On the Abolition of All Political Parties

That is the title of a book written in 1942 by a French woman, Simone Weil. It is quite good and I highly recommend it. You can find it here:

On the Abolition of All Political Parties

In 2019, the Washington Post published a piece about the book and its relevance to the current political climate in this country:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/18/this-french-intellectual-diagnosed-americas-current-political-malaise/

For Weil, all political parties, regardless of their ideological coloration, share three basic traits. They are dedicated to nurturing collective passions, designed to exercise collective pressure upon the minds of their members and devoted to their collective self-preservation. These traits, in turn, make it nigh impossible for the members of political parties to think and act as individuals.

Current psychological / neurological research supports this judgment. We are basically tribal. We defend our membership in the group that gives us identity and purpose. Rational arguments will not dissuade us, and we are rarely able to separate ourselves from the group.

The author makes excellent points, and with  bit of research you can find all manner of organizations committed to this cause. No political parties are supporting this. Interesting, right? Great idea, but how on earth do we do that? Being a member, being tribal is one of the basic core things about homo sapiens. It is how we defeated all of the other hominids that were in competition with us. When stressed, we identify with our core membership group, and we will even sacrifice our lives for the good of the tribe. This is pretty well documented at this point. Giving up our rational thinking to belong to the group is pretty easy, compared to dying for it. 

How do we overcome that strength or weakness, and turn it into an advantage? We have managed to do that with some other traits that are just as powerful. Take for example our need for strong leaders, or our selfish need to acquire things. These are great strengths, but if left totally unchecked we are have despotic tyranny, and unbridled monopolies. 

Some form of democracy seems required to constrain our lust for strong leaders. We have them, but they are constrained, restricted, limited. That is a pretty amazing accomplishment. 

For our need to acquire everything we can, some market restraints have generally been required - anti-trust, price fixing controls, SEC, etc. They work somewhat. We make it illegal to have too much control of our "free" market, because that option is not the most "efficient" or effective. This one slips a bit now and then - libertarians seem oddly bent on destroying it, but most of us understand that if you build a wonderful economic engine with NO controls, it is like designing a super fast car with no brakes. You can get one of these up and running, but it is destructive to its surroundings, and it takes forever to get anywhere because you have to coast to a stop. Brakes really help you get to where you are going quickly and in one piece.

So, my thinking is that we need to change our form of government to make political parties unnecessary, to make them powerless. I doubt that we can make them illegal. This tendency to tribalism is so ingrained in us that I doubt it could ever be directly constrained. Instead, let's structure a government form where it is simply powerless. You can belong to a political party.You can gather in crowds and cheer your leader, or your ideas, or your membership. Fine. But for choosing a leader, the party or group has no role. 

Good idea - now how on earth do we do that? Parliamentary seems a bit better. It gives us one more layer of decisions before we have the "supreme leader" appointed. Completely indirect elections at the federal level might do that. I wrote a piece on that a few years ago. A true "face to face" democracy - not a party based system. 

https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2013/06/face-to-face-democracy.html

What is your take on this? We clearly need to do something! NOW!

Good Economics for Hard Times - A Book Report and Summary of key points

Good Economics for Hard Times - by Abhijit V. Banerjee  (Author), Esther Duflo (Author) 2019. The authors are husband and wife. They shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics for their experimental approach to ending world poverty. They have studied the problem of poor economics around the world for decades. This book is a great collection of research and ideas that shows us how to better manage the resources of the planet. They are well versed in behavioral economics - the latest research approach. And they are well aware of our human foibles with politics and tribal gut responses. 

This is an extraordinary book. If you are an elected official and you stumble on this note - I will buy you a copy of this book if you promise to read it. These two economists have actually figured out how to FIX some small part of the world. This is not a "theory" - the things they put forth come from the field of behavioral, experimental economics. All economists craft theories about how things work. A few actually experiment, trying things out in controlled studies to better understand the decisions that individuals and groups make in their economic world. 

Normally, when I read an interesting book, I make notes of key things, just to try to remember them. It helps me hold on to them. For you, dear reader, I have reduced my notes to a kind of summary of the key points of the book. I make no citations or claims of accuracy. If you want to see the research behind these assertions - buy the book! Please buy the book. If enough of us actually understand this stuff, we may have a shot at changing things. Thanks 

We live in an age of polarization.
We are all divided these days. We no longer discuss and compromise - we just sling mud at each other.  81% of people who identify with one political party have a very negative opinion of the other party. Republicans are racists, sexists, bigots. Democrats are "spiteful" - what does that mean?

Civilization as we know it is at risk.
Surveys show that most people think that the whole idea of democracy and open ideas and debate is under threat.

