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I'm listening to a podcast episode right now that's really bouncing around a variety of topics, but the main theme is how we cannot have logic without emotion and how thought is a physical process. I don't want to get into such a science-heavy topic because that's not the point I want to make and I'm fuzzy on the nitty-gritty details. But within the larger topic, the host and the guest got to a point of conservativism vs. liberalism. And the guest (whose name escapes me) said something that kind of boggled my mind. And I'm still thinking it through.
Anyone who is familiar with the Skeptics Movement(TM) knows about the so-called schism between the "militant atheists" and the apologists (and, I just have to point out how much I fucking hate the term "militant" with regards to atheists. "Militant" is taking up arms in support of your cause, not writing fucking blog posts and books, no matter how loudly one yells "there is no god!" Ahem.) So, in the one camp are those who say we should say it loud, say it proud and stop being wishy-washy, nambsy-pambsy, mealy-mouthed cowtowers to the conservative Right. The other camp says we should be nice and try to find common ground and just accommodate them a little bit because we don't want to alienate anyone.
Ya'll should know which side of this debate I fall on.
The camp that sides with volume and strength has pointed out that the conservative Right has been incredibly successful at winning their battles by using these exact methods. The difference is, the argument goes, that we aren't *just* being loud, we're also backing up our shouting with facts that support what we're yelling about, so we're loud, but we're also right. The other camp says that no one likes to be yelled at, so the middle ground will side with the conservatives just because they don't like our tone. And besides, we don't *like* the other side, so we shouldn't emulate them! We should be distancing ourselves from them, not copying their methods.
Well, according to this scientist, there's a reason for for all this. *He* says that fMRI tests suggest that the reason why people can hold contradictory beliefs in their minds at the same time is because when one section of the brain that corresponds to one type of belief is firing, it cancels out the other section, the one that corresponds to the contradictory belief. It's like a breaker - if you activate conservativism, you shut off liberalism and vice versa.
So, he says, when a conservative wants to convince a middle-grounder who holds a some liberal and some conservative views (which is pretty much most of us) of the conservative position, the conservative doesn't try to find middle ground. Instead, he moves further to the Right because he's trying, basically, to deactivate the liberal portion of the listener's brain by pounding it with conservativism.
Yeah, seriously.
Oh, I'm sure the conservative isn't aware that he's doing this - it's not some rational, science-based game plan. Somewhere along the line, the fundies noticed that the more extremely conservative they got, the more followers they got. And they exploit that trick. So when they're shouting from the pulpits sounding like complete lunatics to people like me, others are hearing them and their liberal breaker gets flipped, and the conservative side of their brains kick in and start thinking "y'know? That guy kinda makes sense!"
Frightening.
The guest then went on to say that the Democrats just haven't figured this out yet. The Democrats (he specified them) are doing the apologist/find-common-ground method to try and win converts. So they moderate their message and tone it down and go a bit more conservative in their effort to sound friendly towards conservatives. And that doesn't win them converts, it just increases the ranks of conservatives. Which is why we have the Wingnut Party and the Republican-Light Party.
So, because I don't know who this guest is, and because I don't know the science behind this, I hesitate to actually endorse it. But, and I'm fully aware of confirmation bias here, this certainly fits my own observations of the world. I continue to be baffled, no, shocked absolutely dumbstruck, at how these wackaloons can get such large followings. I listen to these idiots and the pure bile that comes out of their mouths and I think "how in the world can anyone hear this shit and take them seriously?" And I have no explanation for that, because there really is no lack of intelligence on the conservative side. In fact, quite a lot of conservatives are extremely intelligent. So I just don't get it.
