Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein - book recommendation

 This is a few comments about this book:  Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein. I just finished the paperback, which has an updated Afterword to reflect on the 2020 election. Read that one!

If you have been wondering what the heck has happened to the two major political parties in this country, this is the clearest understanding that I have found. I highly recommend it. 

Since the 2016 election, I read a pile of things about elections, politics, and psychological research to try to figure out what he heck happened. Ezra Klein, this author has read every thing that I have, and many more. And he is brilliant. He tells his insight carefully, with stories and anecdotes. You really have to follow along with what he writes to understand it fully - but I made a few notes as I read that might entice you to learn more.

He references a lot of research on how humans and groups operate. He has been observing this political scene as a reporter and participant for decades. He is very perceptive and has great insights.

Book Summary 
Quote: "So here, then, is the last fifty years of American politics summarized: we became more consistent in the party we vote for not because we came to like our party more—indeed, we’ve come to like the parties we vote for less—but because we came to dislike the opposing party more. Even as hope and change sputter, fear and loathing proceed. The question is why all this happened. What changed in American politics such that voters became so reliably partisan?"

Our History Is Important
Here is one item I knew, but had not really adverted to in a while. I thought things were going just fine, switching from Democratic to Republican leaders from time to time - but I missed the fact that the Northern Democrats let the South do terrible things to their constituents. The north knew it and tolerated it to get the southern Democrats to support some of their programs. That all ended with the voting rights bill - and that ended the southern Democratic party. They were now free to become Republicans, and to push subtle, and not so subtle racism and elitist control of their citizens. 

Page 22 quote:
The Dixiecrats gave the national Democrats the votes they needed to control Congress, and the national Democrats let the Dixiecrats enforce segregation and one-party rule at home.

The Dixiecrat-Democrat pact is a powerful reminder that there are worse things than polarization, that what’s now remembered as a golden age in American politics was purchased at a terrible cost. In his book Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, Robert Mickey argues: 

 In the 1890s leaders of the eleven states of the old Confederacy founded stable, one-party authoritarian enclaves under the “Democratic” banner. Having secured a conditional autonomy from the central state and the national party, these rulers curtailed electorates, harassed and repressed opposition parties, and created and regulated racially separate—and significantly unfree—civic spheres. State-sponsored violence enforced these elements in a system that ensured cheap agricultural labor and white supremacy.3

During much of the twentieth century, the Democratic Party’s rule in the South was hegemonic. At times, Democrats occupied a stunning 95 percent of all elected offices, and as is true with authoritarian rulers everywhere, they did so in part by suppressing free and fair elections. African American voters were legally barred from voting in many cases and, when that didn’t work, beaten or even killed for trying to exercise the franchise. During his 1946 reelection campaign, Democratic senator Theodore Bilbo was chillingly blunt: “You and I know what’s the best way to keep the nigger from voting. You do it the night before the election. I don’t have to tell you any more than that. Red-blooded men know what I mean.”5 He won the race.
End of quote - sorry to copy that much text - I know I am pushing the "fair use" doctrine.

We Are Social Beings
This has become ever more clear. We belong to groups, we have an identity that is built up in our group. This is fundamental to our psychological makeup. Our group acts on us, without us even being aware of it.

We are not rational about what we do.
Most of our "feelings" or "inclinations" are automatic reactions to threat, to our world, and to our group. We are not actually consciously in control of that process. We are primarily "feeling" entities. 

Our Politics is all "Identity Politics"
We tend to vote with our group, the group with which we identify. The problem in the past few decades is that our multiple identities, as members of very different groups, has been collapsing. People tend to identify now with only similar gorup members. I much more readily identify with my political identity than was the case in the past.

The US form of Government is Unique on the Planet
This was a bit of news to me, but it is true. No one has successfully adopted our direct election of the executive branch with any success. It is prone to abuse and gridlock, that the party in charge of the legislature cannot automatically execute their plans. We also have the major problems of our federal system, which has given disproportionate weight through the Senate to a very small minority of citizens who occupy sparsely settled states.

The Way our Government Operates is Not Amenable to Highly Polarized Parties
It used to work at one time, when we could discuss ideas, and work out practical compromises. That no longer works, at least not with the Republican Party. Because of our form of government, the minority party no longer feels any compunction to enable government to actually operate. They can do everything in their power to destroy the opposition, with no fear of any retribution in the future. I do not understand why the Democrats refuse to blow away the Senate Filibuster. 

A Short List of Suggestions
Mr. Klein has a short list of suggestions in the new afterword, that are worth considering. None of them is a magic bullet, but all of them would help . What we really need is to adopt a parliamentary framework, but that is not within any foreseeable future. We would be more likely to accept an authoritarian demagogue than a parliamentary government. 

• Debt ceiling - This is purely a legal construct which was adopted that makes it impossible to do anything without a super majority. Get rid of it. If you want even more on this, read my entry on MMT: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2021/03/book-review-and-celebration-deficit-myth.html
• Electoral college by state law change - The constitution cannot be amended to change this, but it can be bypassed by the state law that requires votes to be cast for the winner of the popular vote. See this short explanation: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
• Rank choice voting. This encourages new third parties, and allows candidates who are not absolute mainstream to get elected.
• Senate filibuster. This is purely a rule of the Senate, and it is time for it to go.
• New states - DC and Puerto Rico. Millions of citizens with a weakened voice. Fix it. It will not cure the Senate power imbalance, but it is a step. Personally, I would split California and New York - but that is not going to happen anytime soon.
• Automatic voter registration. Simple, solves major problems with getting all of us to vote.
• Vote by mail. Same - and it is simple to do. That is why the Republican party opposes it so strongly.
• Gerrymandering. HR-1 in all of its glory would accomplish this and much more. It needs to get a hearing in the Senate. The Republicans are holding onto power in small pockets that would be dispersed. 
• Supreme Court redesign. There are many ideas here, more than just packing the court with additional seats. What about term limits, 15 members. 5 each party, and 5 named by the court itself?
• Identity mindfulness! I found this one pretty amazing and insightful. He is not exactly talking about meditation - just our identity mindfulness. Meditation helps, but it is really just paying attention to our mental processes. Some research indicates that this actually works. 
  Page 263: "There are reams of research showing that our reaction to political commentary and information we don’t like is physical. Our breathing speeds up, our pupils narrow, our hearts beat faster. Trying to be aware of how politics makes us feel, of what happens when our identities are activated, threatened, or otherwise inflamed, is a necessary first step to gaining some control of the process."

A Wise Word About Not Worrying about all of this!
He has some other wisdom which has helped me quite a bit.
Try to ignore the stuff you cannot affect - think globally, but focus locally.

Page 265 "But I’ll be blunt here in a way that cuts against my professional interests: we give too much attention to national politics, which we can do very little to change, and too little attention to state and local politics, where our voices can matter much more."

You really cannot do much about the major problems in the society and the world. Pay some attention to them, vote for national candidates, but don't spend a lot of time and energy reading about them, analyzing them, trying to come up with solutions for them. It is a true waste of your time, and just makes you anxious.

Instead, focus on things that you can manage and change. Work for local officials, Volunteer in peace and justice and education efforts in your town that support your perspective. Be content with that.

