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anonymous

Voting Queue Etiquette: Hey, Buddy, That's Out Of Line! : It's All Politics : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...e-hey-buddy-that-s-out-of-line

shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • For most of us, Election Day marks a welcome end to months of relentless political ads and partisan bickering.
  • in an age when the rules about when it's OK to express one's political opinion seem to have frayed, what if someone decides the line at the polling station is the place to talk politics?
  • polling station etiquette.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • "I don't need you to know whether or not I voted, or which candidate I voted for. I don't care to know your status or opinion either."
  • Unlike Florida, many states have laws against passive electioneering, such as wearing political buttons or T-shirts within a certain distance of the voting machines — usually the demarcation is within 100-150 feet.
  • McDonald says she felt compelled to start a conversation because the woman was wearing a button that declared: "VOTE — your vagina is counting on you." They wound up passing the hour in line discussing politics.
  • "passive electioneering."
  • Of course, there's no law that keeps people from discussing their political opinions as they're queuing to vote.
  • "While standing in line, I will openly engage in discourse with members of the opposition,"
  • "When it comes to the moment of voting, when you're there at the gates, so to speak, there should be a kind of political silence."
  • respect that in America we honor the privacy of the vote, and that we allow each person to make up his or her own mind."
  • If someone's being rude, you might not want to support their candidate
  • anonymous on 03 Nov 20
     
    Poll etiquette connects to our discussion of how one can influence another person's opinions or thoughts because we care so much about fitting in. On the other hand, many people are stubborn and will fight you off if you try to change their view or talk politics, for example.
katherineharron

How coronavirus hypocrisy is tarnishing Boris Johnson's government (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 29 May 20 - No Cached
  • Johnson has proved staunch in his defense of his close ally since the latter was accused of breaking the UK's strict lockdown by driving 260 miles with his wife, who he admits was displaying some symptoms of coronavirus, and young son to be near his extended family.
  • In quarantine-fatigued Britain, however, where many have agonized over the command to stay away from frightened, sick and dying relatives, the Prime Minister's words have not gone down well. Highly unusually, several of his own Conservative MPs are now calling for Cummings to be sacked, and even the government-friendly Daily Mail asked: "What Planet Are They On?" of his decision to stand by his man.
  • In one of the more moving responses, Helen Goodman, until December the Labour Party MP for Durham, the northern town Cummings visited to stay in a property belonging to his parents, said she was "appalled" by his behavior, given her own father had died alone from Covid-19 in a local care home after she obeyed the rules and did not visit.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Saying he had no regrets, he added: "I believe in all circumstances I behaved reasonably and legally. The legal rules do not inevitably cover all circumstances - including those I found myself in." Also on Monday, Johnson expressed "regret" for the "confusion, anger and pain" experienced by the British people as a result of the controversy; when pressed on whether he believes Cummings' decision has compromised the government's coronavirus message, Johnson doubled down on his support for Cummings, asserting, "I do not believe that anybody at Number 10 has done anything to undermine our message."
  • "The regulations made clear, I believe, that risks to the health of a small child were an exceptional situation."
  • To talk of the British sense of fair play is almost a cliché. But there is certainly a particular sensitivity among Britons to suggestions of hypocrisy which have thus far thwarted Cummings' attempts to brush off criticism of his excursion, and which contrast with, say, the relative lack of fuss in the US over the revelation that Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump's daughter, traveled from Washington DC to New Jersey to celebrate Passover last month.
  • A controversial figure who relishes his role as an outsider, he also has a common touch when it comes to distilling a message with a brilliance complemented by Johnson's own flair for capturing the national mood. So while it was Johnson, then-Mayor of London, who in 2016 sensed an appetite for leaving the EU which his more senior colleagues missed, it was Cummings, head of the Vote Leave Campaign, who boiled it down to the simple and devastatingly effective slogan of "Take Back Control."
  • For a man known for his gregarious nature, the British Prime Minister has few close political friends; his inexperienced cabinet was appointed as much for their loyalty and support for his key policy of leading the UK out of the European Union as any long-term affinity with Johnson.
  • At the start of the lockdown, Dr. Catherine Calderwood, Scotland's Chief Medical Officer, fell on her sword after admitting two overnight visits at her seaside holiday cottage, having fronted the campaign urging Scots to stay home. Though Calderwood apologized for her actions and initially said she planned to stay on in her post, she later released a statement that she had quit and acknowledging that the "justifiable focus" on her actions could pose a distraction to the response to the pandemic.
  • As senior adviser since summer 2019 when Johnson became Prime Minister, the notoriously prickly Cummings has rubbed many Downing Street denizens the wrong way. But when coronavirus hit, it was he who crafted the message, "Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives," which has come to define Britain's battle against the virus and the protective shield the country threw around its beloved health service.
  • The hitherto wildly popular Johnson's favorability ratings have begun to slip while a recent poll by YouGov found 49% disapproved of the Prime Minister's path out of lockdown compared to 36% who supported it.
  • The former Chief Constable of Durham Police, Mike Barton, has warned that Cummings' behavior, and the Prime Minister's defense of it, will make attempts to enforce the lockdown impossible, potentially endangering the slow but steady progress the UK has made in reducing the spread of the virus.
  • The consequences could be even more serious if a mass loss of faith in both the Johnson government and his lockdown results in the public breaking the rules just at the moment the Prime Minister is urging them to stand firm.
katherineharron

