It Is Even Worse Than It Looks

For obvious reasons during this very long American presidential campaign season, I have been avoiding political discussions generally and political conventions specifically. Nonetheless, I can’t avoid accidentally reading some things and one recent article caught my attention and reminded me of a couple of other related ones which will be quickly summarized before we move on to completely non-political topics. Combined they all mean there is no hope, but at least I now understand why the acronym TEOTWAWKI was created.

First, the title of this post is meant to remind you of a very good book from a couple of years ago that was written by well-respected gents, one from the near right and one from the near left. It is called: It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, by Mann and Ornstein. I think they argue that the American political system was not designed for such extreme partisanship and that one party in particular was to blame  and “unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science.” (They name the party, but I won’t do so here so that perhaps you will give their arguments more credence, but you won’t which gets me to those articles I mentioned).

It seems that the usual distinction between facts and opinions no longer makes much difference because Daniel Patrick Moynihan was wrong when he said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  Now that all politics is simply personal and we live in an age of entitlement everyone is entitled to facts of their own and there is no need to argue. But, it is not that simple so I will turn it over to the social scientists and present the concepts mentioned in the articles - such things as ‘confirmation bias’, ‘biased assimilation’ and ‘surprising validators' - which make sense when you think about them and when they are described in simple sentences. Here are some quotes and the sources for them.

- “Social scientists have some intriguing explanations for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence….Basically, the studies show that attempts to refute false information often backfire and lead people to hold on to their misperceptions even more strongly.”
-“...arguing the facts doesn’t help — in fact, it makes the situation worse.” The reason is that people tend to accept arguments that confirm their views and discount facts that challenge what they believe.”

-When presented with facts with which they do not agree,  “Instead of changing their minds, most will dig in their heels and cling even more firmly to their originally held views,”

-“The results show that direct factual contradictions can actually strengthen ideologically grounded factual belief,”

-“ ...attempts to debunk myths can reinforce them, simply by repeating the untruth.  It seems that people remember the assertion and forget whether it’s a lie. The authors wrote: “The more often older adults were told that a given claim was false, the more likely they were to accept it as true after several days have passed.”

I could go on, but the only bright spots seem to be that you might convince a few people if you use charts or graphs or, “if the factual presentation is accompanied by “affirmation” that asks respondents to recall an experience that made them feel good about themselves.” If you use a “surprising validator” to present the opinion, that is, if it is someone trusted with whom the person usually agrees, they are more likely to be convinced. But, as one of the author’s says, “The news here is not encouraging.”

For more information see: “Why Facts Don’t Matter to Trump’s Supporters” David Ignatius, Washington Post, Aug. 4, 2016, and Cass Sunstein, “Breaking Up the Echo,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 2012. If you care enough to have read this far you will also be interested in the points made by Kevin Kruse in “The Real Loser: Truth,” New York Times, Nov. 5, 2012. He offers some good reasons why the truth seems to matter less and among them are: a) the fact that there has been a decline in respect for the opinions offered by ‘professionals’ and b) “...most news organizations (with notable exceptions) abandoned their roles as political referees. Many resorted to an atrophied style that resembled stenography more than journalism, presenting all claims as equally valid. Fact checking, once a foundation for all reporting, was now deemed the province of a specialized few.”

It should be noted that an earlier scientist of society (Thucydides) summed it all up in saying “...for it is the habit of mankind … to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy.”