The fundagelicals and the Rethuglicans (I use those slurs intentionally, because not every theist or Republican is the barking moon-bat crazy that these terms more accurately describe) appear to actually be winning converts and followers by doing exactly those things that make my jaw drop - by being extreme and totally out there. That also explains why, in spite of the reasoned arguments of the Don't Be A Dick lobby claiming that "people are swayed by niceness", the biggest names in the skeptics, atheist, and/or liberal movements are considered dicks - PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and all the most well-known comedians who are most certainly Not Nice to religionists such as George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Billy Connelly, Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin, Matt & Trey, Penn & Teller, etc. It's true that there are plenty of nice and famous people too, but if the apologist argument was true - that nobody likes to be yelled at (which, technically, is not what's happening, but that's another rant) and people prefer nice guys, then these famous Dicks shouldn't be so popular.
And, according to this podcast, the reason why is because inundating a person who holds a combination of liberal and conservative viewpoints with an extreme version of one or the other viewpoint activates that side and deactivates the other, so that the listener's decisions are then made using the emotions that are more prominantly featured by that particular viewpoint. In other words, the more extreme conservatives win converts while the moderate liberals trying to be nice just chalk up more points for the conservatives.
And that's a scary thought.
Anyone who is familiar with the Skeptics Movement(TM) knows about the so-called schism between the "militant atheists" and the apologists (and, I just have to point out how much I fucking hate the term "militant" with regards to atheists. "Militant" is taking up arms in support of your cause, not writing fucking blog posts and books, no matter how loudly one yells "there is no god!" Ahem.) So, in the one camp are those who say we should say it loud, say it proud and stop being wishy-washy, nambsy-pambsy, mealy-mouthed cowtowers to the conservative Right. The other camp says we should be nice and try to find common ground and just accommodate them a little bit because we don't want to alienate anyone.
Ya'll should know which side of this debate I fall on.
The camp that sides with volume and strength has pointed out that the conservative Right has been incredibly successful at winning their battles by using these exact methods. The difference is, the argument goes, that we aren't *just* being loud, we're also backing up our shouting with facts that support what we're yelling about, so we're loud, but we're also right. The other camp says that no one likes to be yelled at, so the middle ground will side with the conservatives just because they don't like our tone. And besides, we don't *like* the other side, so we shouldn't emulate them! We should be distancing ourselves from them, not copying their methods.
Well, according to this scientist, there's a reason for for all this. *He* says that fMRI tests suggest that the reason why people can hold contradictory beliefs in their minds at the same time is because when one section of the brain that corresponds to one type of belief is firing, it cancels out the other section, the one that corresponds to the contradictory belief. It's like a breaker - if you activate conservativism, you shut off liberalism and vice versa.
So, he says, when a conservative wants to convince a middle-grounder who holds a some liberal and some conservative views (which is pretty much most of us) of the conservative position, the conservative doesn't try to find middle ground. Instead, he moves further to the Right because he's trying, basically, to deactivate the liberal portion of the listener's brain by pounding it with conservativism.
Yeah, seriously.
Oh, I'm sure the conservative isn't aware that he's doing this - it's not some rational, science-based game plan. Somewhere along the line, the fundies noticed that the more extremely conservative they got, the more followers they got. And they exploit that trick. So when they're shouting from the pulpits sounding like complete lunatics to people like me, others are hearing them and their liberal breaker gets flipped, and the conservative side of their brains kick in and start thinking "y'know? That guy kinda makes sense!"
Frightening.
The guest then went on to say that the Democrats just haven't figured this out yet. The Democrats (he specified them) are doing the apologist/find-common-ground method to try and win converts. So they moderate their message and tone it down and go a bit more conservative in their effort to sound friendly towards conservatives. And that doesn't win them converts, it just increases the ranks of conservatives. Which is why we have the Wingnut Party and the Republican-Light Party.
So, because I don't know who this guest is, and because I don't know the science behind this, I hesitate to actually endorse it. But, and I'm fully aware of confirmation bias here, this certainly fits my own observations of the world. I continue to be baffled, no, shocked absolutely dumbstruck, at how these wackaloons can get such large followings. I listen to these idiots and the pure bile that comes out of their mouths and I think "how in the world can anyone hear this shit and take them seriously?" And I have no explanation for that, because there really is no lack of intelligence on the conservative side. In fact, quite a lot of conservatives are extremely intelligent. So I just don't get it.