Our opinions are based on personal values - not rational thinking.
We choose our positions based on a value judgement, and ignore any evidence to the contrary. When we do cite sources, they are simplistic and biased. No one really thinks hard about issues.

All of our measures are about income and wealth. We see everything as a competition, and the world is trying to get ours.
Because of this world view, economists, leaders and the general public generally make bad decisions. We think that the whole world is waiting across the border to rush in and take our jobs and our way of life. The simple fact is that most people stay home - they are "sticky". Studies show that they will generally not travel to the nearest town to find a better job, let alone leave their country. There has to be immense pressure before they will depart their home.

We need to get back to the idea of treating others with dignity and respect - not for their income and wealth.
Every human desires dignity and respect, and human contact. If we can work on that basic value for all persons, we can rethink our economic and political priorities, and make some progress. Our most important decisions are how society cares for all of its members - especially those in need.

We see immigration as a threat, because we think people are coming here to take our share. There is only so much to go around, and if they come here, we will lose out.
We think, and our fearless leader thinks, that economics is a zero sum game. If the migrants get ahead, the rest of us have to lose. This is simplistic thinking at its worst. Some people are in such terrible situations that they simply MUST leave home. It is pretty amazing that more of them do not leave.

There is NO credible evidence that large inflows of low-skilled immigrants hurt the local population. That is true even at the lower level of job categories. Influx almost always grows the economy and creates opportunities. Our labor market is nothing like the old standard supply and demand.

People generally only leave their homes because it is impossible to remain there. 
The government has collapsed, war and torture and murder are the norm. They are personally threatened or persecuted. Most people will stay home as long as they possibly can. When Nepal's agriculture failed, most people did not flee the countryside because they could not afford the trip. Violence is what drives people to leave. They no longer have a home to return to.
Between 2010 and 2015, the height of the Greek economic crisis, fewer than 350,000 Greeks moved to the EU - about 3% of the population. And as members of the EU they had NO border to cross.

We think that when immigrants come, they depress the local wage market, especially for low paying jobs. The evidence suggests that even large bouts of in-migration have very little negative impact.

Immigrants generally raise the economic level - they do not depress it.

• A report by the Center for American Entrepreneurship found that, in 2017, out of the largest five hundred US companies by revenue (the Fortune 500 list), 43 percent were founded or co-founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Moreover, immigrant-founded firms account for 52 percent of the top twenty-five firms, 57 percent of the top thirty-five firms, and nine of the top thirteen most valuable brands.36 Henry Ford was the son of an Irish immigrant. Steve Jobs’s biological father was from Syria, Sergey Brin was born in Russia. Jeff Bezos takes his name from his stepfather, the Cuban immigrant Mike Bezos.

The only common quality of these successful immigrants is that they were a bit braver about taking risks. They were not smarter, not stronger. We find so many successful entrepreneurs among immigrants because they took the risks needed to survive and moved.

An influx of migrants increases demand for labor at the same time as the supply arrives. That is one reason why wages do not go down. Supply and demand is not a very good model of how labor markets work. 

The authors think we do not have enough international migration.

More international migration would deliver clear benefits to both sides. Most people are simply unable or unwilling to move - within their own country, let alone outside.

Helping new immigrants is the best way for them to become productive members of our economy, and to help it thrive.
Housing assistance, mentoring, job placement, training. This would encourage more people to make the trip, benefiting them and their host economy.

International trade is not a threat.
On the long haul, international trade works to our benefit. It's called the "law of comparative advantage". Look it up! If anyone can make something comparatively better, or comparatively cheaper than we can, then we all profit. Taxing trade (tariffs) is simply bad economics. There are transition issues where workers need retraining, or industry segments need to adapt - and we should provide transition help for those - most European nations have that well in hand by now. Blocking trade to avoid these problems is just expensive on both sides. 

• Economists mostly talk about the gains of trade. The idea that free trade is beneficial is one of the oldest propositions in modern economics. As the English stockbroker and member of Parliament David Ricardo explained two centuries ago, since trade allows each country to specialize in what it does best, total income ought to go up everywhere when there is trade, and as a result the gains to winners from trade must exceed the losses to losers. The last two hundred years have given us a chance to refine this theory, but it is a rare economist who fails to be compelled by its essential logic. Indeed, it is so rooted in our culture that we sometimes forget the case for free trade is by no means self-evident.

Instead of seizing new opportunities, we tend to hunker down and hold on. 

When we face competition from outside, we generally retreat - rather than trying to move forward or pursue other opportunities. We are generally conservative in that way. . 

• Given these various forms of stickiness, it is plausible that when bad news arrives in the form of greater competition from outside, instead of embracing it and moving resources to their best possible use, there is a tendency to hunker down and hope the problem will go away on its own. Workers are laid off, retiring workers are not replaced, and wages start to drift down. Business owners take a big hit on their profits, loans get renegotiated, all in order to preserve as much as possible of the status quo ex ante. There is no improvement in efficiency, just a fall in the earnings of everyone associated with the industries that lose their protection.