FBI arrests spotlight lessons learned after Charlottesville (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, the FBI arrested three men, Patrik J. Mathews, 27, Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, and William G. Bilbrough IV, 19, with firearms charges, and they had plans, an official said, to attend a Virginia pro-gun rally. This followed Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's declaration of a temporary state of emergency after authorities learned that extremists hoped to use the anti-gun control rally planned next Monday -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day -- to incite a violent clash.
  • These arrests add to mounting evidence that a decades-old and violent white-power movement is alive and well, perhaps even gaining strength. White power is a social movement that has united neo-Nazis, Klansmen, skinheads, and militiamen around a shared fear of racial annihilation and cultural change. Since 1983, when movement leaders declared war on the federal government, members of such groups have worked together to bring about a race war.
  • JUST WATCHEDOn GPS: What motivates white power activists?ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH position: absol
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Silver linings aside, it will take many, many more instances of coordinated response to stop a movement generations in the making. In more than a decade of studying the earlier white power movement, I have become familiar with the themes of underground activity that are today clearly drawing from the earlier movement. In the absence of decisive action across multiple institutions, a rich record of criminal activity and violence will continue to provide these activists with a playbook for further chaos.
  • The Base, furthermore, is what experts call "accelerationist," meaning that its members hope to provoke what they see as an inevitable race war. They have conducted paramilitary training in the Pacific Northwest. Both of these strategies date back to the 1980s, when the Order trained in those forests with hopes of provoking the same race war.
  • One of the men arrested Thursday was formerly a reservist in the Canadian Army, where he received training in explosives and demolition, according to the New York Times. This kind of preparation, too, is common among extremists like these. To take just a few representative examples, in the 1960s, Bobby Frank Cherry, a former Marine trained in demolition, helped fellow members of the United Klans of America to bomb the 16th Street Birmingham Baptist Church, killing four black girls.
  • This news out of Virginia shows that there is a real social benefit when people direct their attention to these events -- and sustain the public conversation about the presence of a renewed white-power movement and what it means for our society.
Javier E

The Danger of Making Science Political - Puneet Opal - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...267327

science politics politization us conservatism

shared by Javier E on 21 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • there seems to be a growing gulf between U.S Republicans and science. Indeed, by some polls only 6 percent of scientists are Republican, and in the recent U.S. Presidential election, 68 science Nobel Prize winners endorsed the Democratic nominee Barack Obama over the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
  • What are the reasons for this apparent tilt?
  • most of the bad news is the potential impact on scientists. Why? Because scientists, he believes -- once perceived by Republicans to be a Democratic interest group -- will lose bipartisan support for federal science funding.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Moreover, when they attempt to give their expert knowledge for policy decisions, conservatives will choose to ignore the evidence, claiming a liberal bias.
  • he backs up his statement by suggesting a precedent: the social sciences, he feels, have already received this treatment at the hands of conservatives in government by making pointed fingers at their funding.
  • this sort of thinking might well be bad for scientists, but is simply dangerous for the country. As professionals, scientists should not be put into a subservient place by politicians and ideologues. They should never be felt that their advice might well be attached to carrots or sticks.
  • Political choices can be made after the evidence is presented, but the evidence should stand for what it is. If the evidence itself is rejected by politicians -- as is currently going on -- then the ignorance of the political class should indeed be exposed, and all threats resisted.
  • This might seem to be a diatribe against conservatives. But really this criticism is aimed at all unscientific thinking.
  • there are a number on the left who have their own dogmatic beliefs; the most notable are unscientific theories with regard to the dangers of vaccinations, genetically modified produce, or nuclear energy.
Javier E

The right has its own version of political correctness. It's just as stifling. - The Wa... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...rrectness-its-just-as-stifling

patriotic correctness PC conservative language

shared by Javier E on 08 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Political correctness has become a major bugaboo of the right in the past decade, a rallying cry against all that has gone wrong with liberalism and America. Conservative writers fill volumes complaining how political correctness stifles free expression and promotes bunk social theories about “power structures” based on patriarchy, race and mass victimhood. Forbes charged that it “stifles freedom of speech.” The Daily Caller has gone so far as to claim that political correctness “kills Americans.”
  • But conservatives have their own, nationalist version of PC, their own set of rules regulating speech, behavior and acceptable opinions. I call it “patriotic correctness.” It’s a full-throated, un-nuanced, uncompromising defense of American nationalism, history and cherry-picked ideals. Central to its thesis is the belief that nothing in America can’t be fixed by more patriotism enforced by public shaming, boycotts and policies to cut out foreign and non-American influences.
  • Blaming the liberal or mainstream media and “media bias” is the patriotically correct version of blaming the corporations or capitalism. The patriotically correct notion that they “would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University” because the former have “common sense” and the “intellectual elites” don’t know anything, despite all the evidence to the contrary, can be sustained only in a total bubble.
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  • Complaining about political correctness is patriotically correct. The patriotically correct must use the non-word “illegals,” or “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” to describe foreigners who broke our immigration laws. Dissenters support “open borders” or “shamnesty” for 30 million illegal alien invaders. The punishment is deportation because “we’re a nation of laws” and they didn’t “get in line,” even though no such line actually exists. Just remember that they are never anti-immigration, only anti-illegal immigration, even when they want to cut legal immigration.
  • Black Lives Matter is racist because it implies that black lives are more important than other lives, but Blue Lives Matter doesn’t imply that cops’ lives are more important than the rest of ours. Banning Islam or Muslim immigration is a necessary security measure, but homosexuals should not be allowed to get married because it infringes on religious liberty. Transgender people could access women’s restrooms for perverted purposes, but Donald Trump walking in on nude underage girls in dressing rooms before a beauty pageant is just “media bias.”
  • Terrorism is an “existential threat,” even though the chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is about 1 in 3.2 million a year. Saying the words “radical Islam” when describing terrorism is an important incantation necessary to defeat that threat. When Chobani yogurt founder Hamdi Ulukaya decides to employ refugees in his factories, it’s because of his ties to “globalist corporate figures.” Waving a Mexican flag on U.S. soil means you hate America, but waving a Confederate flag just means you’re proud of your heritage.
  • Insufficient displays of patriotism among the patriotically correct can result in exclusion from public life and ruined careers. It also restricts honest criticism of failed public policies, diverting blame for things like the war in Iraq to those Americans who didn’t support the war effort enough.
  • Poor white Americans are the victims of economic dislocation and globalization beyond their control, while poor blacks and Hispanics are poor because of their failed cultures. The patriotically correct are triggered when they hear strangers speaking in a language other than English. Does that remind you of the PC duty to publicly shame those who use unacceptable language to describe race, gender or whatever other identity is the victim du jour?
  • The patriotically correct rightly ridicule PC “safe spaces” but promptly retreat to Breitbart or talk radio, where they can have mutually reinforcing homogeneous temper tantrums while complaining about the lack of intellectual diversity on the left.
  • There is no such thing as too much national security, but it’s liberals who want to coddle Americans with a “nanny state.”
  • Those who disagree with the patriotically correct are animated by anti-Americanism, are post-American, or deserve any other of a long list of clunky and vague labels that signal virtue to other members of the patriotic in-group.
  • Every group has implicit rules against certain opinions, actions and language as well as enforcement mechanisms — and the patriotically correct are no exception. But they are different because they are near-uniformly unaware of how they are hewing to a code of speech and conduct similar to the PC lefties they claim to oppose.
  • The modern form of political correctness on college campuses and the media is social tyranny with manners, while patriotic correctness is tyranny without the manners, and its adherents do not hesitate to use the law to advance their goals.
kortanekev