Don't Argue with Folk.
AND do not to argue with the other side. Reasoning with them will not work - this is not a logic problem. Getting upset with them will only reaffirm their commitment. Most people really do not read the newspaper, or political books and articles. They simply follow the crowd they are part of. They have deep, immediate emotional reactions to these topics. Do not blame them.
If you do interact with the "other" side, listen, listen, listen. Reflect back what they say. Just repeat it - you don't need to agree. That will create a bond. Ask them to clarify. Ask them for their reasons. Ask them to explain things to you. It may help them examine their ideas. It is the only thing that has been found to work. They are reacting emotionally, without a great deal of thought. See this bit: Changing Someone's View.

My BEST case - unfortunately:

Remember that the Democratic victory in 2020 was a very near thing!  
QUOTE: "First, it’s worth admitting the unnerving closeness of the result. In 2016, Trump won because of 40,000 voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. In 2020, he lost because of 22,000 voters in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona—if those votes had flipped, the electoral college would’ve been tied, and the election would’ve been decided by state congressional delegations, which Republicans control."

So, Trump and his party either pull off a win in 2024 or they take over the government in some other fashion. They will not accept any other result. Our best hope is that the military will execute a coup and set up another government. If we can get a new constitution maybe we can get to a parliamentary form, get rid of the electoral college, Senate overpower, etc.  So, our BEST hope is a military coup?

God Help Us All.

I will leave you with this final quote from the book:

Page 267 "I get asked often whether I’m optimistic or pessimistic about American politics. I think I’m an optimist, but that’s because I try to hold to realism about our past. For all our problems, we have been a worse and uglier country at almost every other point in our history."

You can do this. I'm counting on you.

The Bomber Mafia - book review and a reflection on politics and face to face democracy

 I always enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell. He takes a pile of information from other people, and puts it together in a way that is more interesting. It's always a good story, and there is always something to think about. This book, The Bomber Mafia, did that to me once again. But I would bet that Mr Gladwell did not draw the conclusions that I did - but I could be wrong. Let's see if he has a search algorithm up to find book reviews!  Hmm? The full title of the book helps a bit with the context: 
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War.

I just finished the Kindle version which I borrowed from the local library - and since I returned it, you can now go and borrow it! It's a great read. It is all about belief and commitment, as told through the philosophy of waging a bombing war. The more committed you are to a belief or principle, the more difficult it is to let go of it. IF you plan to read the book, I would skip ahead at this point to my Reflection, because I have a few spoilers.  Go ahead - skip the next bit- The Insight. Thanks.

Belief and commitment

The Bomber Mafia is the name given to the group of airmen that formed the initial corps of pilots and crews for the United States Army bombers. The book explains the development of the Norden bombsight - a remarkable story all in itself. The bombsight was an analog computer, made up of moving parts and dials and settings, that could greatly improve bombing accuracy. The bombsight was a work of genius, using mechanical settings to adjust what the bombardier could see through the scope so that all of the variables could be offset. This included the speed of the bomber, wind speed, altitude, temperature and humidity, the curvature of the earth, and the earth's rotation speed and direction. The promise was that using the Norden bombsight, a plane could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet. In fact, the data showed that the "creep" from the desired target was a circular area of about 75 feet wide - still pretty amazing at the time. 

Given this technology, the early pilots and officers of the eventual U.S. Air Force had long discussions about the proper use of bombing as a war tactic. The Bomber Mafia group was committed to doing the right, the ethical, the moral thing with these terrible weapons of destruction. Their idea was to use precision bombing to disable the enemy's war potential by destroying only strategic targets. For instance, a ball bearing factory is essential to the development of every kind of engine. Destroying steel plants and oil refineries and similar targets could completely disable the ability to engage in war. And the amount of collateral damage and civilian deaths would be minimized. 

It was a wonderful, highly ethical, very well developed theory or belief about how bombing should be conducted. The Bomber Mafia had faith in this doctrine, and they were committed to it. On the other side, British bombing crews were focused on civilian carpet bombing. The basic idea was to demoralize the general public that they would rise up and demand that the war be stopped. British aviation held to this belief, even though Germany had tried to accomplish that very thing by bombing Great Britain. And it did not work. If anything, the British people were even more committed to the war effort as a result of the German "atrocity" of civilian bombing. 

The book describes the many efforts to make this strategy work, introducing the reader to the key generals and commanders that worked hard at it. Curtis LeMay was one of the key players - but not personally a member of the Bomber Mafia. He was more focused on pragmatics than any moral theory. He wanted something that worked. The book tells many stories of disastrous bombing missions that were simply unable to make the strategy work.

The final war in the Pacific was a very important part of the story. At great cost, U.S. forces had gained control of the Mariana islands and built large airbases there in order to bomb Japan. The first commander of this facility was a member of the Bomber Mafia, and he was committed to destroying strategic targets in Japan to disable the war effort. The obstacles were formidable, and the attempts were heroic - with great loss of life and planes. The conditions, the distance, the weather, the wind, made it actually impossible to ever implement the theory of strategic bombing. But they could not let go of their commitment to the moral principle and belief that strategic bombing was the only ethical and effective way to wage a bombing campaign.

When Curtis LeMay became the commander of the Marianas, he had already had several disasters in trying to make the strategy work. Intead, he chose what he saw as the only other strategy available to him - incendiary bombing of Japanese cities - starting with Tokyo. Napalm had been invented just for this purpose, and the book describes its effect in graphic terms. The description of the fire bombing of Tokyo is very moving - it made me stop and think. 

The natural obstacles made it impossible for strategic bombing of Japan to ever be successful. Curtis LeMay understood that - and he adopted the only other strategy he had. Explaining it to the pilots and crews was a major challenge. When he committed the first night time, low altitude, fire bombing assault on Tokyo, he stayed up until the planes returned, because he had no idea whether or not it would be successful. Most of the planes survived, and most of Tokyo was destroyed.

This same faith or strategy that this was the moral way to conduct a war also affected the choice of cities to be targeted by the two bombs - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman specifically directed that the capital of Tokyo NOT be targeted. It felt like the correct ethical decision. 

Most of the US air command was so committed to this belief that strategic bombing was the best and only ethical way to conduct war, that they could not let go of it, even in the face of a total failure of that strategy.

In retrospect, as Gladwell reports, many individual Japanese leaders thanked the United States forces for using atomic weapons to bring about the end of the war. They felt that the Japanese commitment was so strong that only unprecedented destruction could have worked. An invasion would have cost many more lives on both sides. And Japan was on the verge of starvation when the end of the war enabled General MacArthur to provide food relief. 

As I said, a good read - and there are more stories in there around this point. When in doubt, double down!

The Insight - U.S. Democracy is past its prime.

Gladwell does a fine job in laying down a premise, and then building you up to the climax in the last chapter. Since this document is not a piece of literature, I am going to do the reverse - here's my insight, and then I will give you the foundation for it that I drew from this book and elsewhere.

Democracy in the United States is past its prime. Some of our fearless elected officials have figured that out, and they are making hay while they can. They are not crazy or irrational. They have given up on the idea of democracy, and are trying to extract the most wealth and power they can from the wreckage.

I, on the other hand, until this point, have been suffering under the delusion that democracy is the only moral, ethical, practical way to organize human affairs. That may be true in some theoretical domain, it may have been true in the United States at some past time - but it is no longer true. Democracy in the United States of America no longer works. I am not sure it ever worked. The sooner we can let go of that and be about a new program, the better it will be for all of us. 