The U.S. economy is so large that international trade of any magnitude has a very small overall impact. But individuals can be negatively affected.
We need to address the localized pain that trade imposes - retraining and moving, if only to encourage the return on that investment that we will gain. Workers do not easily move - they need assistance.

THOSE people will never integrate - they need to go home!
Ben Franklin thought the Germans should be barred. The Chinese were feared. And then the Irish, lord help us all. Italians and Greeks - what will become of us. In 1920, I have a census page which shows that 80% of the households in northern MN spoke something other than English at home.

• And yet each wave of immigrants eventually was accepted and assimilated. The first names they chose for their children, the occupations they ended up in, the way they voted, and what they bought and ate converged with those of the local population. In turns, the locals adopted the once-foreign first names and foods: Rocky is an American hero and pizza is one of the five basic food groups.

Xenophobia is not a permanent condition, but the price can be horrendous.
We should be very concerned about our xenophobes, because of the terrible history they have wrought in the past. The Belgian colonialists created the fiction of "superior" Tutsis and "inferior" Hutus to secure allies in governing. The horrific genocide of 1995 was the result.

Our whole concept of democracy is at risk, if we cannot somehow learn to listen to each other and cooperate. This is not post WW I Germany, but our fearless leaders are making us feel that we are all at risk.

• As we lose the ability to listen to each other, democracy becomes less meaningful and closer to a census of the various tribes, who each vote based more on tribal loyalties than on a judicious balancing of priorities. The biggest coalition of tribes wins, even if its candidate is a known child molester, or worse. The winner does not need to deliver economic or social benefits even to his own supporters as long as the supporters worry enough about the possibility of takeover by the other side; knowing that, he or she will do their best to stoke those fears. In the worst case, the winner can then use the power gained in this way to take control of the media to shut down any alternative voice, so there is no more competition to worry about. 

Summation

An excellent book - you should read it. But they really do not offer any solution to this mayhem. I think it is beyond the realm of economics to actually understand just how humans operate. I remain hopeful that we will eventually understand how our brains operate - or do not. See this prior piece for more on that. https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2020/05/identity-politics-tribal-politics.html

Hang in there. I'm pulling for you - and we really are all in this together. If you aren't doing your part, we aren't going to make it.

Identity Politics

Identity Politics? Tribal Politics? Abandon all hope!

This is one of my favorite podcasts, You are Not So Smart, with David McCraney, interviewing Lilliana Mason, the author of the book: Uncivil Agreement. I have not read the book yet, but it is on my list. Here is a transcript of the podcast.  https://youarenotsosmart.com/2018/08/04/transcript-uncivil-agreement/

I have been reading a bit of psychological and neuroscience research, trying to figure out why on earth people hold on to what I consider to be crazy ideas, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. The political and religious realms are rife with this stuff, but it also creeps into science and economics, as well as other areas.

I commented on this problem when I wrote about Jonathan Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind. You can find that blog entry here: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2017/08/jonathan-haidt-righteous-minds-update.html and here: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-are-those-idiots-from-other.html.
The point of those posts was that I tend to see people who hold these contrary ideas as simply crazy, irrational. And typically, they see me in the same way. I saw these irrational differences as based on one or more of the following:

1. Genetic predisposition, nurtured by culture, toward people being either progressive, or conservative. 
2. Tribal - the need to belong to a group that provides support and meaning. Any thing voice against the tribe is an attack on my meaning and purpose.
3. Identity - people identify with their beliefs, and any opinion that is contrary to that is seen as an attack on them. We call it identify politics these days.

We automatically belong to an "in" group, and identify with that group. Anything that seems to attack that group generates an automatic defensive mechanism - the same way a lion on the path would generate a defensive alert on the part of our body. This happens automatically, with no conscious thought or choice. My question is whether we can be observant enough to recognize this reaction and to choose to do otherwise. That would be my ultimate hope - that we can teach people to recognize this automatic response, and then choose to work around it. 

Here's a scary example:

"The example that I would give to be politically salient today is to think about child separation at the border. I would suspect that 99 percent of Americans would say children should not be separated from their parents. But when you get a partisan cue attached to it, you can actually get people to say the opposite thing that they would have said six months ago. Similarly, if you can convince people that their party holds a different position than it does, they will change their position immediately without even knowing that the party gave them the cue. They’ll think that it all was coming from their own logical reasoning process."