How scientific is political science? | David Wearing | Opinion | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...olitical-science-moral-ethical

science bias

shared by kortanekev on 07 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The prevailing view within the discipline is that scholars should set aside moral values and political concerns in favour of detached enquiry into the mechanics of how the political world functions.
  • But I have yet to be convinced by the idea that the study of politics can be apolitical and value-neutral. Our choice of research topics will inevitably reflect our own political and moral priorities, and the way in which that research is framed and conducted is bound to reflect assumptions which – whether held consciously, semi-consciously or unconsciously – remain of a moral and political nature.
  • kortanekev on 07 Dec 16
     
    Good example of the way our biases affect our ability to set aside preconceived notions and beliefs, our ability to objectively analyze things and conduct good science- this fallacy is especially prevalent in political "science" as most all go in with strong personal opinions.  (Evie 12/7/16) 
carolinewren

Sarah Palin dives in poll ratings as Tina Fey impersonates her on Saturday Night Live -... - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...er-on-Saturday-Night-Live.html

politics media bias

shared by carolinewren on 15 May 15 - No Cached
  • Palin's poll ratings are telling a more devastating story.
  • In a Newsweek poll in September, voters were asked whether Palin was qualified or unqualified to be president. The result was a near dead-heat. In the same poll this month, those saying she was "unqualified" outnumbered those saying she was "qualified" by a massive 16 points
  • It currently commands 10 million viewers – a creditable figure for a primetime drama, let alone a late-night sketch show.
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  • Other satirical shows, such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, are also enjoying record ratings, as well as influence far beyond their own viewers.
  • Even bigger than Saturday Night Live have been the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Sarah Palin's set-to with Joe Biden on October 2 attracted nearly 70 million viewers – a record for a vice-presidential debate and the highest-rated election debate since 1992
  • It is impossible to imagine a similar level of engagement with political television in this country. Gordon Brown and David Cameron would not only have to debate each other on TV – an unlikely scenario in itself – but pull in an audience bigger than the finals of Britain's Got Talent and Strictly Come Dancing put together
  • American networks do have some advantages over the BBC and ITV in planning and executing their political coverage
  • four-year timetable, avoiding the unholy scramble when a British general election is called at a month's notice.
  • engage with the process much earlier on – not least with their Sunday morning political talk shows
  • "I think we're learning what it means to have opinion journalism in this country on such a grand scale," says Stelter. "It's only in the last six to 12 months that those lines have hardened between Fox and MSNBC. I think the [ratings] numbers for cable have surprised people.
  • I think that shows that people are looking for different stripes of political news."
  • American political TV certainly is polarised. When Governor Palin attacked the media in her speech at the Republican convention last month, the crowd chanted "NBC"
  • Gwen Ifill, a respected anchor on the non-commercial channel PBS, who moderated the vice-presidential debate, saw her impartiality attacked because she is writing a book about African-American politics that mentions Obama in its title
  • America's networks comprehensively outstrip this country in both volume and quality of political coverage.
  • All three major US networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – offer a large amount of serious (and unbiased) political coverage, both in their evening network newscasts and in their morning equivalents of GMTV
  • Impartiality and the public service ethos hardly characterise Tina Fey's performances. Tonight's presidential debate forms part of a series driven largely by commercial networks, not publicly funded channels. Neither Fox News nor MSNBC was set up as a sop to a regulator
Javier E