I cannot find any great research in support of this, but I think that democracy can only flourish in a certain mix of culture and values. Some remarkable British writers and philosophers formed the idea. Some remarkable British leaders in their new country beat it into a survivable form and gave birth to one of the very first truly democratic nations. Today, it seems to flourish in the Scandinavian countries. Canada and Japan and Australia seem to have peculiarly resilient forms of it. On the failing side we have the United States, Great Britain, Italy and most of the former members of the USSR. Virtually all of Latin American countries are failed democracies, with the possible exception of Costa Rica. There is no way that the democratic governments which the US imposed on Iraq and Afghanistan have any chance of surviving. All of Africa is a similar disaster area. Some parts of Asia may be able to pull this off - Japan does seem to be working well. 

Democracy seems to demand a certain mental model, a certain set of implied values and commitments, which people hold dear. The general populace has to be committed to this enterprise, or it simply does not work. 

WHAT New Strategy?

I am having a terrible time letting go of that belief. I really need a NEW strategy. Where are the political philosophers with new ideas today? All of the ones I read lament that our democracy seems to be not working. How do you tell them to let go of that, and come up with a better idea? 

Face to Face Government

We have all manner of new technologies. We have all kinds of new class and income structures, relationships that cut across the lines of nation states and cultural heritages. But I am persuaded that humans operate best when they see, feel and hear each other as directly as possible. They can read the other person. They can develop a bond of trust and friendship - even across disputed boundaries and ideas. What if we use this strength, and adopt a type of town hall meeting, which occurs twice monthly in every precinct in the nation?  In this model, we only vote for people we can actually meet and see, and then have them to select the person on the next tier up.  I wrote that up originally in 1997 and rewrote it here: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2013/06/face-to-face-democracy.html

I see this as kind of a stack of town hall meetings, where people in a neighborhood gather on one night, and elect their fearless local leader, and give that person some sense of direction. I think a group of 30 people might work - 50 would be too many. Think of caucuses with no party affiliation. That person goes to the next tier up - which meets the following week, and so on. When the group represents a legislative district, the person they select is the newly elected representative. I would set a normal period of 4 years to require a refreshing of the stack. Two years is too short a period, 6 too long.

When someone is selected to move up, that person is replaced by the group that originally named them. People are active members of only one group. They only need to monitor the group that elected them. That keeps the multiple group membership thing from becoming too crazy. People are only voting members of one group, electing just one person to the next tier up. 

The groups continue to meet - bi-weekly, monthly, whatever works.They send messages or requests up the ladder, and replies come down. The elected official can always poll the group for their input. If they want, they can set up a survey for the whole tower of town halls that support them, and get a reading very rapidly on where their constituents stand on any issue.

At any time, a group can recall the person that they elected to the next group by a supermajority vote. This means that the top guy can only be recalled by the final group. But they have to work to keep all of the groups in their geographical segment happy! Talk about term limits! If you do not keep your neighborhood happy, you are out of office.

I think this approach basically gets rid of political parties, it gets rid of campaigns and advertising and corporate influence. And it requires people to meet and talk on a regular basis, to create some sense of common understanding and trust. If there are no sides - just a problem to solve - could that even work?

This whole thing remains committed to geography - local bodies. If we extended it to electronic groupings, it would be much more flexible, but letting people choose their groupings simply will not work. They could choose by moving their residence, and a certain amount of that goes on right now. I can also see the old political parties doing their best to influence their "members" in these groups. I am hopeful that meeting face to face in small groups will eventually overcome any party affiliation and loyalty. 

Only Those Who Show Up Have a Voice

One major benefit of this is that you have to show up to have a voice. People who do not appear at their local meeting, ever, are not counted, ever. There would have to be some participation rule - if you miss three meetings, then it takes 3 more before you can vote. We need some form of local registration to verify that people live within the geographical boundary of their local group - but that is about it. 

I have not been able to find much research or even opinions about this kind of approach. I am clearly open to suggestions. Please - provide a comment or two.

Copyright 2021 Carl Scheider

My Grandmother's Hands - A Book Review and Recommendation

My Grandmother’s Hands, Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem 2017.

I found this a great little book. The author is a psychotherapist who lives in Minneapolis. The book is a fine collection of information about how our bodies are our primary source of feelings, actions, culture, etc. The author teaches the reader how to understand this, how to manage it, and, potentially, how to fix our national culture that so divides us today.

The key thing to my mind is that most recent neuroscience research absolutely supports what he has discovered through reading and his own counseling practice. Our gut, our abdomen has more control over what we "think" and do than our conscious brain. We FEEL things, we RESPOND to threat, to attraction, etc. For more on that topic see: Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. She is a neuroscientist, leading much of the research into our much of out "thinking" is actually "feeling". 

This author is focused on the black body, the white body, and the police body. Some of the recent violence enacted by our law enforcement on black citizens has been an almost "automatic" response of their nervous system to the "other" body. 

He has a clear understanding of what he calls our "culture" of black and white bodies. It is a learned culture that is passed down for generations on both sides. It is barely amenable to our conscious control. Changing our "culture" or "world view" as individuals is a start, but we need to put in place mechanisms and visible things to help our whole national culture heal.

The author has worked as a training consultant for the Minneapolis police department. The book was published in 2017, before the George Floyd incident. Interestingly enough, the shooting of Justine Damond, a white body, by Somali-American Minneapolis Police Department officer Mohamed Noor, a black body, has the same characteristics. It made no rational sense. He clearly felt threatened, and responded in what we would call an irrational manner. A similar incident is the more recent case where officer Kim Potter, a white body, mistakenly shot Daunte Wright, a black body, thinking she was using her taser. This was a tragic mistake, coming out of the culture of fear and mistrust that is carried about in our bodies. It appears that this happens more often than we would like to believe. See this reference. It comes from the "body culture", that this book explores.

The good news is that the book has many ideas and suggestions for changing this culture - for individuals, police departments, and our whole nation. 

I found some of the therapeutic exercises to be a bit much. I tend to lean more to a regular program of meditation or mindfulness - but I am now expanding that to include more of a bodily presence to myself. Just paying attention to what my body does in a stressful situation has already proved to be of significant benefit.

I continue to be amazed by what we are learning about human beings. The challenge now is how to get that into the popular mind and "culture". We shall see. I continue to have hope. 

World View of the United States

OK - assuming anyone is still reading these things - I just stumbled on a bit of research that I found fascinating. Not helpful at all, but fascinating.  This is my attempt to understand it a bit, and make it my own. It might help you to do the same. Or NOT. Let me know if this works. Thanks.

World View

I first glommed onto the idea of a "world view" in East Africa. Thanks to my good friends who had spent many years there, I discovered that East Africans see all of life very differently from most westerners. To state it very simplistically, I see life as something that I am in charge of. They see life as something that happens TO them. It was hard for me to believe that - but it is true. 
For a simple introduction to that, see this blog post.

Until that point, I assumed that we all had the same mental model in our heads of how things work. In fact, our mental models are very different. Each country has kind of a dominant one, and individuals have uniquely personal ones. And these models are not simple things - they are complex beasts. And they are fundamental to how our brain works - not things pasted on later. It took me a couple of decades to see this. You can think of "world view" also as "culture", where culture means the whole underpinning of beliefs and feelings that make up the mental model of your world. This is your personal "story", which shapes everything you see and think.

