[Note: From time to time, this blog issues a set of
postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous
postings. Of late, the blog has been
looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their
subject. It’s time to post a series of
such summary accounts. The advantage of
such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a
different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and
arguments. This and upcoming summary
postings will be preceded by this message.
As for this posting, the reader is strongly encouraged, if he/she has
not done so, to read the preceding posting, “Part I.”]
In the last posting, this blog quotes a portion of the character’s,
Howard Roark (of The Fountainhead[1]),
defense. He was accused and admitted to bombing
a building project he designed. He was betrayed
in that his design, contrary to his agreement with the architect of record, was
abandoned and the buildings that were being constructed would be quite
different from what he had in mind.
This abandonment of his ideas, he claims, did offense to his
personhood, his creativity, and his self-centered interests. His speech delegitimizes the notion of altruism. The movie version of the story coincides with
the ascendency of the natural rights view of governance and politics and
probably plays its modest role in that shift.
As such, this defense draws out the essence of Roark’s civic morality.
It goes a long way in determining how natural rights advocates
judge most public issues by focusing on the value of liberty. They can also hold other values, such as
equality, but if they do, they are secondary at best. Often, with those who hold this value
strongly, this sense serves to belittle other perspectives – altruism,
communality, collaboration, teamwork, etc.
In an age of polarization (the current state of American politics), the
likelihood of encountering arguments reflecting the prominence of liberty becomes
greater and such encounters are more likely to be intense.
Can one see the same sort of encounters with those who hold
equality – e.g., believers in critical theory[2] –
as the ultimate value? Yes, but given the
current nature of American politics, the incidence of encountering such
advocates is less likely. As this blog
points out, that side of political thought with its corresponding political
party, the Democratic Party, has much more diversity among its advocates. Therefore, their politics demands greater
compromise and softer messaging.
Of course, the average person does not give this question – what
is my political moral position? – much conscious thought. One seems to adopt, without much formal
thinking, what one grows up to accept.
Also, as this blog explains in a previous posting, such factors as
maturity have their effects.
What one is likely to do in growing up, if so inclined, is to see
what people generally hold to be the acceptable way to see and feel about such
moral concerns in one’s social circles – especially in one’s family. It probably has to do with where and with
whom that socializing takes place. But
once in place, those beliefs and feelings tend to be ensconced within one’s
personal psychology. People are not
generally disposed to having these basic biases change.
Historically, there have been elections in which one has seen vast
shifts in how people vote and express their values. FDR’s first victory at the presidential level
seems to indicate such an election. If
one reflects on what was going on, that demonstrates how extreme conditions
need to be in order to see ample numbers of people changing how they would have
voted otherwise. In that case, a global
depression triggered such a change in 1932.
And this reluctance to change one’s basic moral sense in politics
or any aspect of life reflects how values and beliefs can be self-defining in
their role of how one sees oneself. And
the evidence shows that it not only goes a long way in determining current
behavior but also what is accepted as truth.
Here’s what an article in Psychology Today has to say:
Why do people so easily believe false things?
There are probably as
many answers to this question as there are people who have ever believed
falsehoods. Nonetheless, psychologists have shown that a relatively small set
of cognitive biases or mental shortcuts can explain a lot about how false
notions take root. One of the most agreed-upon ideas in the field of psychology
is that people routinely use mental shortcuts to understand what happens around
them. All kinds of things occur in the world around us, and we don't always
have the time or energy to sit down and carefully examine all of them. So,
we tend to use quick and largely unconscious rules-of-thumb to determine what
we should believe—and these shortcuts sometimes steer us in the wrong
direction.[3]
These “rules-of-thumbs” are generally called heuristics.
And one
source for heuristics is a person’s emotions or, as it applies here, what a
person wants to be true. What happens
usually among people instead of their reason and logic guiding what they want,
what they want drives their reason and logic.
And unfortunately, this stream of thoughts and feelings applies to the
way people see or “discover” political reality.
Known as “emotional reasoning,” it leads people/voters astray without
them ever knowing it.
To complete the thought, this affects
personal matters as well. This can range
from health concerns to how one interacts with one’s family members. So, the detrimental effects are not just
fodder for yelling sessions at the news broadcasts, but in how one interacts
with those one encounters daily.
And all of this reminds the writer of
the distinction Plato made centuries ago.
And that is of the differences distinguishing knowledge, beliefs, and ignorance. Knowledge is what one knows is true, belief
is what one thinks is true, and ignorance is what one does not know. Of course, according to Donald Rumsfeld,
there is also what one does not know he/she does not know.
Surely, the message can’t be that
because one has moral positions with accompanying emotional feelings, one
cannot see politics objectively so as to form positions aligned with
reality. No, instead the message is,
especially to civics teachers, this potential problem needs to be recognized
and instruction should be designed and administered to address it.
This is seen as a major problem in an
age of polarization since by its nature, these times tend to heavily energize
one’s emotions and, in turn, strain people’s ability to detect reality. So, while people treat certain beliefs as
knowledge, these beliefs are not and that leads to dysfunctional
decision-making in politics or in the other aspects of life.
[1]
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943) AND King Vidor
(director), The Fountainhead (the film), Warner Brothers, 1949 AND “Howard Roark’s Courtroom Speech,” Work the System,
n.d., accessed September 29, 2020, https://www.workthesystem.com/getting-it/howard-roarks-courtroom-speech/ .
[2]
That is, those who adhere to
this construct see this nation’s – or, for that matter, the Western world’s –
social/economic/political arrangement as being in the grip of an economic,
exploitive class. They, critical theorists,
favor collectivist solutions to the problems of inequality.
[3] David B. Feldman, “Why Do People Believe Things That
Aren’t True?” Psychology Today,
May 12, 2017, accessed September 27, 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/201705/why-do-people-believe-things-aren-t-true .
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