When I was finishing college, I was fairly certain that if I “went post-grad” I was going to study Ideological Distortion somewhere [at a more famous school] and continue down an academic rabbit-hole introduced to me by a professor who mentioned Karl Mannheim’s work to me once in a passing conversation. I was no doubt going to unlock the key to a politics of reason whereby each of us would be able to reckon together as rational people and affect policy decisions clear-eyed, level-headed and free from the burdens required to maintain membership within a political group. As a result of this scholarship, partisanship would falter, talk radio would have become more civil, cable news would become downright scholarly, disingenuous paid political advertising would come to naught, citizens–armed with more signal and less noise–would become increasingly knowledgeable, mastering broader domains, more deeply, and a new era of civic engagement would flourish. A political Rennaisance to remake the world.
Basically, because of my research papers.1
So it is 2020 and I did not go to graduate school. I did not write those papers. I did inadvertently retain the interest in these same types of ideas however: Ideological Distortion. Motivated Reasoning. Cognitive Dissonance. (‘social reasoning’ and ‘identity-based reasoning’ lately)
Probably as a coping mechanism though–assuming it was not always thus.
My longest-running, most consistent topics of interest center around finding ways to explain why otherwise intelligent and rational people arrive at precisely the wrong decision – and why really smart people steadfastly believe in nonsense.2, 3 Particularly after exposure to evidence that contradicts their belief. And–most importantly– in a way that allows for the possibility that they are just wrong — and not malicious.
Wrong you can work with; the inimical is different kettle of fish altogether.
And since we are stating the obvious here, the problem of maliciousness does seem to appear to be surging of late, no? A sort of Age of Malevolence is upon us — ushering forth disinformation, trolling, gaslighting, conspiracy theory, lies, etc., at unheard of levels. Meanwhile, a negative politics is simultaneously ascendent–folks less interested in what the best outcomes might be just so long as the other group “loses.” The problems aren’t getting any easier: Syria, Antibiotic resistance, Global Warming and Sea Level Rise, Sustained Racial Inequalities and Subsequent Unrest, Habitat loss, Extinction, Sustained Economic Disparity (and its inevitable unrest), Pandemics, Nuclear proliferation, a lack of Global Leadership — all while this politics adds to our troublesome millieu.
May we[sic] live in interesting times.
-30-
griff.works 