This blog has from time
to time addressed the function the subconscious plays in thinking and, more
specifically, in political thinking.
Generally, the subconscious can and does play an automatic pilot role. The mind perceives what the senses take in
and if the information does not stir the emotions or is perceived as an out of an
expected encounter, the subconscious automatically drums up a response to the condition
perceived. This is what Daniel Kahneman[1] calls System 1 thinking,
and it accounts for about 98 percent of the type of thinking people do.
Therefore, people do not usually engage in reasoned
thinking or even reflective thinking.
Most of their thinking can be best described as reflexive thinking. What’s comforting about reflexive thinking is
that it expends little energy. What expends
a good deal of energy is reasoned thinking, the kind this nation’s founding
fathers relied upon in their writing of the Constitution. When one goes about handing the ultimate
power of governance to the people, one is not only counting on the ability
of the people to think reasonably, but to do so.
And as this blog has indicated in a prior posting, George
Lakoff[2] provides a list of
attributes characterizing this more energetic thinking – what Kahneman calls
System 2 thinking. These attributes are:
[I]t is consciously done; universally
applies to all people; disembodied in that it is free from perceptions or
actions; follows classical logic; is applied unemotionally; reflects
neutral-values (i.e., a person can rise above one’s values); is derived from
one’s interests; and views reality as logical.[3]
Such thinking can tire a
person just thinking about it. Yet, that
is what the nation’s system of governance calls on people to do.
But they don’t. And
what does that lead to? Here is what
Lakoff regards are the consequences. Reflexive
thinking affects one’s morality, one’s political reality, and how the two
intermix. Those who choose professions
that can benefit from such a state – politicians and marketeers – are apt to be
aware of it. They formulate their
messaging to cater to the subconscious and accompanying ignorance. After all, they either want to sell policies
or products and their aim is for their listeners to choose them subconsciously.
In case the politician or marketeer holds to a higher
standard, one that counts on the voter or customer to make a reasoned choice in
choosing what they are “selling,” they seem to be unaware of the more common
practice or deem appeals to the subconscious as beneath them or immoral in some
way. Such conniving they judge to be
dishonest.
One
can see the work of many ethical politicians, social activists, and journalists
as exhibiting a higher approach and federation theory promotes this latter type
of politics. As an aside, while many of
the more astute, principled “salespersons” understand this obstacle to their
aims, to date there does not seem to be a clear strategy to overcome it. Oh, there is here and there one who has
inordinate charisma who can rally support, but in the main, this does not
happen.
A second consequence is that this reasoned approach tends
to commit its practitioners to certain patterns of thought. Standards and criteria by which to judge
behavior and policy become important and not easily discarded. This stands counter to appealing to reflexive
thinking where the immediate rewards and punishments are mostly what are
considered, unreflectively, in making decisions.
And a third consequence, according to Lakoff, is that
reasoned thinking understands and feels fulfilled by the inevitable reality of
how interconnected people are. Reflexive
thinking simply considers the “me” and his/her immediate interests in any
encounters or situations that have a social element attached to them.
With that bit of insight into how the brain works, what is
the responsibility of civics educators?
After all, and it is assumed here, the aim of civics is to promote civic
responsibility and such responsibility calls for reasoned thought. So, as Lakoff puts it, the aim should not be
to only to change minds, but to change brains; that is, to change the degree to
which an individual relies on reflexive thinking and to more readily opt for reasoned
thinking.
Here is how Lakoff puts it:
But “changing minds” in any deep way
always requires changing brains. Once
you understand a bit more about how brains work, you will understand that
politics is very much about changing brains – and that it can he highly moral and
not the least bit sinister or underhanded …
We
will need to embrace a deep rationality that can take account of, and advantage
of, a mind that is largely unconscious, embodied, emotional, empathetic,
metaphorical, and only partly universal.
A New Enlightenment would not abandon reason, but rather understand that
we are using real reason – embodied reason, reason shaped by our bodies and
brains and interactions in the real world, reason incorporating emotion,
structured by frames and metaphors and images and symbols, with conscious
thought shaped by the vast invisible realm of neural circuitry not accessible
to consciousness.[4]
All this needs a more explaining
and all that will be provided at some future point. But what one, who cares about civics
education, should draw from this is that the job of an effective civics’
teacher is not just reviewing what the three branches of government are. He/she needs to delve into how people think. At some level, this blogger believes, this can
be done by that teacher and his/her secondary students.
[2]
George
Lakoff, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century
American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (New York, NY: Viking, 2008).
[3]
Robert Gutierrez, “Hidden Considerations,”
Gravitas: A Voice for Civics – a
blog, January 12, 2018, accessed December 12, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2018/01/hidden-considerations.html
.
[4]
George
Lakoff, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century
American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain, 12-14.
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