Let's call them all lunatics: Fearful "balanced" "journalists" let wingnuts run wild - ... - 0 views

www.salon.com/...rnalists_let_wingnuts_run_wild

journalism balance ideology objectivity politics bias GOP

shared by Javier E on 26 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • In their 2012 book, “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism,” Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein argued that America’s political dysfunction had two causes: First, the mismatch between our constitutional system, requiring compromise, and our increasingly polarized, parliamentary-style politics.
  • Second, the fact that polarization has been asymmetric, turning the GOP into an insurrectionary anti-government party, even when in power.
  • Despite overwhelming historical data showing asymmetrical polarization in Congress (more recent additions here), their argument did not convince the anecdote-obsessed Beltway pundit class, with its deep belief that “both sides do it,” no matter what “it” may be.
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  • It’s true there are “extremists on both sides,” but as this Wonk Blog post showed, the percentage of non-centrist Republicans skyrocketed from under 10 percent in the Ford years (less than Democrats) to almost 90 percent today, while the Democratic percentage has stayed basically flat [chart].
  • What’s more, in the last session (2013-2014), the data shows that 147 House Republicans — more than half the caucus — were more ideologically extreme than the most extreme Democrat in the House. There is simply no comparison between the two partie
  • But it’s a fact that “balanced” journalism has to ignore. To admit that the political world isn’t balanced would shake their whole belief system to its core. And yet, the shaking seems to have begun
  • The GOP’s strategic logic is simple and straightforward: If the media is going to split the difference between what Democrats and Republicans say, then if Republicans simply double their demands, suddenly the media, embracing the “sensible center,” will now articulate the old GOP position as the “sensible center,” the “common sense” place to be
  • Their stubborn adherence to a false balance narrative has, ironically, become an integral part of the GOP’s relentless rightward push. By talking about “government dysfunction” instead of “Republican obstruction,” the media actively helps the most extreme anti-government Republicans thwart any efforts at competent governance and it helps promote their “government is horrible” worldview
  • There was once a penalty for becoming too politically extreme: one’s actions would be characterized as unrealistic, destructive, heedless of past experience, etc. Sometimes this was justified, sometimes not (as with the Civil Rights movement). But right or wrong, this media practice inhibited radical movements in either direction.
  • For quite some time now, however, conservative Republicans have realized that by moving right and attacking the media for any criticism, they can turn the media into a tacit ally, forcing them to treat preposterous claims as serious ideas, or even proven facts
  • Norm’s response underscores the reality of asymmetric polarization, which the mainstream media and most good government groups have avoided discussing — at great costs to the country
  • Thus, when they were planning to force a government shutdown, a key part of their strategy was spinning the media with a preposterous argument that it was the Democrats who were shutting down the government, even though, as the New York Times reported, the shutdown plan traced back to a meeting early in President Obama’s second term, led by former Attorney General Edwin R. Meese.
  • What’s more, once the media plays along, it’s a trick that can be used over and over again. One can keep moving farther and farther right indefinitely, pulling the “objective” media along for the ride, every step of the way. (Conservatives even developed an operational model to describe the process, known as the “Overton Window,” explained by a conservative activist here.)
  • The basis for all this is a cultural illusion that the “nonpartisan” media is somehow objective, philosophically in tune with science.
  • historically, this is far from true. Up until the late 19th century, American journalism was quite partisan, serving substantial “niche” audiences, sustained by subscriptions.
  • hen advertising exploded as a revenue source in the early 20th century, a new journalistic model emerged, trying to appeal across parties, while taking care not to anger large advertisers. The broader story is well told by Paul Starr in “The Creation of the Media
  • Jeremy Iggers incorporates this history into his account of how journalism ethics confuses the purposes of journalism in “Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest.”
  • Such is the basis for the media’s claims of “objectivity.” Starr’s history explains the forces leading to why this happened.
  • the blogosphere’s origins were not just Usenet, email lists and the like, they were also the underground press tracing back to IF Stone’s Weekly and George Seldes’ In Fact; the black press, both commercial and movement-based; political journals of the left and right; and so on
  • These underappreciated traditions provide largely untapped examples of how to do quality political journalism outside of the artificial construct in which false balance is rooted. They point the way forward for us, beyond our current state of asymmetrical dysfunction.
Javier E

Opinion | Is There Such a Thing as an Authoritarian Voter? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-voters-political-science.html

evil freedom rationality morality authoritarian social science Research psychology culture politics

