OCT 19

16: OCT 19. Living in the Matrix / Working with Political Difference 2

Assigned

• Haidt, Chapter 12, "Can't We all Disagree More Constructively?" (276-312) (36)

In-class

• Looking ahead to Unit 3 - Tuesday

Haidt, Ch 12, "Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?"

• Evidence of polarization in American politics; changes in political culture. compromise less valued.
• Looking for a theory of ideologies, which might be thought to drive political identity formation.

• Two senses:

• 1. Fixing orientation (all of the "big" theories we've studied have focused on evidence of persistent traits, especially in adults.
• 2. Fixing the specific fusion of issue-position and label acceptance.

• "right" and "left", simplifications, but basis of study and comparative to Europe in some ways, historical origins in French Assembly of 1789, basis in heritable traits - twins studies. L/R don't map wealth exclusively.
• Old answers: people choose ideologies based on interests. blank-state theories.

• One more time through the modern genetic/epigenetic/phenotype explanation pattern (note what's at stake: if you misunderstand the determinism here, you'll misunderstand the whole theory):

• 1: Genes make brains - Australian study: diff responses to new experiences: threat and fear for conservative, dopamine for liberal. (recall first draft metaphor)
• 2: Dispositional traits lead to different experiences, which lead to "characteristic adaptations" (story about how we differentiate ourselves through our first person experience. mention feedback loops). (Lots of parents would corroborate this.) Does the story of the twins seem plausible?
• 3: Life narratives; McAdams study using Moral Foundations Theory to analyze narratives, found MFs in stories people tell about religious experience. Thesis: different paths to religious faith. We "map" our moral foundations onto our faith commitment to some extent.

• So, an ideology can be thought of as the political version of a narrative that fits with a personal narrative you tell about your experience. Note the complexity here. You can tailor your narrative to you.

• Political narratives of Republicans and Democrats.

• Haidt, Graham, and Nosek study: Liberals worse at predicting conservatives responses. Interesting point: the distortion of seeing things as a liberal makes liberals more likely to believe that conservatives really don't care about harm. But conservatives may be better at understanding (predicting) liberal responses because they use all of the foundations. (File this with Hibbing Chs. 5 and 6)

• Muller on difference bt conservative and orthodox. Post-enlightenment conservatives: want to critique liberalism from Enlightenment premise of promoting human well being. follow conservative description of human nature. 290. - humans imperfect, need accountability, reasoning has flaws so we might do well to give weight to past experience, institutions are social facts that need to be respected, even sacralized. (Consider countries in which judges are abducted or blown up.)
• Moral and Social Capital -- moral capital: resources that sustain a moral community (including those that promote accountability and authority.). moral capital not always straightforward good (293), also, less trusting places, like cities, can be more interesting. Social capital more about the ties we have through our social networks which maintain trust and cooperation relationships.

• Liberals

• Blindspot: not valuing moral capital, social capital, tends to over reach, change too many things too quickly. Bertrand Russell: tension between ossification and dissolution..
• Strength: 1) regulating super-organisms (mention theory of "regulatory capture"); 2)solving soluble problems (getting the lead out - might have had big effect on well-being. note this was a bipartisan push back against a Reagan reversal of Carter's policy).

• Libertarians. Today's political libertarian started out as a "classic liberal" prioritizing limited gov and limited church influence of government.

• Note research suggesting how libertarians diverge from liberals and conservatives on the MFs.
• Libertarian wisdom: 1) markets are powerful -- track details -- often self-organizing, self-policing, entrepreneurial)

• Social Conservatives

• wisdom: understanding threats to social capital (can't help bees if you destroy the hive)

• Putnam's research on diversity and social capital : bridging and bonding capital both decline with diversity. sometimes well intentioned efforts to promote ethnic identity and respect can exacerbate this.

Layers of Political Difference

• 

• Issues

• Issues have lifespans that can range from months to years. Some issues get settled (e.g. gay marriage) while other remain contested (abortion). Since issues can get people to vote, political parties sometimes keep issues alive even when polling tells us that most people have moved on (again abortion, gun rights). Some issues are “live” but untouched by the major political parties (health care, penal reform), sometimes because advocacy would promote more opposing votes than supporting votes.

• Labels

• Labels can apply to parties and people. Democrats were “centrists” when Clinton was president, but now there are more progressive voices. Parties manage labels to avoid losing adherents, but parties can also be “taken over.” Some would says Republicans have been taken over by right wind authoritarianism. Dems are less centrist now. Polarization rules.

• Political Parties

• In a two party system, political parties have to reach 51% to win. They do this by trying to map labels onto people. If you are cynical, you might say they “manage” opinion by tracking trends and testing out issues to see “what sells”.

• People

• People are obviously at the heart of moral life. We have our own “moral matrix” and beliefs about “basic social dilemmas” (how society works best). We have to figure out who to ally with, who to tolerate, and who to avoid. Sometimes we actively oppose others’ views by protesting or contributing to causes.