This "culture" or "world view" is really the infrastructure of your mind or brain as it tries to make sense of the input it gets. These are learned behaviors, learned emotions, learned feelings, which you started acquiring as an infant. You learned that the odd grimace which you gave your parents seemed to make them quite happy - so you learned to smile. All the things you think of as rational ideas, arguments, thoughts, are really learned emotional responses that your body has acquired over many years to govern how you operate.  For the most part, these are totally automatic - they are FEELINGS, not ideas, not rules for life, not morals, etc. 

Neuroscience

I want to emphasize that this is not just my opinion - this is what modern neuroscience has finally figured out. It is what Kahneman calls the "fast brain". It is what Lisa Feldman calls our "constructed emotions." We believe that we think, that we reason - but that is rarely what is going on. We can think, or reason, but it is rare, and a whole lot of work. It is Kahneman's "slow brain". For the most part, we feel, we have emotions, we have nearly automatic responses to perceived reality, that we are barely in charge of. These learned emotions, feelings are formed all through our life. They are our world view - our personal cultural perspective on life.
For more on that than you probably ever wanted to know, see this blog post.

Survey of American World View

This is the article that started this thought process:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/millennials-dont-know-dont-care-dont-believe-god-exists.html.

When I saw the title for this, I thought it might be interesting. The headline reads: "43% of millennials 'don’t know, don’t care, don’t believe' God exists:" In my humble opinion, about 1/3 of the U.S. population is slightly crazy, so I thought an objective survey of our belief system might help explain things. 

The survey is really focused on the "religious" or "philosophy of life" world view of the United States. I found the first article quite confusing. So I looked to the original study organization, and found 3 more versions of PR pieces. You can get them all under the heading: American Worldview Inventory 2021 Releases. They all download a PDF, so be prepared for that. 
https://www.arizonachristian.edu/culturalresearchcenter/research/

This is a Christian organization, trying to determine the belief levels of the U.S. population. I can safely say that they were surprised by what they learned. ". . . this radical spiritual revolution has created a generation seeking a reimagined world without God, the Bible, or churches . . ."

The survey technique was decent - they did 30 minute interviews with the subjects. Casting the belief system of their subjects as their "world view" was a fairly insightful. I am not sure they fully realized this, but it works. 

Syncretism

AND . . . I learned a new word: "Syncretism" as a "world view."  AND 88% of us have it!  What the heck is it? 

The most common worldview among Americans is Syncretism, which isn’t a true worldview but rather a collection of disparate worldview elements blended into a customized philosophy of life.

Here are some relevant quotes:

Only 6% of American adults possess a biblical worldview, but what have the other 94% put in its place?

One of the shocking outcomes from the research is that the biblical worldview, at a 6% nationwide incidence, was the most prolific of the seven worldviews tested. However, with 94% of Americans essentially rejecting the biblical worldview as their preferred way to think and live, placing first in a race in which few people crossed the finish line is hardly a victory. 

In total, 88% of Americans have Syncretism, rather than a substantively coherent and recognizable worldview such as postmodernism or secular humanism, as their dominant worldview. A large majority of each generation relies on a syncretistic worldview when making their life choices. Overall, 89% of Millennials, 86% of Gen Xers, 83% of Boomers, and 86% of Builders have a syncretistic worldview (see CRC’s report on Syncretism here).

According to the groundbreaking American Worldview Inventory 2021—the first survey of its kind to measure not only biblical worldview, but six prominent competing worldviews—found that the overwhelming majority of American adults lack a cohesive, coherent worldview, and instead substitute a patchwork of conflicting, often irreconcilable beliefs and values as they navigate life.

I honestly don't know if that is good news or bad news. Biblical be gone in terms of a literal reading of the Christian scriptures is fine with me. But replacing it with nothing, or something called Syncretism, sounds scary. They list the "known" consistent world views as the following 7:  (always 7)

". . . the seven worldviews measured—Biblical Theism (or a biblical worldview), Secular Humanism, Postmodernism, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, Nihilism, Marxism (along with its offshoot, Critical Race Theory) and Eastern Mysticism (also known as “New Age”), . . . "

They think Catholics fall into this one: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Deism, yet. Well, . . . . could be worse - maybe! It's like 39% of the country.

Bottom Line - to save you a bit of time, here's the "DUH" bottom line of this research:

"Our studies show that Americans are neither deep nor sophisticated thinkers,” the veteran researcher noted. “Americans have become selfish and emotion-driven, leaving logic behind. To promote a way of life that pushes us to think more clearly, consistently, and purposefully will take time and effort, and will be uncomfortable. Most people seem more interested in living a life of comfort and convenience than one of logical consistency and wisdom. Our children will continue to suffer the consequences of following in the unfortunate footsteps of their parents and elders. People who are willing to fight for a more reasonable way of thinking and acting can make a difference but it will be slow progress.”

Well, I wish them well - but to say that a biblical world view is a more reasonable way of thinking is pretty strange. It is obvious that they are part of the problem, not the solution. The genius here is to recognize that we simply are NOT rational - and let go of that. We are feeling beasts - with an occasional rational episode. A consistent world view is the construct of the organization that took the survey. It is simply not real. Their sense of "world view" is really a coherent set of religious beliefs or philosophy. What their survey learned is that humans have broken free of that old model. We are no longer all under the sway of our mind controlling religious beliefs. Rather, we are now an eclectic gathering of discordant values. I think we all have a different term for this: "secularism". These good folk are not privy to that, unfortunately. 

I think the ultimate answer here is to come up with a "world view" or philosophy that we can teach people from infancy onward, that provides a coherent context that better supports human development, and not the concerns of a deity. 

Here is the chart of the results:

Meaning and Purpose in Life - two book reviews

Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe, by Brian Greene.

The Meaning of Human Existence, by Edward O. Wilson.

Both of these books struck me as absolutely brilliant reflections on the meaning and purpose of human existence. The two authors are scientists, noted in their fields. Greene is a physicist, who comes to the problem from the big bang, through stars, to life, cells, etc. Wilson is a naturalist - known for the study of ants. he comes to it from the wonder of life on this planet, and the awe inspired by what humans are capable of. Wilson also focuses more on the biological element of our propensities.

These videos will give you a better sense of who they are - maybe entice you to read the books.
- Brian Greene: Mind, Matter And The Search For Meaning:  https://youtu.be/Ti1bniNNCmc 
- E.O. Wilson explains the meaning of human existence:  https://youtu.be/qzQBFlFdRPk 
   For a bit longer and more fascinating one: https://youtu.be/-6C75cyudzM

I am formally trained primarily as a philosopher and theologian, and these two hit me just right. I gained a whole new appreciation for the miracle that is life from both of them. 

Both of these men also hold no belief in any greater power. But that is not a source of despair - rather even more amazement at the wonder of life. In this vast universe, this vast history of time, coming from a tiny dot, and ending in a huge, dispersed nothingness - WE exist. We are here. We enjoy life and love and music and family and stories - etc. WE are amazing. All life is amazing, priceless, precious. And the reason is - we CHOOSE it. We choose to believe that life itself is meaning and purpose enough. 

We create love and family and music and art and science. WE are truly amazing. BUT - we need to work on our habitat just a bit. We seem to be bent on destroying the planet.
  How To Save Life on Earth https://youtu.be/Zq3w7cldgMU

When I am old and wandering about, just sit me down with Beethoven's Ninth, and a bird feeder in the window. I will be content. Thanks. 