The author cites an experiment done by Geoffrey Cohen in 2003 where psychologists persuaded people that their own party's position on a topic was x, when it was actually y. They then asked them if they were taking that position simply because of their party. And they replied "no". "They were asked to write an essay about it, and they broke down a whole bunch of reasons about why they held that position. They came up with them out of whole cloth on the spot, not knowing that this was something that they were even doing."  

"For both liberal and conservative participants, the effect of reference group information overrode that of policy content. If their party endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare program, and conservatives supported even a lavish one."

The study has these insights:

• Social groups serve as a primary source of personal values. Most people cannot step outside of that group membership and think independently.
• People are generally blind to the influence of their group membership on their values and beliefs. 

You can download a PDF copy of this original study here. This piece is a bit of a summary of the study results. https://hackernoon.com/incentives-and-our-political-divide-d9907a5209a0

Or just search for "party over policy".

All of which tells me that we need to find a way to make political parties useless entities. There has to be a way to make that happen. Otherwise, we are all toast. I am not so sure that will work. If we disable the traditional idea of a political party, people will identify with something else. We really need them to stop being a social person, and start thinking for themselves. HOW!?

How do we fix this? That is the last question McCraney poses. And the answer is: "I'm working on that".  

Ideas from the transcript:

https://youarenotsosmart.com/2018/08/04/transcript-uncivil-agreement/

-------------------------------------------

One of the things that we know about intergroup prejudice is that we can combat it on an individual level by practicing at turning it around. Let's say I just made a snap judgment about this person based on their identity. I realize now that I did that. I’m going to be aware of it, and I’m going to think about it and try to try to change that snap judgment or stereotype around in my head and practice thinking about that person as the opposite of the stereotype I just thought of. Over time, you can get good at it. You can practice it so much that that it becomes a little easier, and it comes a little bit faster. The first immediate instinct is always going to be to go after that person with the stereotypes that are associated with them. But you can create, by practicing, a secondary response which can follow the first one relatively quickly that says wait don’t assume that. Hive this person a chance. They’re a human being. They have family. They care about people.

We need to find a way to step back and think, “OK, what’s the greater good?” Find a way to think about what is the best for the most people. Obviously, it’s not human instinct to do that. But we’ve done it before and we had crosscutting identities between the parties not that long ago. It is possible for us to have crosscutting identities again. That would link us to the other side in terms of thinking of them as human beings.

The last thing that I’ll say is that the one policy that I’ve thought of this since I wrote the book that could work would be service. One way to get people of varying backgrounds to work together is to put them work together doing some type of service. Working in a soup kitchen or building houses for Habitat or working in Peace Corps or doing something in the military. The military is a giant melting pot of all different kinds of political orientations. One thing that could be helpful is to work together. This is my like moonshot idea. Possibly connected to free tuition for people but on the condition that they do two years of service — not done with their neighbors. That service mixes them together with other people who are from different places and have different perspectives, and then you would a generation of Americans who sees other partisans as human beings. It provides service, which is great, and you get to go to college, which is also great. That’s my one optimistic outcome. If we can do that, then maybe we could have a little bit more understanding.
-----------------------

A Year of Service

I like this last idea a lot. Guess which city in the US has the most foreign language speakers? And they have a very progressive policy for dealing with homeless.  Salt Lake City. And why is that? Hmmm?  Two years or service - most in a foreign land. They do tend to work only with their own members - it would be much better if they worked with many other people, and focused on something besides religious conversion. Just saying.

Politics and Neuroscience - Difficult Conversations

Politics and Neuroscience

This is a work in progress - there will be frequent changes to this post.
First posted 2020.06.12, updated: 2020.09.02 modestly 

My Credentials
I am NOT a scientist of any sort. I have doctorate level graduate degrees in moral theology and law, and 30 years of experience in computer technology. I am an older white gentleman, and a grandfather. I ran for elected office a few times at the city level. There - my total credentials. 

My Values
I am persuaded that human life is incredibly priceless. In this vast universe, it would appear that the entire clockwork machine is winding its way down to nothing. We - living beings - are the only things we are aware of that grow, create, inspire, hope and love. Living things are amazing and priceless.  Intelligent life is exceedingly rare - and not very "intelligent". We are sophisticated apes, governed mostly by emotion and care, not rational thinking. We need help to "nudge" ourselves to be the best for our long term survival.

I am very worried about our near term future. I think that in order to survive, we must learn more about  how our brain works. Recent history shows that a rational, thinking approach to self government is not very effective. Those who are using a "different" approach are carrying off the prize. To counter that we need to understand the best research into how humans operate, to help ourselves do the best we can for human progress.
This post is a collection of some research and ideas on that topic.

There are two sections:
Rules - Shorthand notes for the majority of us who find it difficult to read at length.
At Length - Longer text, and some articles and books that support the "rules", with annotations.  These are in a logical order of sorts, so start reading at the top.

