The Self-Delusion of the Political Mind

Everyone agrees that 2+2 makes 4.

Almost everyone agrees that a cloudless daytime sky is blue.

Very few people know why high tides occur on the same and opposite side of the earth from the moon, and those who don't know aren't likely to have a firm opinion about it.

Ask about what should be done to reduce poverty to people who don't know anything about the topic and you will probably find extremely firm opinions about it.

What makes politics different from so many other topics? People obviously put a lot of value in their opinions about politics - often to the extent that they refuse to listen to any alternative ideas. I think the political mind is used to create a model of the world based on beliefs about non-political topics, so that politics is becomes an abstract representation of deeply held belief structures. As such, discussions about politics, in this case, are really discussions about whether or not those deeply held beliefs are true - unfortunately, most of the time neither party recognizes what the discussion is actually about.

If I think that poor people are lazy, I might be likely to believe that welfare is unjust. Similarly, I might rationalize that because there are still poor people, welfare does not work - in fact, it just makes people lazier because they are given something for free and no longer have any motivation to get jobs. Of course, if the premise is true (poor people are just lazy), my conclusion might be rational (welfare doesn't reduce poverty) and, with the conclusion established, people who support welfare are supporting people not working and getting something they don't deserve. From this point it's easy to see how I could believe that welfare supporters want to create a socialist welfare state where nobody works becuase I never question my beliefs about poor people or my belief that it is obvious to everyone else.

If I actually believed this, I would probably get pretty frustrated with all the people coming up with loony ideas about how the world should work. This is no surprise - many of us know how this game works. But what is the value of the behavior? Are people so concerned about whether or not they're correct? I suspect it's something else, entirely. We don't see nearly as many people getting uptight about cars, landscaping plants, or which route is best to get downtown. There is something specific about the beliefs surrounding political thinking that makes it particularly likely to generate anger.

Could it be that politics involves topics that are difficult to understand or ambiguous? Math is difficult to understand, but there aren't blogs about how dumb non-mathematicians are. Ambiguity is a possibility - religious disagreements are quite often based in ambiguity (though they may claim to know). If so, it could be that a need for intellectual certainty combined with an ambiguous topic might do it. Certainty is an often observed characteristic of political thinking (and religion).

But why do so few people try to determine the correctness of their beliefs (let alone take firm positions on them)? For one, I don't think many people understand or are able to apply the idea that anecdotal evidence is not proof. Also, research is hard work that requires keeping one's options open. If coming up with a decision can not be suspended, research basically becomes confirmation bias. I suspect there's more to it than just that, however. What could cause people to falsify research? Where does political chain email come from?

The way I read political chain email is as an attempt to get people to agree with a by having them fall for the same false beliefs or shoddy reasoning the author has. Somehow, the belief/political view construct acts as a feedback loop. Or perhaps, there are yet deeper beliefs that are used to form beliefs about people and policies regarding policies.

Could a complete political belief system be derived from one's belief about the innate goodness of people? If one believes that people are basically good, it would be difficult to believe in extreme right-wing policies. Likewise, if people are basically selfish, it would be difficult to take a leftist position because of moral hazard.

Interesting stuff.