Finally - I understand what is going on with people.

Since I retired some time ago, I have been trying to figure out how human beings work. Turns out we are truly WEIRD entities - see the book below by that name. (Henrich) In the 2020 election, that weirdness had one third of the United States vote for a narcissist, and one third voted for a really old white guy with moderate views, and one third DID NOT VOTE. How is that even possible?

I have read a lot - neuroscience, psychology, politics, economics, history. There is a list of books at the end of this with some annotation on what they taught me. And, drum roll, here’s the answer:

The United States of America has a pervasive implicit racist culture. 

Period. Full stop. Much to my amazement, that simple statement says it all. I also understand that my take on this is never going to persuade you. It would be more effective if YOU undertook a bit of reading, and see where it leads you. To entice you, this piece is a selected summary or subset. Let me know if this helps. If you come to a different insight, in the best of worlds, you nught be able to persuade me that I am wrong. That would be very helpful. Thanks.

For a real shorthand of the argument - watch this Daily Show interview. 9 minutes. And this Ted Talk - Racism Has Cost All of Us. 14 minutes - you can do this. 

For a VERY recent and wonderfully concise summary of the first part of this see this column by David Brooks: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/brain-reality-imagination.html

Just to be crystal clear upfront - this argument is NOT saying that most of our fellow citizens are overt racists. It is saying that we are all immersed in a culture and world view that implicitly structures our thinking and unconscious choices along a racial, classist view of society. It is also saying that some of our political leaders expressly call out that racist model to generate the emotion of fear, which puts the brakes on our rational choices such that we often vote against our own best interests. (Shenker-Osorio).

Barrett, Lisa Feldman, How Emotions are Made.

Overview

This is a complex scientific work, by a preeminent neuroscientist. See her wikipedia entry. The theory is fairly new and debated. I think it is a brilliant insight, because it fits perfectly with all of the other evidence I have found. (DUH! That is called confirmation bias!) This is a “theory” but it is based on empirical research, not opinion. For a more populist explanation, see her much shorter book: Seven and a half Lessons about the Brain. She also has a TED talk you might enjoy. 

The Key Insight

Humans do not really THINK very much. We are simply NOT rational in most of what we do.

Our gut, our body and our brain is a reaction network of emotions and patterns that we learn over time. It is not automatic - most of it is learned behavior. We are taught to form predictions about the world, and we respond to them. We do not really have “ideas”, but rather “emotions”. What we think of as “ideas” are actually just another flavor of “emotions”. It is called the “theory of constructed emotion”. Our “thoughts” are really learned emotional responses to external stimuli. Our brain is a dynamic, flexible network, which learns how to respond based on our social environment! And the brain is very plastic - meaning it physically changes as it learns new responses. That also means that it does not easily let go of things - "ideas" or emotions.

 

There are cultures that do not distinguish between “ideas” and “emotions”. That distinction is a cultural mental construct. There are cultures that do not experience the emotion of anger - they simply do not have it. Our brain, our whole endocrine system is a complex of learned behavior - not automatic. Our culture taught us to smile when we first grimaced at our parents, and they responded with glee. We are inherently social beings, and our brain and emotions are formed in that context. There is very little abstract and rational about us. That thinking process that Kahneman calls the "slow brain" moves the things or emotions that we learn to our “fast brain.” All of our thinking has this built in "bias" or "framework." (Kahneman)

It also appears that we are not aware of most of the things going on in our brain network. Our senses are always picking up things and presenting them to the brain, which is always searching for patterns - for threats, for friends, etc. Things only pop into our conscious awareness when the "hidden controller" thinks we really need to be aware of something. That insight is from Robert Burton, On Being Certain. And John Bargh has extensive research and stories that illustrate that MOST of what is going on in our brain is really below the level of consciousness. See his book: Before You Know It

This constant and unconscious brain framework can be called our “culture” or “world view”. It describes our normal, “unthinking” response to things. It dictates how we regard children and adults, males and females, tall and short people, white and black people. For example, the Norwegian culture has the lowest view of the distance from top to bottom of society. Their king is no big deal. East African culture has the sense that they are not in charge of life. The U.S. culture says that we are in charge of our life, and the lives of everyone on the planet. We think we can install a democracy anywhere. 

Our U.S. culture also tells us that we live in a racial caste hierarchy. It is an implicit judgment that colors everything. It is not conscious, it is something we can barely recognize, even after a lot of introspection. It is just part of our fabric of life - our implicit world view.

This is why we have “biases”. This is why we have a protective cognition response to deeply held beliefs. When presented with evidence against our beliefs, our whole body reacts to protect itself, and to reaffirm our beliefs - the backfire effect! You cannot change someone's belief with Information! In fact, that only makes their belief stronger.

AND, since these basic "values", or "beliefs" are not arrived at by means of logic and argument, they are not amenable to change via argument. We are identified with these basic views or beliefs. So we automatically work to protect them.

Klein, Ezra, Why‌ ‌We're‌ ‌Polarized‌ 2020.

Overview Given that we are not really rational, how do we make decisions?. We use our emotions, and we use our "identities". We fall back on the default values of the group, the tribe to which we belong. The author makes the point that there is very little difference between the voting turnout by party in recent elections. People tend to vote by their party membership, even if they fundamentally disagree with the chosen candidate of their party. They identify with their party, and they have hope that the candidate will support their values.

The Key Insight
Good research indicates that we identify with our group, our tribe, our party. Our personal identity, our personal sense of self is supported by our group. In the past, people normally had multiple strong personal identities, such as family, their race, their religion, the club. In recent times, because of the increased pressure of social media, many of those identities have been weakened, in favor of our political party identity. When people had multiple identities, with values that cut across political party lines, the blind adherence to party policy was not as strong. 

Now the question is, what can we do about it? If logical argument does not work, what does?

Wilkerson, Isabel, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, 2020.

Overview

This is another scientific work, researched for 15 years, and brilliantly written, in beautiful English. The author is a journalist - contributor to the New York Times. She also wrote The Warmth of Other Suns - a heart rendering description of the migration and escape of Blacks from the terrorism of the southern United States. If you want to gain some racial empathy, read that one.

The Key Insight

The “culture” or “world view” of the United States is racist to its core. 

It started with slavery, and theology and economics - it endured and persisted through the Civil War, Reconstruction and the era of civil rights. It became even more pronounced with the election of our first black president. We all have it in our heads - black, brown, white, Asian, etc. It is in our institutions, in our laws, in our brains - it colors everything. 

Most other cultures in the world do not have this particular view of a racial hierarchy. There are no "Blacks" in Africa. There are no “whites” in Scandinavia. The caste position of the untouchables or Dalits in India is not about their race. The Germans did not try to obliterate the Jewish “race”, but Jewish heritage and culture. And they studied our Jim Crow laws to learn how to do it: deny them normal rights, make them seem less than human, make them different and of lower value.

It is no help to be “color blind” - rather we need to see color for what it is. We need to understand our history. We need to be “anti-racist.” But that is a lot of work, even for Blacks. It is doubly hard to see it if we are White. Whites at the bottom of our economic hierarchy still unconsciously consider themselves much higher in our system than any brown or Black person. It is not explicit - it is an implicit worldview, largely hidden from conscious awareness.