What to do with this?
If you personally know a politician, send this to them. Ideally, it would benefit all of us if we could persuade our government and research labs to investigate this problem and identify a "path to rational living". How do we move all of humankind to a new level of intelligent life? Haidt has a few suggestions, but the research on this is pretty poor. Efforts in this direction in the past have been largely poetical and inspirational. We need some better science here.
You can also comment at the bottom to help improve this. Thanks.

SO - how do we influence people in the world of politics in the most effective way?

Rules

1. Talk to the elephant - not the rider.
   As Jonathan Haidt has shown, we are like an elephant. We think we are the rider on top of the elephant telling it where to go. In fact, the elephant is going wherever it wants. We are following along, thinking we are in charge of it.
   The rider is the rational part of us - our brain and "thinking". The elephant is our gut - emotions, values, traditions, our tribe. That part is in charge of where we are going. Talk to the elephant!
2. Talk about values, morals, principles.
   Our gut, our elephant, is all about emotions, values, feelings. Your conversation has to be with that part, not ideas and arguments or evidence. In fact, if you bring someone good evidence that contradicts their feelings or beliefs, it will further confirm those beliefs. It's an automatic protective mechanism in our brain. Instead, speak to their fears, their hopes. Offer hope and concrete plans to solve problems - not just hopeful promises. Empathize - understand that people are afraid - they are not stupid or ignorant - just afraid. Do NOT argue. At the most, you can try to raise a glimmer of a doubt - nothing more. AND, you might just learn something as well.
3. Ignore the other side.
   Do not repeat what "they" say, do not even mention their name, do not criticize them.
   Quick, do NOT think of an elephant - you just did. Ignore the elephant in the room. There is no rational argument that will persuade or counter their statements. If you mention them, you add to their exposure and audience. If you criticize them, or their followers, you shore up their defenses and make them even stronger in defense. IGNORE them. Above all, do not call them names - understand how afraid they are. 
4. The little stuff matters - it's patterns all the way down.
   Our brain is a very sophisticated pattern recognition engine. It makes survival decisions in sub-second time. It reads face, posture, tone, instantly. We are mostly unaware of the process. Everything you do, say, and even think, will make an impression on your audience. Be careful. Be honest. Be real. Unless you are a masterful actor or a psychopath, your personal integrity leaks out all the time. Make sure it is something you are proud of. Be mindful, spend some time with your own values and hopes and fears. Learn how to share those. It builds bridges.
5. Listen for feelings, and reflect them back.
   When you meet someone one on one, the above rules still matter - but first you need to really LISTEN. Listen with your eyes for their feelings, emotions. Then reflect those back to make it clear you hear them. That starts to build a "trust bridge". You may not be able to persuade them of anything, but you can gain their trust, which is a lot more important. This is not manipulation - this is caring and trust and communicating. It is how humans work.

At Length

1. Talk to the elephant, not the rider.

Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking Fast and Slow.

This was the first book I read along these lines. Kahneman won the "Nobel" Prize for economics, and he is a psychologist. That alone is interesting. His research makes it very clear that most decisions that we make are FAST ones - done by our pattern recognition engine, with very little input from our rational selves. We CAN be rational - but it is a lot of work and uses a lot of energy. He does not explore how we might help improve this situation, but he has clearly documented it.

Our implicit worldview is that we are totally rational beings. We think about things, and we decide what we are gong to do and why. A bit of scientific inquiry proves that this is rarely the case. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky discovered that with a number of interesting experiments, described in detail in this fine book: Thinking Fast and Slow. . He and Amos devised some ingenious experiments, and studied the works of many others. The book is a great resource, as it describes the research in detail - it is often hard to believe what they uncovered. Get it, read it - you will be persuaded. Here are a few of the findings.