• Culture

• Culture is a vector for transmitting moral views, so it shapes us, but we also shape it by the way we live our lives. This happens intentionally, but also passively through imitation.

• Orientations - Evolved Psychology

• This is the level at which Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and responses to basic social dilemmas describe our relatively stable “values orientation”.

• Nature - Evolutionary Challenges - Ancestral to Contemporary

• Evolutionary challenges are well known: how to behave, whom to trust, how to raise kids, when to go along with things, and when to resist others’ values and actions. Any existential problem that can be addressed by values is an evolutionary challenge, from avoiding disease to responding to aggression to facing climate change.

Note on "Social Epistemology"

• Philosophical Method point: The following line of thought is also example of philosophical speculation. We are venturing a bit beyond the research itself to extract significance and insight.

• "Social Epistemology" means a variety of things in philosophy. Here, the idea is that some traits relevant to group problem solving are distributed in a population (call this a "demographic epistemic trait" AND that this variation might play a role in optimizing group decision-making. In other words, we are not all seeing the same social reality due to our different orientations and experiences. These differences might be persistent, not something we can talk each other out of. But making constructive use of differences might product better decisions.

• Think about evidence from Haidt and Hibbing about divergences in cognitive style, problem solving (BeanFest!), perception, and moral matrices. Evidence from Haidt on MFs.

• Speculative questions about such traits (I am not aware of a theory about this yet): Are there are DETs? Would human populations with some optimal variation in DETs do better than ones with more or less than an optimal range? There is a research literature on diversity of perspective in workgroups. It is often a benefit.

• Related literature: Wisdom of Crowds [1] and research on group decision making under conditions of cognitive diversity.

Conversational Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

• A big problem that this unit leaves us with is, "How do we interact with people with different matrices and different experiences, especially concerning political value differences, when we hold our own views with conviction and sense of their truth? In other words, how do we deal with the Paradox of Moral Experience?

• Why this is so difficult...

• We often unintentionally (and, for some people, intentionally) create "cognitive dissonance" in a discussion, leading people to find ways to stop the pain, rather than listen to the issues. This can escalate.
• We don't always have reasons for our convictions, but, as we know from the dumbfounding research, we "confabulate". We confuse intuitions with reasoned conviction. This can lead us to "pile on" arguments, thinking they are persuasive apart from the intuitions (moral matrix) that support them. But if you don't have those intuitions, the "pile on" can feel aggressive.
• We don't all react the same way when our views are criticized. (Remember Socrates' attitude here. Noble but difficult to achieve.)

• 1. Three Basic Strategies:

• A. Explore differences gently. Monitor your vital signs and those of your interlocutors.
• B. Find common goals or things to affirm. (Example of landlord interaction last semester.)
• C. Model exploratory thought. (How do you do that, specifically?) See sympathetic interpretation below.
• These strategies obviously move you in different directions in a conversation, but they can all be used together to manage "dissonance" and tension in a discussion.

• 2. Practice Sympathetic Interpretation

• In general, sympathetic interpretation involves strategies that mix "identification" (peanuts for the elephant) with "critical engagement" (rational persuasion, expression of value differences)
• Try to understand where a view is "coming from". Ask questions.
• Restate views, checking for fairness.

• 3. Other miscellaneous strategies (many contributed by students):

• Cultivate diverse relationships if possible.
• Avoid pejorative labels.
• Views can change even if orientations don't. Focus on views, not orientations.
• Accept differences that won't change (validate them in others, as you would other differences), focus on pragmatics and cooperation.
• Humor, if possible. Self-effacing humor can set the stage.
• Acknowledge physio-politics in the discussion. Give people "permission" or space to "out" themselves as libs and cons.
• Acknowledge your own orientation and expect it to be respected.
• Don't "sugar coat" differences. (Be true to yourself.)

Argumentative and Rhetorical Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

• Acknowledge partial truths in opposing views, and weaknesses in your own view.
• Present your issue commitment as something that should appeal to someone with a different political orientation.

  • Practice "strategic dissimulation" (controversial for some). "I'm still working out my views here..." when you really have pretty well worked out views, even one's you are proud of and think to be true (Paradox of Moral Experience)

• Practice "strategic self-deprecation" - Acknowledge knowledge deficits or evidentiary weaknesses in your view as a way of inviting a more critical discussion.
• Use verbal cues that indicate (if possible) that views you disagree with are "reasonable" and/or "understandable". That could mean:

• 1. The view is reasonable, even if you disagree. Preface your disagreement by acknowledging this.

• Example: "Reasonable and well-informed people disagree on this..."... "Well, your in good company..."

• 2. The view seems unreasonable, but you focus on some intuitions that support it, even if you don't share these intuitions.

• Example: I can see how/why someone would feel this way..., but...

• 3. The view seems unreasonable and false to you, but it is one that many people hold.

• Example: Acknowledging that the view is widely held without endorsing it. You can also "deflect" to the complexity of the problem or human nature...