How the human mind misleads itself within the political spectrum.
I've been reading a lot about the current "Occupy" movements going on around the globe, and there seem to be several repeating themes.
-No one "knows" what the protests are about.
-The continuing right versus left debate, who messed up more.
- What is lawful.
- And, the (non)importance of accountability
These aren't just themes touted by FOX news and the right wing media, but every news article revolving around the issue. There are viewed from one side or the other, occasionally taking the good argumentative approach of pointing out flaws in the other arguments points. However, the art of debate has devolved, in almost all sectors of the practice, from a clear construction of evidence, counter-evidence and rebuttal, into a moral high ground issue. You don't get people rationally analyzing evidence, and fitting it into their argument. In essence, no one changes their mind based on these discussions. There are many different psychological reasons which explain this.
The first is a classical physiological affliction which plagues everyone, Loss Aversion. Normally, this applies to goods or money, but it can also apply to self worth. Loss Aversion is typified by an inability to compromise a situation allowing a reduction in overall worth. When in an argument, if you admit you're wrong, it is mentally equated with lower self worth, so the mind shies away from the possibility. Instead of opening up to the possibility that an error was made, thereby lowering self worth, our minds rationalize the evidenciary input.
The second is Information Asymmetry. We empirically trust people who have more experience or information about a topic. These experts, whether they are real estate agents, stock brokers or economists, all have a greater understanding of their field than we do. So again, we rationalize that their authority lends them trustworthiness.
Tied closely with the second aspect is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). We create categories of people quickly, based on very little outside evidence, to make it easier for our brains to remember them. These classifications, of which there are many, create a sort of cognitive map on our brains, where a person, say Barack Obama, is linked with various characteristics observed.
Fourth, is the process of Cognitive Dissonance. The act of holding two conflicting notions in ones psyche at one time. This is what often gives rise to hypocrisy, which we see so much of in our political spectrum as to jade and cynicize the teenagers of our culture.
The most commonly held protest to the protests is that we "don't know what its about". You will read a lot of people saying it is about one thing, or conversely it's about many things. The main stream media derides the protesters for not having any centralized goal. Likewise the protesters object to the medias' inability to qualify their message. In case of the MSM, they are suffering from FAE. The see a group of people with no one major goal, and immediately label it sloppy and ineffective. Its quick, its easy, and it lets them move on. Likewise, protesters see the inability of the media to provide information in a coherent manner that they are used to seeing, and label them stupid and biased. There is also rampant Information Asymmetry. The protesters are in the thick of it, talking to one another, spending literally weeks and months learning everything they can about the topics fro experts and research. That's a huge amount of raw information. The media, on the other hand, gets their information from both sides of the debate, but in disproportionate quantities. Short interviews with protesters, which encapsulate perhaps reasons or grievances, and expert testimony from people directly invested in keeping things the way they are.
Then we have the "Left vs. Right" epic battle. Neither side wants to admit that they might have messed anything up, because that would mean two things. First, it would be a blatant implication that they were wrong, which includes the tacit implication that they could be wrong again. This is both a loss aversion problem and a FAE. They don't want to admit fault because it would lower their political worth to their constituents, which would consequently lower their own self image since they are directly linked within the mind of any politician. And there is the idea that if a person admits fault, it opens them up for further error. This is ridiculous because we all know that defying reality doesn't change it, it just makes you look stupid.
Following closely on its heels we have the "Lawful" debate. Who broke what law, why and how. There are clear examples of Cognitive Dissonance all over this one. Per the supreme court ruling against Citizens United, corporations are people and have full access to first amendments rights. This sets obvious precedent for corporations to be tried as people for crimes they commit. But no, we have to figure out what people within the corporation (person) committed what wrong? What, no...? If corporations are 'people' with 'rights' then they are 'people' with obligations, and responsibilities. Cake-and-eating-it. We are also in a sea of information regarding that. What companies did what, how it effected the economy, what is legal, are there statutes of limitations? These questions and their answers are abundant.
Finally there is the issue of accountability. This is a mess of all the previous mentioned psychological pitfalls, and is closely tied with the ideas behind what is considered lawful for the newest citizens of the U.S. The companies that played the biggest roles in the mortgage bubble, who lost the most, don't want to admit that it was a loss, because it would lower expectations and investor dollars. Enter our friend cognitive dissonance hand in hand with FAE, because those are exactly the criterion that investors look at, ability to make sound business choices, not screw up catastrophically and preform successful damage control when something does go wrong. If a small mom-and-pop shop opened next to a Wal-Mart, no one would be surprised when they went belly up. Banks wouldn't give them loans, because its a bad idea. Why should we reward even bigger bad ideas? Then we get lost in a sea of information again. Because there are economic experts who tell us that everything is returning to normal, and this was to be expected, (which is surprising to me, because during the bubble no one expected this). Should we really trust not only the same people who got us into this mess to get us out of it, people with an obvious incentive to lie, distort the truth, or mislead us with statistics?
Now however, I will get to the real issue. I don't really care how "Lawful" any of this was. I don't care about petty politicians three years of impression management, one year of policy making. I don't even care about who messed up what when. I care about the question which people keep ducking, avoiding its slippery slopes because its easier to take the paved path of the law. The Morality behind all this. Is it morally right to let banks and corporations control our politicians through massive anonymous campaign donations? Is it right to reduce our debt by trying to cut taxes to encourage investing in the nation? Is it right for us to cut health care benefits to the lower and middle class?
We don't have any legal obligation to give a crap about people dying of treatable conditions because they cannot afford hospital bills. They can't afford the hospital bills because their unemployed, but we don't have any legal reason to make sure that they have work so they can feed, cloth and shelter their families. If they have work and can do those things, we don't have any legal reason to make sure that they can continue to do so if their company moves its' services or production overseas because it cuts their costs. There is absolutely no reason our government has to do any of this.
But what about us. Is our social apathy so great that we can conceptualize leaving people to freeze or starve to death during the winter? It's reached the point where this is a reality, and we have to face it. Our nation has degenerated to the point where our citizens are being forced to make rational choices over whether its more important to feed their three children, and let one die of a treatable condition, or treat it and let the rest starve. In terms of utility functions the choice is clear, feed the three, hell, feed just the healthy ones because the sick one reduces the other childrens' chances of survival. Issues that we haven't had to deal with since the dark ages are creeping back into our lives. Our fore fathers crafted this nation, fighting usurious taxes placed upon them by a distant, unknowing government which they had no direct access to. They were forced into a economic corner, supplying raw materials to manufactures overseas and being forced to buy back the manufactured goods at high prices. They had to house and feed soldiers fighting wars in someone elses' name, for someone elses' agenda.
Any of this sound familar?
No comments:
Post a Comment