• Election Prediction: People were shown pictures of candidates for a political office, and asked to guess the winner.  They guessed correctly in 70% of the cases, by just looking at the pictures for a fraction of a second. The winners tend to have a strong chin and a confident smile. 
• Illusion of Understanding or Expertise: Kahneman was put in charge of selecting recruits for officer training in the Israeli military. He had a psychology degree, so he seemed qualified. His team ran an experiment where the candidates had to get a large log and themselves over a wall, without touching the wall. It can be done, but they were looking for leadership qualities, not physical agility. After a year or so of doing this, they decided to look at their results - which candidates had been successful in officer training. The result - 50% of their selections were successful. They could have flipped a coin. But the next time they ran the exercise, they were still sure that their recommendations were correct - even with good information, they could not shake the illusion that they understood what they were doing.
• Investments. That same illusion of expertise colors most investment decisions. If you are heavily invested in the market, you really need to read this chapter. It is literally true that throwing darts at a board works just as well as any analysis of companies.
• Confirmation Bias:  We surround ourselves with information that matches our beliefs. If something does not, we avoid it, explain it, forget it. Contrary information can even make us commit more strongly to our belief.
• Threat Avoidance Dominates: We are much more worried about losing things and avoiding dangers than we are about creating solutions. We will hold on to a losing side until the bitter end, instead of cutting our losses. 
• Gambler's Fallacy: We think our odds improve the longer we play - in fact they NEVER change, no matter how long we are losing. 
• Cognitive Dissonance: We cannot hold on to two ideas that do not work together, so we change our ideas to match our actual actions. 
• Anchoring Effect: Our decisions are easily shifted by the mere mention of an extreme alternative. If I am negotiating a price, and the other party makes a ridiculous offer - I should leave immediately and restart the conversation later. The mere mention of a number that is outside my price range will shift my range significantly. It is almost impossible to avoid this.
• Nutrition is important. The decisions made by a parole board shortly before lunch are very different that those made after lunch. If you are the candidate, and you have a good case, you want them to be well nourished.
• Additional Resources: 
• An illustrated summary of some of the common errors we make:
  https://buffer.com/resources/thinking-mistakes-8-common-mistakes-in-how-we-think-and-how-to-avoid-them
• Ted Talks on the same topic:
  https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions
  https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_why_we_make_bad_decisions
  https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_our_buggy_moral_code
• David Mcraney - books and podcast:
• You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself.
• You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
• https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/ 

Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.
This is a remarkable book, and well worth your time to read. It covers the author's exploration of how conservative and progressive people differ in their values and thinking. The image of speaking to the elephant is his wisdom. All of this comes from experiments with people around the world. For a nice brief summary of the idea, see this resource: https://moralfoundations.org/

Here are the key ideas:

• We are right! They are wrong. We are by nature self-righteous bigots. And that’s NOT a problem – it is normal! We are always absolutely certain that we are right.
• We go with our gut. Evolution has given us this gift of rapid decision making. If we were not so primed to jump to rapid conclusions, we would never make any decisions. Just imagine making a purely rational decision about what cereal to buy in the aisle at the grocery store.
• Thinking comes after the fact. We marshal other ideas to support our gut call. Rational arguments on the other side just confirm our belief. You can’t make the dog happy by wagging its tail. We see contrary ideas as threats to our person, and they shore up our defenses.
• We tend to be a bit more conservative than not. It’s what worked! The guy who first tried that strange mushroom did not leave any kids. The ones who built a unusual house perished in the storm.
• We work off 5 basic moral imperatives that are in our genes. They pretty much govern how we work. The flavor of the imperatives changes a bit given our “world view” or social culture, but they are key to our rapid decisions. There are hundreds of complex things going on in our gut, but these five are a handy shorthand.
• Progressives / Conservatives are different. Progressives tend to focus on just two of the moral rules, while most Conservatives seem to use them all. Libertarians are different. Haidt thinks the propensity to one or other perspective has some biological basis, but it can be "moved". 
• We are Tribal. Team or tribal membership is a big part of us. And our tribal identity blinds us to the real world. We take our values from our tribe, the culture we live in, our group.
• The five+1 foundations of morality:
• Harm / Care.
• Fairness / Reciprocity.
• In Group Loyalty. Only humans can form very large groups, which was a major step in enabling us to create civilization. Ants and termites also seem to do this.
• Authority / Respect.
• Purity / Sanctity. Sex on the right, food on the left.
• Liberty / Oppression - He added this one later, to try to understand the motivation of libertarians. They seem to focus on this one alone.

• The “liberals” or “progressives” work more from the values of harm / care and fairness / reciprocity, as well as liberty. Conservatives tend to use all 6 more equally. The big insight for me was to understand the fear that “order tends to decay”. I am usually on the progressive side – we need to move forward, to change, to adopt new technology and ideas. I tend to ignore the risk this carries. The basic conservative position tends to be that civilization is very fragile, and we could lose it all if we are not careful. They see order as precious, and anything that goes counter to the present structure is dangerous. Punishment also seems to be a key part of our moral motivation – as in religion and the threat of hell.

2. Talk about values, morals, principles.

Our gut, our irrational elephant is all about our morals, our values, our feelings. You need to be clear on what yours are, and speak to those all the time. Speak from your own values, to those of your audience. Emphasize the ones that the audience is likely to share. Speaking to a conservative audience, talk about your family, your patriotism, your respect for tradition and history. See the categories in rule #1.

You can certainly talk to care and fairness and liberty. But do not neglect the other values. For a simple example, climate change is a really huge problem. But most people are not able to get their heads around a problem that is 50 years down the road. Good research indicates that it is healthier to talk about the sacredness of nature and the environment, and the damage to God's creation. It is a "climate crisis" - not "global warming". Talk about the impact on their children and grandchildren from rising seas and expanding deserts. Understand they are afraid of the problem. They would just like it to go away, and they are prone to like people who support that approach. They are not interested in more information about it.