shared by Javier E on 17 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • Jonathan Weiler, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has spent much of his career studying the appeal of authoritarian figures: politicians who preach xenophobia, beat up on the press and place themselves above the law while extolling “law and order” for everyone else.
  • He is one of many scholars who believe that deep-seated psychological traits help explain voters’ attraction to such leaders. “These days,” he told me, “audiences are more receptive to the idea” than they used to be.
  • “In 2018, the sense of fear and panic — the disorientation about how people who are not like us could see the world the way they do — it’s so elemental,” Mr. Weiler said. “People understand how deeply divided we are, and they are looking for explanations that match the depth of that division.”
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  • Moreover, using the child-rearing questionnaire, African-Americans score as far more authoritarian than whites
  • what, exactly, is an “authoritarian” personality? How do you measure it?
  • for more than half a century — social scientists have tried to figure out why some seemingly mild-mannered people gravitate toward a strongman
  • the philosopher (and German refugee) Theodor Adorno collaborated with social scientists at the University of California at Berkeley to investigate why ordinary people supported fascist, anti-Semitic ideology during the war. They used a questionnaire called the F-scale (F is for fascism) and follow-up interviews to analyze the “total personality” of the “potentially antidemocratic individual.”
  • The resulting 1,000-page tome, “The Authoritarian Personality,” published in 1950, found that subjects who scored high on the F-scale disdained the weak and marginalized. They fixated on sexual deviance, embraced conspiracy theories and aligned themselves with domineering leaders “to serve powerful interests and so participate in their power,”
  • “Globalized free trade has shafted American workers and left us looking for a strong male leader, a ‘real man,’” he wrote. “Trump offers exactly what my maladapted unconscious most craves.”
  • one of the F-scale’s prompts: “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.” Today’s researchers often diagnose latent authoritarians through a set of questions about preferred traits in children: Would you rather your child be independent or have respect for elders? Have curiosity or good manners? Be self-reliant or obedient? Be well behaved or considerate?
  • a glance at the Christian group Focus on the Family’s “biblical principles for spanking” reminds us that your approach to child rearing is not pre-political; it is shorthand for your stance in the culture wars.
  • “All the social sciences are brought to bear to try to explain all the evil that persists in the world, even though the liberal Enlightenment worldview says that we should be able to perfect things,” said Mr. Strouse, the Trump voter
  • what should have been obvious:
  • “Trump’s electoral strength — and his staying power — have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations,” wrote Matthew MacWilliams, a political consultant who surveyed voters during the 2016 election
  • The child-trait test, then, is a tool to identify white people who are anxious about their decline in status and power.
  • new book, “Prius or Pickup?,” by ditching the charged term “authoritarian.” Instead, they divide people into three temperamental camps: fixed (people who are wary of change and “set in their ways”), fluid (those who are more open to new experiences and people) and mixed (those who are ambivalent).
  • “The term ‘authoritarian’ connotes a fringe perspective, and the perspective we’re describing is far from fringe,” Mr. Weiler said. “It’s central to American public opinion, especially on cultural issues like immigration and race.”
  • Other scholars apply a typology based on the “Big Five” personality traits identified by psychologists in the mid-20th century: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. (It seems that liberals are open but possibly neurotic, while conservatives are more conscientious.)
  • Historical context matters — it shapes who we are and how we debate politics. “Reason moves slowly,” William English, a political economist at Georgetown, told me. “It’s constituted sociologically, by deep community attachments, things that change over generations.”
  • “it is a deep-seated aspiration of many social scientists — sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious — to get past wishy-washy culture and belief. Discourses that can’t be scientifically reduced are problematic” for researchers who want to provide “a universal account of behavior.”
  • in our current environment, where polarization is so unyielding, the apparent clarity of psychological and biological explanations becomes seductive
  • Attitudes toward parenting vary across cultures, and for centuries African-Americans have seen the consequences of a social and political hierarchy arrayed against them, so they can hardly be expected to favor it — no matter what they think about child rearing
  • — we know that’s not going to happen. People have wicked tendencies.”
  • as the social scientific portrait of humanity grows more psychological and irrational, it comes closer and closer to approximating the old Adam of traditional Christianity: a fallen, depraved creature, unable to see himself clearly except with the aid of a higher power
  • The conclusions of political scientists should inspire humility rather than hubris. In the end, they have confirmed what so many observers of our species have long suspected: None of us are particularly free or rational creatures.
  • Allen Strouse is not the archetypal Trump voter whom journalists discover in Rust Belt diners. He is a queer Catholic poet and scholar of medieval literature who teaches at the New School in New York City. He voted for Mr. Trump “as a protest against the Democrats’ failures on economic issues,” but the psychological dimensions of his vote intrigue him. “Having studied Freudian analysis, and being in therapy for 10 years, I couldn’t not reflexively ask myself, ‘How does this decision have to do with my psychology?’” he told me.
  • their preoccupation with childhood and “primitive and irrational wishes and fears” have influenced the study of authoritarianism ever since.
kortanekev

Why I Love Politics - 0 views

www.theodysseyonline.com/why-love-politics

politics knowledge

shared by kortanekev on 29 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • For me, being involved in politics isn't about having an opinion about every issue. It is about learning both sides of each issue and being fascinated by them. There are very few political issues that I have strong opinions on. The rest I either have yet to educate myself on or I understand both sides and have yet to choose which one I agree with.
  • kortanekev on 29 Mar 17
     
    This article is a short piece from an 18 year old who loves politics.. but not the kind we talked about today in class. She loves thoroughly educating herself on BOTH sides of each issue (rather than just the one she already supports). Rather than passively watching a debate or choosing a candidate based on the feeling it leaves her with, she sees it as an opportunity to inform herself on how people work and how the world works. I think we would all benefit greatly from this perspective regarding politics.  (Evie Kortanek 3/29/17)
Javier E

Jesse Watters and the Story of The Five's 'Mom Texts' - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...602614

discussions family political polarization psychology language

shared by Javier E on 27 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Many American families are in the political situation that the Watterses find themselves in, even if most families don’t work out their differences on TV. According to a survey conducted a year ago by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic, 39 percent of Americans said some political diversity exists within their family. And an ABC News survey found that the 2016 campaign made family relationships and friendships more tense for a roughly similar percentage of Americans.
  • My colleague Ashley Fetters wrote earlier this year about how family members might discuss their conflicting political views. Suggestions included “abandon[ing] the idea of winning an argument or convincing other people of the wrongness of their positions” and “deliberately distanc[ing] themselves from the full platform of policy positions supported by their chosen political party and instead examin[ing] each issue individually.
katherineharron

Elijah Cummings knew how to walk the tightrope of racial politics - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Perhaps no one so visibly crystallized the dissonance between black Americans and their country than Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who died last Thursday and whose funeral service, at which the Clintons and former President Barack Obama will deliver remarks, is on Friday.
  • "In the Congress, Elijah was considered a north star," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled. "He was a leader of towering character and integrity. He lived the American dream." Pelosi also underscored that Cummings "spoke with unsurpassed clarity and moral integrity" -- that "everyone wanted to hear what Elijah had to say."
  • "Every time we spoke of selecting an individual who can rise to the occasion to be in debate with him, we would look for somebody who was strong, and every time someone was selected, they'd come back to be a very best friend of Elijah Cummings," House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California said.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • And yet, those accounts, while surely sincere, are also so simplistically heartwarming that they're misleading -- bowing to America's impulse to see certain black lives as a balm for the bruises of the political moment.
  • Consider the congressman's relationship with President Donald Trump. In March 2017, when the administration was only a few months old, Cummings met with Trump in the Oval Office. The two reportedly spoke openly about race, with the former explaining how the latter's comments about black communities, which he had characterized as poverty-addled hellscapes, were "insulting" and that "probably nobody (had) ever told (him) that."
  • Rather than retreat into defensiveness, Trump replied: "You're right -- nobody has ever told me that."
  • "To know our whites is to understand the psychology of white people and the elasticity of whiteness. It is to be intimate with some white persons but to critically withhold faith in white people categorically," Cottom explained. "It is to anticipate white people's emotions and fears and grievances because their issues are singularly our problem. To know our whites is to survive without letting bitterness rot your soul."
Javier E

