ENCOURAGING REASONED THINKING

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.

---

[1] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York, NY:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

[2] George Lakoff, The Political Mind:  Why You Can’t Understand 21^st-Century American Politics with an 18^th-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 21^st-Century American Politics with an 18^th-Century Brain, 12-14.

CHANGE CONTEXTUAL ELEMENTS

Change in social landscapes can be studied from different perspectives, from different contexts.  One angle to this topic is the human interactions between those engaged in either promoting change, those opposed to it, and between the two camps in a given contested change effort. 

Here the relevant information that provides insight into those dealings can be derived from psychological and sociological studies.  But when one wants to see these encounters from a national or statewide level, political studies seem to be most fruitful.

          One study that takes on this more political perspective is provided by Leslie R. Crutchfield.[1]  “What [she] does is convey qualitative research findings – emanating from her team of researchers – on what has been effective in terms of grass roots activities.  She also indicates what has not been effective.”[2]  Since this blog promotes transformative change for civics education, any reliable knowledge affecting change efforts in large arenas, such as a national effort to change civics curricula, is highly welcomed.

          One of the first claims that Crutchfield reports has to do with the contexts under which more recent efforts have been attempted.  And the first element of those contexts she lists is historical.  That is, various efforts in the latter half of the twentieth century have had their effects. 

That would include civil rights, labor, environment, and feminist movements.  They seemed to have been most virulent during the 1960s and 1970s.  But while the influence of those efforts still has its effects, it must be highly qualified since the current environment has been heavily altered by technological developments.

          With the turn of the century, agents engaged in change have had to accommodate their strategies to the advent and quick application of the digital revolution through the Internet.

Technological innovation ushered Western society into a post-industrial Digital Age and catalyzed the supply chain revolution.  With innovations in sourcing and logistics, suddenly businesses were freed up to purchase inputs from and create their products in almost any nation on earth.  As supply chains opened up, the world turned flat once again, and globalization brought a new world trade order.[3]

Practically, those involved in change – especially if the parties targeted by such efforts are business interests – their concerns can potentially go global.  But even if the most directly affected are private enterprises, the public institutions are not immune and at times become the prime affected parties.  One need only look at the current headlines and be informed of foreign powers influencing domestic elections.

            On a more substantive level, current change efforts need to take into account the “nuts and bolts” issues of the day.  Nationally, an about face took place from a highly progressive thrust that existed in the 1960s and 1970s to a reactionary one of the 1980s and 1990s.  One area of concern provides an overall sense of how this reversed course materialized and continues to do so in everyday politics.

            That would be in the area of incarceration.  In the last four decades there has been an increase of 500 percent in the number of people being sent to some form of imprisonment.  Yet, there has not been that sort of increase in the number of crimes being committed. 

Ironically, for unrelated reasons, both liberal – left of center citizens – and conservatives – right of center citizens – have been cast together fighting this policy.  Of note on this issue, the usually opposing groups Black Lives Matter activists and the Koch brothers have become allies when it comes to the incarceration issue. 

The first group is motivated by their concern over race relations and the inordinate number of African Americans making up that prison population; the second group is motivated by its concern for over-governmental interference in American lives.  This uneasy alliance has brought attention to this national issue. 

And the conservative side of this joint effort brings up another contextual element.  Through the Koch brothers’ and other conservative groups’ actions, a highly organized, national conservative movement has evolved since the year 2000.  Summarily, this movement was given the title Tea Party. 

Their most meaningful accomplishment has been their successful acquisition of a significant number of Congressional seats.  When Republicans control the House of Representatives (as they did from 2011 to 2017), this Tea Party element presents a meaningful factor in being able to secure national or regional change.

This rise of conservatism, which has also been called the alt-right or populist movement, has been combined with the technological advancements mentioned above.  The result has been a potent political force that promises to affect national politics for many years to come.  This force will be addressed in upcoming postings.  But through social media, the alt-right has captured the attention of a significant number of Americans with a virulent conservative message.[4]

Of course, the political atmosphere in a given time will affect not only change processes, but what should be legitimately changed in the first place. 

… [I]t’s important to note that Trump didn’t create the populist movement that ultimately ushered him into office; rather, he shrewdly tapped the anger and disaffection of white working-class voters in coal country and other parts of the United States who felt left behind by a vanishing industrial economy and increasing cultural diversity.[5]

And with that explanatory note, one can find the circular reality of how the current environmental elements are meaningfully interrelated one with the other. 

Political movements – whether they are elements of the political context of change efforts or not – demonstrate that they are indicators of how the polity is divided or polarized at any given time.  They function as the fuel upon which change occurs – whether it is planned or not, whether it is wanted or not, or whether it is beneficial or not.

---

[1] Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t (Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018).

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Introducing the ‘Grass Root’ Approach,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, April 2, 2019, accessed December 9, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2019/04/introducing-grass-root-approach.html .

[3] Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t, 5 (Kindle edition).

[4] See Andrew Marantz, Anti-social:  Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation (New York, NY:  Penguin Random House, 2019).

[5] Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t, 7 (Kindle edition).