Not Issue by Issue
People will vote against their own interests to defend their moral values. Debating the need for health care will not persuade them to change their fundamental value system. George Lakoff:

They're missing the idea that many Americans who depend on health care, affordable health care, for example, have strict-father positions and voted for Trump against their interests. And this is something has been known for ages, that a lot of poor conservatives vote against their material interests, because they're voting for their worldview. And the reason for it is that their moral worldview defines who they are. They are not going to vote against their own definition of who they are. 

Speak to the Values you support
Take the example of the role of government. Many people want to limit government intervention, and they will vote for a candidate who speaks to that, even if that reduces government aid or programs on which they depend. It is not a rational argument - let that go. Frame the issue that the role of government is to provide needed services that are for the benefit of everyone: national defense, crime, courts, traffic management, highway construction, communications, education, food safety, health research, fair and honest markets. ALL of these things support business more than individuals. Without them, we would have no small businesses. Only international corporations could provide their own public infrastructure. Our "taxes" are better called "public investments". We do not have government "regulations" that stifle business, we have government "protections" that make business possible. Don't let the other side frame the language and the debate. But that takes some real work.

Respect the Opposition

It is clear that you must treat the people on the other side with respect. It serves no purpose to alienate them. To make that point strongly, I encourage you to spend a bit of time watching this movie, Behind the Curve. It is a documentary on the "Flat Earth Society". Don't laugh! You can see the preview here, and it is on Netflix. It is a fair and decent documentary. The producers take no stand on the issue, and they interview people well. The flat earth society participated as they clearly want their message to get to the general public. From Wikipedia:

When director Clark was asked in an interview about the takeaway from the film he said, "my dream would be that when people watch it, they take flat Eartherism as an analogy to something they believe in, because it’s so easy to demonize another group or another person for something they think but you’re kind of just as guilty if you do that."[6]

These people are not crazy, they are not stupid. They have a strong religious belief. They fear a conspiracy theory that attacks that belief. They use scientific means to try to counter that story which threatens their belief system. It would behoove us all to calmly consider the beliefs that many of us hold with potentially even less evidence of support. It is clear that there is no point in arguing with these people, but do not treat them poorly either. We are all subject to the same kind of mental block for our beliefs.

I have been trying to come up with some analogies that would help explain how we work.

The Tiger in the Trail. When we were living on the savannah, and we came upon a tiger on the trail, our feet were moving before our brain even registered what we saw. That defensive mechanism is absolutely automatic. 

Music When you hear a piece of music - your whole body responds to it - you know immediately whether you like it or not. There is no rational part of that. It has to do with the way your body works, you experiences, your emotions, your history. You cannot choose to respond differently. You can turn it off - you cannot stop its effect on you.

3. Ignore the other side. 

Lakoff, George, Don't Think of an Elephant!:

Quick! Don't think of an elephant" - and you did. You could not help yourself. When dealing with an opposing party or individual that is not amenable to rational discussion, your best approach is to just ignore their issues. If you repeat what they say, if you respond to what they say, if you argue with what they say, you are just increasing their exposure. Your comments will add to their stature. You will also drive home in the minds of their supporters how much they dislike you and disagree with you. IGNORE the elephant in the room.

You need to know what the other side is about, but do not mention their name, or their ideas, or their proposals. Do not respond to them. I have never seen this done, but I would be tempted to ignore them even in a live debate where they were standing right there and talking. You can read a nice summary of how this works by the author here. Democrats were very instrumental in getting the Republican candidate elected.

The Clinton campaign decided that the best way to defeat Trump was to use his own words against him. So they showed these clips of Trump saying outrageous things. Now what Trump was doing in those clips was saying out loud things that upset liberals, and that's exactly what his followers liked about him. So of course they were showing what actually was helping Trump with his supporters.

The other half is to know your own values, and then frame the conversation in your terms that relate to the audience - not their terms. That's a tough order, and a lot of work. Focus on the values from step 2 above. For example, don't assume that because someone speaks poorly of women or minorities, that this will raise opposition from those populations because of the value of fairness and equity. They may see other values as more important. The sacred, and respect for authority beats fairness every time. Issues like abortion, family stability, the role of the father figure dominate over a minor discomfort with language.

Take the issue of abortion for an example. If you are a "pro choice" person, then address the value of life, address the moral issues of children who are raised in poverty. Be more "pro life" than your opponent. Define a plan to reduce the number of abortions by providing support to single women who feel that they have no other choice. Work to make it rare and unneeded, not illegal. We all value the lives of children - speak to that. We do not need to criminalize a broadly accepted medical procedure in order to address the basic values at stake.  At the same time, make it clear that we need to focus on our freedom from government oversight of religious values. That is one of our basic democratic principles. We would clearly resist any effort to support the punishment dictated by sharia law for adultery. Interracial marriage in the U.S. was illegal until 1967. How could it have taken that long for us to understand that?