The fundagelicals and the Rethuglicans (I use those slurs intentionally, because not every theist or Republican is the barking moon-bat crazy that these terms more accurately describe) appear to actually be winning converts and followers by doing exactly those things that make my jaw drop - by being extreme and totally out there. That also explains why, in spite of the reasoned arguments of the Don't Be A Dick lobby claiming that "people are swayed by niceness", the biggest names in the skeptics, atheist, and/or liberal movements are considered dicks - PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and all the most well-known comedians who are most certainly Not Nice to religionists such as George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Billy Connelly, Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin, Matt & Trey, Penn & Teller, etc. It's true that there are plenty of nice and famous people too, but if the apologist argument was true - that nobody likes to be yelled at (which, technically, is not what's happening, but that's another rant) and people prefer nice guys, then these famous Dicks shouldn't be so popular.
And, according to this podcast, the reason why is because inundating a person who holds a combination of liberal and conservative viewpoints with an extreme version of one or the other viewpoint activates that side and deactivates the other, so that the listener's decisions are then made using the emotions that are more prominantly featured by that particular viewpoint. In other words, the more extreme conservatives win converts while the moderate liberals trying to be nice just chalk up more points for the conservatives.
And that's a scary thought.
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no subject
Date: 8/20/11 12:35 pm (UTC)From:I'd love if you were able to remember or find out which podcast that was!
no subject
Date: 8/20/11 07:08 pm (UTC)From:The podcast was Point of Inquiry, about 7-ish episodes ago (I'm behind).
no subject
Date: 8/20/11 07:11 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 8/20/11 12:59 pm (UTC)From:"The squeaky wheel gets the grease" also applies to this same problem of the very vocally asshatish - it is the loud obnoxious people who get the wanted attention, the change in law, the thoughtless followers. It is the quieter people who have to live with what that attention/law/power ends up meaning overall. I, being naturally quiet, resent the hell out of this but often feel helpless in the face of it. My brain simply does not work this way.
I have seen some popularized article about this study, somewhere. ScienceDaily, a link in a tweet, something online. I do not know how to go about finding the actual research, which is much more useful. The guy's name would probably help, though, as a starting place.
no subject
Date: 8/20/11 05:23 pm (UTC)From:They were looking at religion, but the same mechanism applies.
Their study was in to fundamentalist religious systems,not just Christian, but ANY belief with more radical or fundamentalist, in the strict use of that word where it's both authoritarian AND refers back to "earlier simpler times" with a limited worldview. For obvious reasons some Christian and Muslim sects did get more attention.
They noted that to hold such extreme beliefs people, even those living in poor & isolated areas with little education, had to choose to CONSCIOUSLY disregard evidence in the world around them that contradicted their belief systems (especially things like geology, archaeology, biology, anything that'd make the world really old & evolution real for example) and that part of the method they used was by BEING increasingly strident and even MORE radical, which had the effect of shutting down the reasoning portion of their followers' brains and triggering the emotional part. Among other unfortunate side effects were that the followers tend to react with anger & violence to those who hold opposing views. They noted this could and does apply to political processes.
Since they wrote that almost two decades ago it's been increasingly noted in various news sources that the only religious sects that're growing in the world are the more radical and out there ones who do use this behavior. Looking at Christian sects in the US alone, "liberal" Christian churches (in the religious sense, not the political) are hemorrhaging members and are seen as "weak, wishy washy, and not true to the faith" whereas fiercely conservative churches with hardened dogma are attracting members at a rapid clip.