The United States Is Not Unique in Having a Hierarchical View of Society

This hierarchical mindset of “us and them” is a common human occurrence. Wilkerson is focused on our racist problem in this country, but most cultures have some form of this hierarchical world view. India’s caste system is well documented. The murderous climax of Hutu / Tutu genocide in Rwanda came from the colonial government’s intentional division of the country into upper and lower castes. The “indigenous people problem” in Australia and all parts of the Americas is another example.

McGhee, Heather, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, 2021. 

Overview

The author is a lawyer and social activist. She has been working in the field of race relations for decades. The book is based on interviews with hundreds of people, and documented scientific social research. For a very short synopsis of her argument, see this piece in the NY Times.

“The Way Out of America’s Zero-Sum Thinking on Race and Wealth.”

Here is her interview with Trevor Noah, on the Daily Show.

I have to warn you - this is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. It is hard to believe that we as a nation have done so much damage to so many of our fellow citizens - white and Black. This book documents thousands of cases, laws, and events that deprive whites and blacks of benefits, privileges and jobs, in order to maintain the racist status quo. I am ashamed to be a member of this dominant caste.

The Key Insight

The United States racist culture is a Zero Sum game. We all hold an internalized racial view of our world, where there are only winners if there are losers. Wealth or education or freedom is in limited supply. If you move ahead, then I fall behind. When you get more, I have less. We see all of life as a competition for scarce resources, and the competition is based on our hierarchical view of race. The author clearly documents how much we have all lost because of our common racism. She uses facts and personal stories to give an empathic insight into the true scope of the problem.

The cover of this book shows a picture of a young person jumping into a swimming pool. I could not imagine why that image was chosen. When I was a kid, we did not know anyone who owned a swimming pool. But there were two public pools within walking distance of my home. Walking distance back then meant "several miles." When it was hot, we would walk to a pool and spend the better part of the day there. We had no AC, and this was a great way to spend a hot summer day. One of the largest public pools in the country was in Montgomery AL. In 1959 a group of citizens sued the city over the segregation of pubic pools and parks. So the city of Montgomery filled in that large pool and paved it over. The city then paid the YMCA to provide a “non public”, segregated pool. The city also closed all of the public parks! Now there are no public swimming pools in Montgomery - or in most of the south, and many parts of the north. Why? Because they had to open them to all races! So they closed them. Here is a bit more on that pool’s history. Who lost in that outcome? All of us! 

The same outcome is documented by the author in every realm. Education - predatory lending practices - salary - unionism - guaranteed employment - minimum wage - voting access - health care. Our white population is harmed by our implicit racist policies. Our Black population is hurt more - but it is costing all of us. The push for smaller government is driven by this goal - take it away from *them" so mine is not affected! Libertarian indeed - it is just racist.

And our fearless leaders know this. They promote it. They “gaslight” us with ideas and phrases that sound rational - but are racist to the core. Smaller government - read, "less for THEM". These are the “dog whistles” of voter fraud, violent crime, welfare fraud, big government, etc. These messages call on the basic fear that our society has built over hundreds of years.

Election Fraud

We must have a voter id to protect our elections - with no evidence of fraud - just the implicit knowledge that it is more difficult for some of our poor to obtain an ID, so we keep them from casting a ballot by mail. They are the majority, so enabling them to actually vote puts us at risk.

Health Care

When health care is expensive - it costs ALL of us. It would be less expensive for all of us if our healthcare were provided as a basic right, not a “benefit” mediated by insurance companies that are profit engines. Would we accept a police department, or fire department, or sewer and water that was focused only on profitability? 

2008 Economic Collapse

The economic collapse of Lehman Brothers started as predatory lending that took advantage of people with a low income, a low credit rating. The common view was that these people were at fault for taking these risky loans. But most subprime mortgages actually went to people with good credit, who could qualify for much better terms. More whites than blacks were damaged - and our entire economy suffered a 19 trillion dollar wealth loss. 

Education

When education is poorly funded - it costs ALL of us. In our southern states, the primary beneficiaries of better education and health care would clearly be the vast majority of whites. At one point, a strong majority supported free access to college for all. But then it was cast as a “gift” to the “undeserving classes.” Now the white majority does not approve of such a largesse, because they see it as a benefit for those “other” people. It is something “they” do not deserve, something that will reduce MY share of the pie. When college tuition is too high for ALL of us, it is difficult for anyone to get ahead - whatever the color of our skin. 

Minimum Wage - Unionism

The same thing happened to the minimum wage and to unions. Once supported by a solid majority, when our fearless leaders cast these things as primarily benefiting our Black brothers and sisters, the majority of white voters turned against them.

Climate change 

How on earth is climate change a part of this? The author interviewed a Finnish sociologist, Kirsti  M. Jylha, who came to the U.S. to study the problem. She describes the cause as “systemwide social dominance.” She says that she could not figure out the problem, until she came here. She discovered that she is WHITE! She had no idea that she was a member of a superior caste. In Finland, there literally are no homeless people, no hungry, no destitute. There are no people on the bottom of the social ladder because of race or through their own fault. They really are all in this together. 

In our American cultural brain, we are part of a hierarchy - and it is a zero sum game - win / lose. Any improvement for the bottom is seen as a deprivation for those higher up. So the ocean rises, or temperatures soar - it will not hurt me at the top - just those people at the bottom. Better to have them suffer than to “damage the economy” by environmental measures. It’s their fault that they are at the bottom. If we lose a few of them, no big deal! We support the status quo that we think benefits us, even if it leads to greater suffering for all. And we think that if there are problems we are likely to be spared the costs. But that's not true with climate change. We all share the same sky, the one Gaia - mother earth.

Social dominance theory

We accept Inequality as normal. We attribute social wins and losses to skill and merit. Good fortune and government infrastructure are the real keys to success. There are cultures in the world where there are no homeless, no poor, no one on the bottom. Those cultures do not have a mental hierarchy of status and worth. Simply having and tolerating a lower class of poor people makes those on the top less caring about the rest of us.

Anti Government

Government is our investment in order and structure for the good of all: police, courts, defense, sewer and water, roads, communications, schools, research, etc. But for most of our history, the government has been racist. Many white people now believe, consciously or unconsciously, that the government has taken the other side and is changing the 'proper' racial order through social spending, civil rights laws, and affirmative action. This makes the government untrustworthy. Today, racial resentment by whites and distrust of the government are very highly correlated.

Immigration

It is well documented that immigration is an economic engine of development - especially with today’s demographics of declining birth rates. But the unspoken fear that these “lesser” castes will “ruin our economy” dominates our political discourse. We damage our economy by creating immigration barriers.

Unemployment

A large majority of the country once (1970) supported a guaranteed employment program. Our fearless white leaders made that out to be a Black benefit. Now most white people no longer support what would have been a great benefit in the midst of a pandemic. Our European “cousins” have automatic unemployment programs that simply kicked in for the pandemic. They also have universal health care - which we cannot seem to muster no matter how we work at it. Why is that? 

Conclusion: The Sum of Us

We all suffer for this zero sum game in our heads. With this implicit sense of where we stand in this racist hierarchy, we are not able to make “rational” decisions. We respond to racist diatribe, we react with fear and anger to efforts to improve our whole society. If we could master this - there would be a tremendous solidarity benefit. There are economic studies that document the trillions of dollars in development that would be generated by a healthy, well educated, and fully employed United States.

We can do better. We can all prosper. But we will need to own our history, to own that we are all embedded in this, and work to overcome it.