Lakoff has many, many ideas on how to pursue this agenda of values and framing. You can get a good sense from this interview:
https://www.salon.com/2017/01/15/dont-think-of-a-rampaging-elephant-linguist-george-lakoff-explains-how-the-democrats-helped-elect-trump/

4. The little stuff matters - it's patterns all the way down.

Wish them well.  This is wisdom from Kahneman and Haidt, and an MD from Mayo: Dr. Amit Sood. There is a lot of research on how people interact.  Our fast brain scans faces all the time. It makes instant decisions on whether you are friend or foe, likable or not, trustworthy or not. If you wish someone well - sincerely, even without saying anything - it changes your face, your posture, your tone - everything about you will reflect that sentiment toward them. AND - their brain and body will respond in kind, before your slow brain is even aware of the change. Remember, this is not playacting. This is not manipulation. You must sincerely wish them well. It can even work over the phone - it changes the quality of your speech.

The next step is to build a trusting relationship - a bridging relationship, in the terms of Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, authors of  How to have Impossible Conversations. This is a simplified explanation of how this works, but you should read the book to get the full program. The short hand one is from Erik Barker. The genius part is, that unexpected kindness and respect works wonders.

• Be a Partner - not an Adversary. You are on their side. You want to understand them. If you can truly see it from their side, you will learn a great deal. Let go of winning. It is not a competition or a contest.
• Be nice, be respectful, sincere. Look for shared values, call those out, praise them. 
• Focus on listening and understanding. Let go of arguing, of trying to change their thinking, or their behavior. Reflect back their ideas, and be positive about the underlying values which you share. 
• Assume that their intentions are good an honorable, not devious and evil. They are doing what is best to protect their own world - do not get upset with that effort.
• Facts are the enemy, they persuade no one of emotional issues.

This is developed a bit more, with more of the research in this older blog post:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2017/09/i-wish-you-well.html

5. Listen for feelings, and reflect them back - but only in one to one conversations.

A work in progress - check back or sign up for updates.

Other Research

 Stuff I am working on.

• Post, Jerrold M.D., and Stephanie Doucette, Dangerous Charisma: The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers. 
  From the Amazon review: "Offering an in-depth psychological and political portrait of what makes Donald Trump tick, Dangerous Charisma combines psychoanalysis with an investigation into the personality of the current American president. This narrative not only examines the life and psychology of Donald Trump, but will also provide an analysis of the charismatic psychological tie between Trump and his supporters."
• Keim, Brandon, Primal Propensity for Disgust Shapes Political Positions, 10/21/2011,
  https://www.wired.com/2011/10/disgust-and-politics/
  It appears that some element of "conservatism" is deeply ingrained, beyond the conscious level, even based on our biology. Conservatives seem to be more fearful than progressives. So . . . another good reason not to castigate them and call them names - but to be empathic and listening to their concerns.
  
  • Watching a man eat a handful of worms - viewers who self-identified as conservative, especially those opposing gay marriage, reacted with particularly deep disgust. 
  • The study "suggests that people's physiological predispositions help to shape their political orientations," wrote the researchers, who were led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientists Kevin Smith and John Hibbing. "Disgust likely has an effect even without registering in conscious beliefs."
  • Other researchers have found that conservatives seemingly tend to have a more rigid, structured cognitive style than liberals, who are more open to ambiguity; conservatives are also quicker to feel threatened.
  • Disgust is especially interesting to researchers because it's such a fundamental sensation, an emotional building block so primal that feelings of moral repugnance originate in neurobiological processes shared with a repugnance for rotten food. In questionnaire-based studies, people prone to deep feelings of disgust tend to lean conservative.
• Keim, Brandon, Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals, Say Scientists, 9/18/2008
  https://www.wired.com/2008/09/fearmongering-h/
• 
  

What Can We Do About This?

To this point, I have been exploring the research on the problem. The question always is - isn't there some way we can move humans beyond this gut reaction to complex problems? Our instant response worked well for simple things - avoiding the tiger, not eating bad food, choosing a cereal or a mate - but it does not work well for complex social problems, or scientific ones. Has all of this research uncovered any way to help individuals, and hopefully, all of us, to improve our decision making for the long haul?

Jonathan Haidt, our hero to this point, has started a program on political civility, which gives us some hope. http://www.civilpolitics.org/

If you are aware of more efforts along these lines, let me know. Post below or send an email to carlscheider(at)hotmail.com.