So yeah, this makes perfect sense. What I find far scarier is some of the research (there's just been a more recent study about this, I have to find the news article) going back over several years (one study's 2006) showing that once someone accepts a politically conservative worldview about certain things it can be very difficult to change it, even when you confront them with facts. Many people actually retreated further in to their belief in falsehoods after being shown the facts. So for at least some folks the loud shouting & triggering of their emotion leaves them incapable of ever dealing with those topics in a reasoning fashion.
no subject
Date: 8/20/11 06:44 pm (UTC)From:My father is a great example here. He was raised to hate & fear democrats because, according to my grandfather's narrative, every democrat since FDR has been part of a conspiracy to make this a socialist/communist country & destroy democracy by creating a dependent welfare state. Further, any politician associated with Chicago must be dirty & corrupt because corruption in Chicago got Kennedy elected. And while he doesn't hate black people per se (he's fine with them on an individual basis) as a GROUP he's distrustful & feels many of "them" are dangerous, violent, lazy, etc.
Given all of that it's only natural he loathes Barrack Obama with a seething passion, but since he has a self-image as a rational & reasonable person who decides things on MERIT rather than biases or prejudices he can't admit those reasons. Instead when pinned on why he hated Obama from day 1 he says "Well he wrote in one of his books that every vote he ever cast as a politician was entirely as part of a plan to become the president, and that's just suspicious."
Problem is, Obama NEVER said any such thing in any of his books, nor in any speeches, or anywhere else. If he'd ever said it you can bet it'd be all over any number of right wing sights. Best as I can tell, what my dad HEARD was a CHARACTERIZATION of Obama on a local right wing talk show he listens to. It couldn't have been on a national show because it would have gained enough traction to be denounced on Snopes or some such.
I have tried to apply reality to my dad by demonstrating that this idea is false, but that only makes him angry. He's made up his mind about what he WANTS to believe, based on an appeal someone else made by shouting, and since it plays in to his predispositions he won't give it up. All political groups play on these tendencies in people but for the reasons you listed conservatives in the US do it much better.
no subject
Date: 8/20/11 07:20 pm (UTC)From:As someone else who also has this same self-image, I find myself paying particularly close attention to these studies that suggest that we cannot remove emotion from the equation. Like the study done on people with brain injuries that separate the emotional parts of their brains so that they have, effectively, no emotion at all. They are completely paralyzed with indecision. Turns out, you can't make ANY decision at all without emotions, not even what to have for lunch, because you cannot tell what you "want".
I've been trying to wrap my brain around that concept and trying to be more forgiving of using emotion as a legitimate part of the decision-making process and not an automatic evil.
Of course, there are still *logical* and *rational* ways to go about decision making while using and acknowledging emotion, and there are still people who use nothing BUT emotion with no logic or reason whatsoever, so I'm trying to make that distinction and to change my outlook on this whole "emotion is necessary" thing.
I know a couple of individuals who really ought to pay more attention to this themselves. Particularly the person I know who wants to "kill all emotion" and who thinks every decision he makes is absolutely rational and not based in emotion at all. Without acknowledging his emotions, he will forever be at his emotion's mercy.
no subject
Date: 8/21/11 04:54 am (UTC)From:In my dad's case, tho, he's often TOTALLY irrational, far more so than some others I know. His self-image is SO far out from how he actually is it's unreal.
Of course all those studies were predicted in the 1960's by "Star Trek" in "The Enemy Within" where Kirk is separated between his rational part & his emotional part & he can't make decisions any more.
no subject
Date: 8/21/11 05:30 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 8/20/11 07:14 pm (UTC)From:"leaves them incapable of ever dealing with those topics in a reasoning fashion."
Which is why I don't bother trying to engage the leaders of these things in dialogue and reason. They're not going to change their minds. They are now fair game for ridicule, to engage the emotional portion of the listeners minds and try to win them back to the light side :-D
no subject
Date: 8/21/11 04:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 8/21/11 05:29 am (UTC)From:There's a big of a gradation and all kinds of variables, so that it is possible to change someone's mind, but more difficult, all the way to totally impossible to change their mind.