Mike Palij wrote: > The Christian Science Monitor has an article that reviews the results > of a Pew Research Center poll on the U.S. perception of the religion > of President Obama and 18% said that they thought he was a Muslim, > compared to 12% who thought he was Muslim back in March 2008 > (there was a 7% point jump from March 2009 [11%] to August 2009 > [18%]). The respondents were also asked why they thought he was > Muslim.
There is a sense in which I don't really believe these numbers, which have been widely reported over the last couple of days. I think that we have reached a (low) point in terms political discourse in which many people do not say (to pollsters or anyone else) what they have come believe on the basis of any evidence (a claim which I will modify in moment). Instead, they say whatever is most damaging to the political opposition despite whatever evidence there might be one way or another. There was a (perhaps brief) period in the middle of the 20th century (not to idealize the past too much) in which saying things that were flatly contradicted by the public record would bring derision and shame upon one. Even one's political allies would distance themselves from so obvious a fool. But now, following the example of politicians themselves, their advertisements, and the splintering of the media into political conduits (much like the newspapers of the 19th century), political movements simply make stuff up -- often stuff that is not particularly plausible on its surface -- that they deem to be harmful to their opponents, and then repeat it over and over and over again in concert. They are called "talking points." Somehow, because they all say the same ridiculous thing at once, it gives them cover from the public humiliation that they would face if they were on their own. Now, for the modification. I think that these people may indeed believe what they say, not because they have any reason or evidence to believe it, but because the process by which they "fixate beliefs" (as Charles Sanders Peirce put it in 1877) has little to do with reason or evidence. That is simply not how they conceive the process. "Beliefs" are propositions that are presented to them by leaders of movements to which they belong. Leaders and movements are selected, mostly, by the degree to which they relieve their followers of responsibility for all that is perceived the be "wrong" with the world, and blame some other identifiable group. I am reminded of Tetullian's infamously anti-intellectual declaration: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" None of this is entirely new, of course, but it seems to me that it had become much more widespread -- much more the norm -- than it was a couple of decade ago. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4300 or send a blank email to leave-4300-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