Politics should be taught in primary schools, Alastair Campbell says | Alastair Campbel... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...schools-alastair-campbell-says

politics primary school argumentation learning education lesson

shared by Javier E on 26 May 23 - No Cached
  • the co-host of podcast The Rest is Politics expressed dismay that most students in the UK do not take politics classes unless they choose to study it at A-level.
  • Political education needs to start in primary schools, and then become part of the “everyday debate” in children’s entire school experience, he said. “Maybe you don’t call it politics,” he said, suggesting that it could be called “arguing”, “policy” or “big issues”.
  • “Some of the most enjoyable stuff I do is going into schools and trying to teach young kids what politics is,” he added. “When they sit down and they start thinking about stuff, it’s just so fascinating and innovative.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • more state school students need to be taught “how to communicate, how to argue, how to fight their corner” from a young age.
Javier E

Tips for Keeping the Peace and Making a Difference Around Politics at Thanksgiving - Ad... - 1 views

www.adfontesmedia.com/round-politics-at-thanksgiving

politics bias psychology knowledge persuasion

shared by Javier E on 30 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Creating more peace, rather than more polarization
  • Avoid starting out with “you’re wrong.” The result of starting out that way is rarely that the other person ends up saying “oh, yes, you are totally right and I AM wrong!” Even if it’s true, it’s usually not effective.
  • If you really plan to get deep into political discussions, I recommend reading up on news sources from the side opposite your views. Really read them closely and deeply. This will familiarize you with the arguments that convince your opposite-side relative and reduce your shock when you hear them repeat those arguments. It will allow you to react with more peace and less anger, and will allow you to prepare your arguments better. Remember, the arguments that convince you (that you read in your news sources) are not the same ones that convince them. Address the arguments that convince them.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Find out exactly what news sources your relatives read and watch and how they access those sources. Do they click on Facebook links, read just the headlines, use apps, visit sites, or watch TV? Inquire with the intent to really understand their habits.
  • If your opposite-side relative flat-out refuses to read any sources outside their own low-reliability, highly biased ones and dismisses sources you find credible out-of-hand, that might be a sign that discussing politics with that relative is not an effective use of your time or energy. In such an instance, I’d just encourage compassion toward them.
  • Share authentically about something that affects you personally. When discussing politics, sharing authentically about something you have experienced is usually much more effective than sharing something abstract about a policy or politician.
  • Avoid starting out with “you’re wrong.” The result of starting out that way is rarely that the other person ends up saying “oh, yes, you are totally right and I AM wrong!” Even if it’s true, it’s usually not effective.
  • Creating more peace, rather than more polarization
  • If you really plan to get deep into political discussions, I recommend reading up on news sources from the side opposite your views. Really read them closely and deeply. This will familiarize you with the arguments that convince your opposite-side relative and reduce your shock when you hear them repeat those arguments. It will allow you to react with more peace and less anger, and will allow you to prepare your arguments better. Remember, the arguments that convince you (that you read in your news sources) are not the same ones that convince them. Address the arguments that convince them.
  • Find out exactly what news sources your relatives read and watch and how they access those sources. Do they click on Facebook links, read just the headlines, use apps, visit sites, or watch TV? Inquire with the intent to really understand their habits.
  • If your opposite-side relative flat-out refuses to read any sources outside their own low-reliability, highly biased ones and dismisses sources you find credible out-of-hand, that might be a sign that discussing politics with that relative is not an effective use of your time or energy. In such an instance, I’d just encourage compassion toward them.
  • Share authentically about something that affects you personally. When discussing politics, sharing authentically about something you have experienced is usually much more effective than sharing something abstract about a policy or politician.
Javier E

'Follow the science': As Year 3 of the pandemic begins, a simple slogan becomes a polit... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...logan-becomes-political-weapon