To Sum Up

• We are not rational - we are emotional. If we can get that idea into popular culture, maybe we can actually educate ourselves around this problem.

• Our emotions in this country operate in a zero sum view of a racist hierarchy.

• Much of the political partisanship that we see comes from this history, an implicit cultural model that we cannot easily resolve. It is most often "under the table", with gaslighting references like voting fraud and the like.

• This political divide has grown larger with social media and instant news, such that the two sides of our political spectrum are now less than civil, let alone rational.

• Kahneman and others posit that the way out of this is education that enables us to more fully examine our thinking processes. They point to experiments with mindfulness as one means to give people better insight into their bias or world view.

• But values that were not arrived at through logic are not going to be changed that way.

• To resolve this problem fundamentally, we must recognize our racist history. A "reconciliation".

• If you are presenting a program or choice, it is much better to frame it in a non racial way. Focus on the benefit to be accrued by the group you are addressing - not the benefit conferred on the total society. See research below (English).

• But you cannot simply ignore the negative, the fear. The message should explicitly call for a positive impact on our common humanity to expressly counter the fear filled message.

What To Do About It?

This is clearly the hard part. I have found very little solid research on how to overcome this fear, this implicit class society that is in our hearts and our heads.

One activist and researcher working on this is Anat Shenker-Osorio. She has been researching the kind of messaging that can call out this fear generation and counter it. (Shenker-Osorio) The key is to find a positive message that explicitly counters the negative messages that generate fear. This is key. It is not enough to generate a positive message, to point to rational arguments and the truth - those do not work to counter the emotion, especially fear. It is more effective to call on the positive values that we all share, and to create a message that creates empathy in people. Call them to be their best, to join those of us who are united in a positive message.

The science behind storytelling can help as well. If you can get a listener or a reader to live for a few seconds or few minutes in the life of their fellow citizens, you generate a positive, supportive emotion that can help overcome their basic fear.

Sometimes a campaign phrase, a set of messages can be successful. In other cases, a technique called "deep canvassing" might be helpful, where the interviewer engages a person in a shared exploration of common values. You can read more about that technique here: Changing the Conversation Together.

Supplemental Bibliography

I have found all of the books and articles below very helpful. They are in alphabetical order by author. The three above are also listed here without further comment.

Banerjee, Abhijit V and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times, 2019.
Two Nobel Prize economists, who won the award for their work on poverty. I cite this one here because of the extraordinary research they present on the positive impact of immigration. It is behavioral based, research driven, and factual analysis of the economic basis of poverty. The point is, we can conquer this beast - if we just put our minds to it and get our emotions out.

Barge, John, Before You Know It, 2017.
Remarkable summary of research that shows that MOST of what we do is driven by purely unconscious rumblings in our brain and gut. The good news is that he has also discovered what drives this in us - and possible ways to help us improve. For instance, there is some tendency to be conservative of progressive from our genetics, but it can be modified. The conservative among us are primary moved by FEAR. They found that if they have people spend a few minutes calmly thinking of their safety and awe and the like, they become more progressive in their views. NOW, how to get our world to have that dominant attribute?  HMMM? 
If you are more into oral communication, he has a fine Google lecture that   is worth your time: https://youtu.be/QWdDRVhhx8A 2018  30 minutes with Q/A after. 

Barrett, Lisa Feldman, How Emotions are Made, 2018. See above for details.

Barrett, Lisa Feldman, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, 2020.
Brilliant work. This is the latest neuroscience. Your brain is not for thinking. This is the same discussion as the prior book, but much shorter, skipping some of the research and arguments.

Bregman, Rutger Humankind: A Hopeful History, 2020.
This is one of the most uplifting and encouraging books I have ever read. We can do this. The only problem is that the author is Dutch - he does not share our distorted hierarchical view of society. Instead, he documents the best of us from around the world. Humankind is amazing - if we can unleash ourselves here, in what is still the richest nation on the planet, we can accomplish anything. 

Brooks, David, How to Destroy Truth, 7/1/2021, NY Times, I found this column by David Brooks to be a remarkable encapsulation of what I have been trying to say - done with a much better and more meaningful framework. If the above did not work, please look at his assessment of our emotional history as a nation, and his suggestion for how we can move it forward. I don't know if he is aware of the neuroscience behind this, and it really does not matter. We need a felt story about our history - one based on truth, not lies. One that truly reveals us to ourselves. See what you think. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/patriotism-misinformation.html -------------------- In this column, You Are Not Who You Think You Are, 9/2/2021, David Brooks has as nice and comprehensive summary of this brain research as I have yet seen. He gets it. I highly recommend reading this one. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/brain-reality-imagination.html

Burton, Robert, On Being Certain, 2009. This is a nice summary of research and an interesting discussion. It seems that most of what our brain network is about is not conscious. We have a hidden layer, a kind of committee, controlling what gets to pop up in our consciousness. We have precious little control over that - so it is no wonder that we are mostly "non rational" beings.

English, Micah , Joshua Kalla, 4/26/2021, "Racial Equality Frames and Public Policy Support: Survey Experimental Evidence," This is a fine bit of research, pointing out that it is not helpful to frame discussions in terms of race or class in our society. If you want to persuade someone, you tell them that the benefit accrues to THEM. They are less receptive when the benefit is to a "lower" class , or even to the whole of society where the lower class might also benefit. https://osf.io/tdkf3/ If this it a little too dense for you, look at this article from Newsweek for a nice summary of the research. The author is being polemical to the liberal elite, but you get the point. https://www.newsweek.com/anti-racist-messaging-failing-voters-so-why-cant-liberals-quit-it-opinion-1589535

Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
I have learned a great deal from this author, about evolutionary psychology, about politics and ethics. He really helped me understand that we are primarily emotional beasts. He did it with psychological and sociological research - while Barrett is focused on neuroscience. Talk to the elephant, not the rider! Our human self is like an elephant - our emotions pull us here and there. Our brain is sitting up on top, and it thinks it is in charge. For more on that see:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2017/08/jonathan-haidt-righteous-minds-update.html
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-are-those-idiots-from-other.html 

Harford, Tim, Facts v feelings: how to stop our emotions misleading us, 2020.09.10, This is a nice summary of a lot of this research, as related to misinformation about the Covid crisis, with references. I find this type of article useful as a kind of ad hominem argument, but they never reach to the fundamental causes in our brain's operation. I think until people grasp that we will just be working on the periphery of the problem, instead of the roots! Freud put our "subconscious" into popular thought - we need to get the idea into our popular culture that MOST of our decisions are made without any rational, conscious input. This is an extract from his book, which I have added to my reading list: How to Make the World Add Up. It looks interesting, but, once again, it is at the periphery of the real problem. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/facts-v-feelings-how-to-stop-emotions-misleading-us

Henrich, Joseph, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous,2020.
Another remarkable book. This one starts with the basic ideas of Diamond’s work, Guns Germs and Steel, and expands it in the context of European history. The dominance of the western European model does not have to do with superior human attributes, but rather accidents of climate, geography and history. Europe’s enlightenment, democracy and economic expansion came from a radical change in how we all view family, and relationships outside of family. It was hundreds of years in the making, with many players and forces. The insight is that this “world view” has tremendous power. The downside is that there does not appear to be a lot we can do to shape it or have it bend to our will for progress. For more on that:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-weirdest-people-in-world-book.html

