mostly just > rationalization, mostly just a search for supporting evidence.” > The beliefs that result aren't held cynically. They're held sincerely. And > that's much more powerful. Even when people flip positions entirely, they > believe they've done so because they've absorbed new evidence and changed > their mind. What could be more honest than that? The fact that the transition > aligned exactly with the changing interests of their party is just an > interesting coincidence. > > Worse, the world is complex, and very few of us can take the time to develop > sound opinions on the vast range of issues that arise in Washington. Even if > you're a health-care expert, the likelihood that you're also an expert on > Chinese currency manipulation, and ethnic tensions in Syria, and prison > policy, is pretty slim. So people end up relying on the authorities we trust, > be they media figures, issue advocacy groups or politicians. But those > validators aren't simply concerned with the truth. They're looking to get > ratings, to fundraise, to maximize their influence, to get reelected, to > retain standing among their peers. Their reasoning is motivated, too. But > that's not how their followers see them. > > > The result is that much of politics takes the form of tribal fights that feel > to the participants like high-minded policy debates. In that way, the only > thing unusual about Dylan's piece was that the author knew what he was doing. > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