science pandemic slogan philosophy implications truth knowledge bias

shared by Javier E on 13 Feb 22 - No Cached
  • advocates for each side in the masking debate are once again claiming the mantle of science to justify political positions
  • pleas to “follow the science” have consistently yielded to use of the phrase as a rhetorical land mine.
  • “so much is mixed up with science — risk and values and politics. The phrase can come off as sanctimonious,” she said, “and the danger is that it says, ‘These are the facts,’ when it should say, ‘This is the situation as we understand it now and that understanding will keep changing.’
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • The pandemic’s descent from medical emergency to political flash point can be mapped as a series of surges of bickering over that one simple phrase. “Follow the science!” people on both sides insisted, as the guidance from politicians and public health officials shifted over the past two years from anti-mask to pro-mask to “keep on masking” to more refined recommendations about which masks to wear and now to a spotty lifting of mandates.
  • demands that the other side “follow the science” are often a complete rejection of another person’s cultural and political identity: “It’s not just people believing the scientific research that they agree with. It’s that in this extreme polarization we live with, we totally discredit ideas because of who holds them.
  • “I’m struggling as much as anyone else,” she said. “Our job as informed citizens in the pandemic is to be like judges and synthesize information from both sides, but with the extreme polarization, nobody really trusts each other enough to know how to judge their information.
  • Many people end up putting their trust in some subset of the celebrity scientists they see online or on TV. “Follow the science” often means “follow the scientists” — a distinction that offers insight into why there’s so much division over how to cope with the virus,
  • although a slim majority of Americans they surveyed don’t believe that “scientists adjust their findings to get the answers they want,” 31 percent do believe scientists cook the books and another 16 percent were unsure.
  • Those who mistrust scientists were vastly less likely to be worried about getting covid-19 — and more likely to be supporters of former president Donald Trump,
  • A person’s beliefs about scientists’ integrity “is the strongest and most consistent predictor of views about … the threats from covid-19,”
  • When a large minority of Americans believe scientists’ conclusions are determined by their own opinions, that demonstrates a widespread “misunderstanding of scientific methods, uncertainty, and the incremental nature of scientific inquiry,” the sociologists concluded.
  • Americans’ confidence in science has declined in recent decades, especially among Republicans, according to Gallup polls
  • The survey found last year that 64 percent of Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in science, down from 70 percent who said that back in 1975
  • Confidence in science jumped among Democrats, from 67 percent in the earlier poll to 79 percent last year, while Republicans’ confidence cratered during the same period from 72 percent to 45 percent.
  • The fact that both sides want to be on the side of “science” “bespeaks tremendous confidence or admiration for a thing called ‘science,’ ”
  • Even in this time of rising mistrust, everybody wants to have the experts on their side.
  • That’s been true in American debates regarding science for many years
  • Four decades ago, when arguments about climate change were fairly new, people who rejected the idea looked at studies showing a connection between burning coal and acid rain and dubbed them “junk science.” The “real” science, those critics said, showed otherwise.
  • “Even though the motive was to reject a scientific consensus, there was still a valorization of expertise,”
  • “Even people who took a horse dewormer when they got covid-19 were quick to note that the drug was created by a Nobel laureate,” he said. “Almost no one says they’re anti-science.”
  • “There isn’t a thing called ‘the science.’ There are multiple sciences with active disagreements with each other. Science isn’t static.”
  • The problem is that the phrase has become more a political slogan than a commitment to neutral inquiry, “which bespeaks tremendous ignorance about what science is,”
  • t scientists and laypeople alike are often guilty of presenting science as a monolithic statement of fact, rather than an ever-evolving search for evidence to support theories,
  • while scientists are trained to be comfortable with uncertainty, a pandemic that has killed and sickened millions has made many people eager for definitive solutions.
  • “I just wish when people say ‘follow the science,’ it’s not the end of what they say, but the beginning, followed by ‘and here’s the evidence,’
  • As much as political leaders may pledge to “follow the science,” they answer to constituents who want answers and progress, so the temptation is to overpromise.
  • It’s never easy to follow the science, many scientists warn, because people’s behaviors are shaped as much by fear, folklore and fake science as by well-vetted studies or evidence-based government guidance.
  • “Science cannot always overcome fear,”
  • Some of the states with the lowest covid case rates and highest vaccination rates nonetheless kept many students in remote learning for the longest time, a phenomenon she attributed to “letting fear dominate our narrative.”
  • “That’s been true of the history of science for a long time,” Gandhi said. “As much as we try to be rigorous about fact, science is always subject to the political biases of the time.”
  • A study published in September indicates that people who trust in science are actually more likely to believe fake scientific findings and to want to spread those falsehoods
  • The study, reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that trusting in science did not give people the tools they need to understand that the scientific method leads not to definitive answers, but to ever-evolving theories about how the world works.
  • Rather, people need to understand how the scientific method works, so they can ask good questions about studies.
  • Trust in science alone doesn’t arm people against misinformation,
  • Overloaded with news about studies and predictions about the virus’s future, many people just tune out the information flow,
  • That winding route is what science generally looks like, Swann said, so people who are frustrated and eager for solid answers are often drawn into dangerous “wells of misinformation, and they don’t even realize it,” she said. “If you were told something every day by people you trusted, you might believe it, too.”
  • With no consensus about how and when the pandemic might end, or about which public health measures to impose and how long to keep them in force, following the science seems like an invitation to a very winding, even circular path.
Javier E

How GOP Leaders Must Manage Their Political Lives in the Era of Donald Trump - The Atla... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...483354

politics politician compromise hypocrisy

shared by Javier E on 19 May 16 - No Cached
  • The day-in, day-out work of the politician is the management of electoral coalitions: coaxing, cajoling, compelling people to work together who—in the more natural course of things—might have nothing in common
  • Unlike writers and intellectuals, politicians don’t have the freedom to work only with people they like and admire. Unlike writers and intellectuals, they have no duty to speak aloud their inner convictions—their work would become impossible if they did.
  • Politics unfortunately abounds in shams that must be treated reverentially for every politician who would succeed. If you are the sort of man whose stomach revolts against treating shams reverentially, you will be well advised to stay out of politics altogether and set up as a prophet; your prophecies may perhaps sow good seed for some future harvest. But as a politician you would be impotent. For at any given time the bulk of your countrymen believe firmly and devoutly, not only in various things that are worthy of belief, but also in illusions of one kind and another; and they will never submit to have their affairs managed for them by one who appears not to share in their credulity.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • More F.S. Oliver: Nothing in politics is sadder than: the man of sterling character whose genius is so antipathetic to the particular emergency in which he finds himself as to stupefy his thoughts and paralyze his actions. He drifts to disaster, grappling blindfolded which are beyond his comprehension, failing without really fighting.
  • Bad choices over the past decade by Republican political leaders opened the way to Donald Trump, yes.  For a decade, Republican voters have signaled they wanted to protect Medicare, cut immigration, fight fewer wars, and nominate no more Bushes. Their party leaders interpreted those signals as demands to cut Medicare, increase immigration, put boots on the ground in Syria, and nominate another Bush.
  • Their task ahead, in the Biblical phrase, is to pluck the brands from the fire—rescue as much of their party as can be rescued—while simultaneously minimizing the damage to party and country by the nominee their rank-and-file has imposed on them. They need to maneuver so that Trump’s defeat is as solitary as possible, and so that he cannot shift the blame for the failure he has earned onto the heads of others
  • Trump’s taught Republican politicians that they’ve neglected the interests and values of their core supporters. He’s demonstrated that much of their party ideology is obsolete, and that their language no longer moves their voters. He’s proven that their party is less culturally conservative than they believed, less hostile to social insurance than they imagined, and more worried about the economic and social costs of mass migration than they realized. Those are valuable lessons that need to be absorbed and pondered.
  • He’s also demonstrated that he himself is a dangerous person
  • To save themselves and their country, Republican politicians will have to rediscover the politician’s arts of deftness, flexibility, and self-preservation—while stealthily hastening Trump toward the defeat that almost certainly awaits him in November.
  • That’s a big job and a hard job, all the harder because they cannot acknowledge what they are doing. They will seem to help Trump win, while actually working to ensure he fail
  • What Walter Lippman said of presidents is really true of all politicians: They are not “working through noble institutions to dear ends … but trying to grind out a few crude results from a decadent political machine.”
  • The harms they stop are more important than the good they cannot achieve. What they’re called upon to do is to practice statesmanship without fine phrases; to protect the republic without receiving any credit for it
sissij