Hofstede, Geert, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind
This was the first book I read on this journey when we returned from a visit to Africa. I was so impressed that the people of East Africa had a totally different world view, that I went in search of some explanation. This book is based on research conducted in more than seventy countries over a forty-year span. He examines what drives people apart—when cooperation is so clearly in everyone’s interest. He studied IBM employees around the world, and found radically different world views. We have these implicit views that come from hundreds of years of history and events - and they do not easily change.  Originally, I was focused on why economic development around the world was so very different. It has to do with our world view - our implicit cultural perspective. I think that idea is still valid, but I now am not so sure we can actually do anything about it. For more on this than you probably ever want to read, see my blog entry:  https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/01/culture-and-developing-nations.html 

Isenberg, Nancy, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, I highly recommend this book. I studied a lot of history, and I never heard any of these stories. From the early Pilgrims and Jamestown, through all of the colonial leaders, fathers of our country, and most of our population had a very high sense of class and separation from the poor and common person. The author tells the stories of the prevailing view that the poor are less than, not capable. This is our history. It should come as no surprise that a large percentage of us still have that fundamental value framework. If India is burdened with a visible caste system, ours is no less powerful, and has as long a history.

Issenberg, Sasha, "Why the battle for gay marriage was won so easily," 06/04/2021, This is an interesting discussion of this rapid social and legal change. There is not much scientific research here, but it would appear that the reason this "flew under the radar" was primarily because no one felt really threatened by it, with the exception of some Roman Catholic hierarchy. It may be that this does not feel like a zero-sum game for the most part. That must not be true for abortion, curiously enough. Women's rights?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-the-battle-for-gay-marriage-was-won-so-easily/

Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2013.
This is one of the books that sent me down this rabbit hole of how humans think. Kahneman is a psychologist who won the Nobel prize in economics. His research on how humans make decisions provided the foundation for the field of behavioral economics. Most of our decisions are the “fast brain” - our gut call - our emotions, if you will. For more on that than you might want to read:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2017/12/cognitive-science-and-mindfulness-and.html  For a very insightful interview with Kahneman, listen or read this one with Krista Tippet. He gets this - and he has a few suggestions - not great hope - but . . . https://onbeing.org/programs/daniel-kahneman-why-we-contradict-ourselves-and-confound-each-other/

Kelton, Stephanie - The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy 2021.
This is a solid introduction to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) by one of the pioneers. She and her associates believe that sovereign debt by a nation that controls its own currency, is always a good investment. It can be inflationary, but we can construct safeguards against that. Basically, our sovereign debt is owed to ourselves, and is almost without cost. At first glance you might think this author needs some serious mental health assistance, but when you get into the details, it makes perfect sense. She is one of the leading economists who have analyzed how national currencies actually work - and has destroyed the myth. You should also be aware that many prominent economists think that this is totally crazy. The point for putting it here is that we can afford to fix our racist past - and that effort can fund a prosperous future. To get a better handle on that, read my review, which you can find here, or:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2021/03/book-review-and-celebration-deficit-myth.html 

Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist, 2019. Excellent, personalized account of overcoming his own racism, and how you can do the same thing. For a few more words on that topic, see: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2020/07/how-to-be-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi.html 

Kirby, Kenton de, Beyond Thermostatic Response, 2020.06.23. This is a late addition to this reference list. I found this so unsettling that I had to include it, even though it does not actually support my argument. This article describes a theory of political response that seems founded on facts, given the research cited. But it is even more frightening than the one argued here. Basically the idea is that the prevailing opinion of the U.S. populace on any issue universally tends to move in the opposite direction of the discussion presented in public media. This piece is arguing that Donald Trump has pushed opinion to support action against global warming by his denial and efforts to undercut it. It is as though the general population are a thermostat - when things go too far in any direction, the middle seems to shift to support the other side. The murder of George Floyd was all over the media, and that was an extreme, which resulted in more support for Black Lives Matter. The problem is - how does one CHANGE public opinion enough to get legislators to agree to pass legislation, without going generating visibility in public media which might just have the middle to push back? I know politics is not rational, I just wish we had a better understanding of the mechanics.

Klein, Ezra, Why‌ ‌We're‌ ‌Polarized‌ 2020. A simple analysis of recent elections leads to the conclusion that most people vote based on their party identity - not on issues or the candidate's qualifications. The author explores the data that supports this view, and offers his own insights in what we can do about it.

Mason, Lilliana, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, (From Amazon Reviews) She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one other with distrust and to work for party victory over all else. Although the polarizing effects of social divisions have simplified our electoral choices and increased political engagement, they have not been a force that is, on balance, helpful for American democracy. Our social identities are shrinking in number, and growing in strength. You can also find this author discussing this topic in this podcast. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2019/07/29/yanss-133-how-political-conflict-became-a-battle-over-who-we-think-we-are-rather-than-reasoned-differences-of-opinion/

McGhee, Heather, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, 2021. See above. 

McRaney, David, YANSS 204 – "Why belief is not a conscious choice and certainty is a feeling, not a conclusion", Nice chat with the author of On Being Certain, Robert A. Burton, MD. He gets it - finally. Maybe we can actually all come to understand this at some point. Quote: That’s because the book posits that conclusions are not conscious choices and certainty is not even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of “knowing,” as he puts it, are “sensations that feel like thoughts, but arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that function independently of reason.” YANSS 204

Menakem, Resmaa, My Grandmother's Hands. This is an excellent book by a psychotherapist. He works with individuals and police departments to improve their "community relations". It is now well documented that our gut has a significant nervous system, that generates feelings and emotions that can easily overwhelm us. Most of our emotions and feelings are automatic responses to stimuli that are generated by this GUT nervous system. The author has developed some exercises that enable our various "bodies" to better manage our automatic responses.

Shenker-Osorio, Anat, Don't Buy It, This author has done research on the kind of messaging that works in our political world, to overcome the fear that is raised by those who call out our worst, implicit racist fears. She has also created some podcasts around how this type of messaging research has helped to move elections in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. This is not yet a highly refined science, but she is getting there. https://wordstowinby-pod.com/ See these podcasts in particular. All In Wisconsin: https://wordstowinby-pod.com/season-2-episode-1/ Greater Than Fear, Minnesota: https://wordstowinby-pod.com/greater-than-fear-minnesota/

Stiglitz, Joseph, People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent, 2019. The author is an economics nobel prize winner. He explains the nuts and bolts of how our income and wealth disparity are destroying democracy and our prosperity. He presents the means we could use to grow our economy, and get us out of this mess of our own making. He also agrees with the Deficit Myth author - but he does not say that in this book. I think he is trying to avoid being seen as too far out for the agenda he is putting forward.  For a longer discussion, see this review. Or:
https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-people-power-and-profits.html 

Thaler, Richard, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, 2016. Thaler won the Nobel prize for economics in 2017 for being the inspiration behind Behavioral Economics. He applied Kahneman's research findings to economics to turn it into a science, instead of a quasi religious school of opinions. Turns out, humans are NOT rational. It is better to design things for the way we work rather than the way we think we work. I talked about this in connection with Kahneman's book, and in a piece on the World Bank: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2017/03/world-bank-research-on-behavioral.html 

Wilkerson, Isabel, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, 2020.
See discussion above. 

Wilkerson, Isabel, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, 2011. Another fine work by this author. Again, 15 years of research, personal stories of people fleeing the persecution and terrorism of the South.