I mean me
That tangled, electric goo-yarn I call a brain sure can make me feel good, but never mind all that stuff happening in the world. That’s very far away and, hey, check out that shiny object. I’m increasingly convinced that all my brain cares about is watching for open manholes and avoiding being devoured by bears. Those things are hard to come by in Seattle. When was the last time you saw an open manhole?
With regard to abstract considerations, my brain seems a lousy tool. So’s yours. C’mon, you know it’s true. Consider the impression that emotionally manipulative commercial – a triviality – can make. That TV grandma got a phone call. Now she’s crying. How touching. Aren’t you moved? Have you no soul?
It’s time to stop deluding myself: I delude myself constantly. It happens in a million little ways. Death by paper cuts. Did you see that? I deluded myself right then. You must have missed it. Damn near everything is vulnerable, too, but nothing more the things we care about.
True, my mind is the amazing product of a long evolutionary process. That unique special species ability to think abstractly will come in handy as I criticize my abstract thinking skills. Basically, my brain scores an A for keeping me alive, but a firm F when it comes to meaning of life stuff.
Democracy is hard
There have been some changes.
Which brings me to Cracked magazine. In youth, I read it often. It was the low-rent MAD knockoff to keep me sated until the next MAD. Now it’s this odd combination of mildly subversive observational humor and lay-friendly pop science. It’s entertaining enough, and isn’t afraid to casually beat up my ego.
Recently, they published 5 Reasons Humanity Is Terrible at Democracy by Mark Hill. If, like me, you’re wondering what the hell your brain is doing up there, in it’s neural castle, it’s a great read. Our cognitive machinery isn’t very good at democracy. Mark writes about why, being sure to use small, friendly words.
Rather than summarize anything (seriously, go read it; it’s breezy.), I’d rather score myself on each of his points. The delicious irony is that however I score myself, I’m undoubtedly wrong, and for all the reasons touched upon in dozens of my posts on critical thinking. Take all this with a rather large grain of salt.
“Our Opinion on an Issue Is Based on How It’s Worded”
We can’t be educated on every issue, and the “don’t know” option in a poll makes us sound like morons. So the respondent’s brain probably just slapped together an opinion based on how the question made him feel at that moment. Remember that in most surveys, the most common unspoken answer is always, “Whatever it takes to get you off the phone, buddy. My burrito is getting cold.”
Remember when FOX, uh, News started calling the public healthcare option “government-run?” They know damned well that picking the right language is central to espousing propaganda, and nobody’s better at it. They’re craftsmen. Though I try to exercise the right cognitive tools to overcome this tendency, I still feel the pull. Language is powerful. Nothing is worse than failing to see what I’m failing to see. That happens because careful wording leads me to my impressions. It’s no surprise that my conclusions are likely wrong.
“Watching the News Actually Makes Us Stupider”
Isn’t there a smart core of people who keep the TV on CNN and thus know their shit? Not according to a study done during the 2010 election, which concluded that people who watch television news are more likely to get the facts wrong than the people who just flip past it on the way to watch wrestling.
No surprises here. I’ve chopped local and cable news completely out of my life. Confirmation bias reigns supreme, and it doesn’t much matter if it’s FOX, MSNBC, or NPR. I’m primed to draw particular conclusions based upon the sources that I make use of, combined with my own preexisting conditions. That’s right, it’s an illness. Among written pieces, I try to mix sources as much as I can, but I suspect that even absent the purty televised special effects, the same thing is going on. I may pat myself on the back for better than average learning, but this does nothing to improve my mood and I have no assurances that any of it is right.
“Political Pundits Are Even Worse Than the News”
A 20-year study of pundits and their prognostications found that they performed significantly worse than, say, a monkey making political predictions by throwing its own feces at a chart. The hard-line partisan pundits were right a dismal 12 percent of the time.
Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, and Bill O’Reilly can all drown in a tub of their underarm stage-sweat. The whole lot of them are as useless as a treadmill in a Denny’s. The only reason I can rightfully give myself an A is because my bullshit detector goes off at the sight of their kind. I’m a prejudiced bigot when it comes to them. And when one of them espouses something resembling my own views, I get especially suspicious. It means I’m almost certainly wrong, and it’s back to the drawing board. Better not to watch them. It’s naked, ego validating, pseudoinfotainment.
“The More Informed You Are, the More Partisan You Are”
So there appears to be a horrible process that works like this:
A. In order to want to learn more about political issues, you must be enthusiastic about politics; B. Enthusiasm about politics means you are more likely to be emotionally invested in the issues; C. Emotional investment in the issues means a more negative attitude toward anyone who disagrees; D. A negative attitude toward someone means being more dismissive of his point of view and being less open to changing your mind based on anything he says.
This one hurts the most. Like, so bad. And I consider myself pretty nonpartisan. Sure, I lean left, but that’s only because the conservatives aren’t actually conservatating and have thrown in with the tinfoil hat crowd. I’m quite a centrist, but who cares. Even if I’m truly nonpartisan, I’ve still formed conclusions about issues after some fashion. Consider me in a political party of one. Now, all those conclusions must be defended, possibly with swords. En guard.
“We Hate Each Other Over Imaginary Differences”
It’s not that there are no disagreements, it’s just that we vastly overestimate the degree to which we disagree, because the differences are all we focus on. A big reason has to be that it really is the only thing that keeps the news interesting for us. Without conflict, there is no drama. Without drama, we get bored. We don’t want the news to just give us information — we want a story, and every story needs a villain, a battle between good and evil.
The only reason I don’t get an F is because I at least recognize that there’s very broad agreement on a shit ton of issues. Democrats aren’t Marxists and Republicans don’t actually favor a lawless, old-west economy. For example: think back to the Obama-McCain debates. The two could have waltzed together for all the difference that existed in their foreign policy prescriptions for Iraq. Obama just wanted a drawdown to happen faster (he can lead in the dance). Large, powerful, inertia-driven institutions run governments, not presidents. They just try to steer the thing, and with varying success.
So, what if these institutions are relying on our delusions? Well, then we’re screwed. Look, the brain is magical, I’ll grant you. But, it’s a kind of performance magic. An illusion is taking place. It’s really convincing, but I really think our brains are conspiring against us. It wants us to think that none of the preceding stuff is true. We know the score. It’s all those fools – the differents – out there, that are the problem.