Liberals and Conservatives Read Different Science Books, Except for One Subject | Big T... - 0 views

bigthink.com/...e-books-except-for-one-subject

science research psychology

shared by sissij on 10 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • While scientists generally try to stay out politics, letting evidence-based research to speak for itself, the strong division in American society has spread to science.
  • By analyzing millions of online purchases, researchers from Cornell, Yale and University of Chicago found that there are clear partisan preferences in how we buy books on scientific topics.
  • The study’s authors think it’s likely that people who buy political books get science books to support their views rather than out of a general interest in science.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • One topic popular with both sides - books on dinosaurs. These were bought across the whole political spectrum.
  • Is there a way science could help heal the division in the country?
  • While the study is illuminating, it  has some limitations, with political scientist Toby Bolsen cautioning that this research did not draw on a random sample of books, relying instead on how the online sellers categorized them.
  • sissij on 10 Apr 17
     
    As we discussed in TOK, people selectively read about science due to confirmation bias. When reading about science, people tends to ignore the limitation and uncertainties in science, this is because of the source amnesia. It is not surprise that liberals and conservatives read different science book because the policies they make are so different that they need different scientific paper to support. Although science is trying to stay out of politics, but it cannot stop politicians from using science. However, it is totally a surprise for me to see that science books on dinosaurs are read by author throughout the political spectrum. It doesn't seem to fit in with my hypothesis earlier. --Sissi (4/10/2017)
Javier E

Truth, Lies, Politics, and the Press, in Three Acts - James Fallows - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...261297

post-truth journalism politics discourse truth

shared by Javier E on 19 Aug 12 - Cached
  • Both explain why the realities of modern "post-truth" politics will sooner or later force the press out of its preferred, comfortable pose of "balance," if it is to come close to doing its fundamental job of describing reality. When some people in public life are willing to lie, and to keep on lying even when the bald falseness is exposed, the press should take on an affirmative responsibility to remind readers what the "truth" is.
  • Some of the "savviest" and best-connected political journalists say that their duty is merely to recount the claims one side makes about the other, and whether or not they "work" in swinging votes. But, Rosen argues, a growing segment has concluded that "post-truth" politics requires reporters to do more than call play-by-play.
  • As a conservative myself politically, it annoys me no end to see deliberate lying and misinformation coming out where they will trash an outstanding American product and do damage to American employment just to get at Obama. That's just plain unethical.
Javier E

Death by Data - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...avid-brooks-death-by-data.html

data politics imagination vision quantification agenda issues demographics individual Obama

shared by Javier E on 05 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • data-driven style of politics is built on a questionable philosophy and a set of dubious assumptions. Data-driven politics is built on a philosophy you might call Impersonalism. This is the belief that what matters in politics is the reaction of populations and not the idiosyncratic judgment, moral character or creativity of individuals.
  • Data-driven politics assumes that demography is destiny, that the electorate is not best seen as a group of free-thinking citizens but as a collection of demographic slices.
  • This method assumes that mobilization is more important than persuasion; that it is more important to target your likely supporters than to try to reframe debates or persuade the whole country.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • This method puts the spotlight on the reactions of voting blocs and takes the spotlight off the individual qualities of candidates. It puts the spotlight on messaging and takes the spotlight off product: actual policies.
  • It puts the spotlight on slight differences across the socio-economic spectrum and takes the spotlight off the power of events to reframe the whole mood and landscape.
  • Another victim was President Obama. His 2012 campaign was legendary from an analytic point of view, and, of course, it was victorious. But it lacked a policy agenda and produced no mandate. Without a compelling agenda, the administration has projected an image of reactive drift and lost public confidence.
  • other victims include the Democratic senators in red states. Winning in a state that the other party dominates is a personal enterprise. It requires an ineffable individual connection with voters. It requires an idiosyncratic approach to issues. By eclipsing individual quirks with generic messages, the data-driven style deprives outnumbered candidates of precisely what they need to survive.
  • Obviously demography matters a lot. But, at heart, politics is a personal enterprise. Voters are looking for quality of leadership, character, vision and solidarity that defies quantification. Candidates like Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Jerry Brown can arouse great loyalty in ways that are impossible to predict.
  • In the midst of this scuffling economy, voters are thinking as Americans and not as members of a niche. They’re asking: What can be done to kick-start America? They’re not asking: How can I guarantee affordable contraception?
  • The more you look at political history, the more you see that political imagination is the rarest and most valuable of qualities. Voters don’t always know what they want, but they look to leaders to jump ahead of the current moment and provide visions they haven’t thought of.
  • Some politicians, like F.D.R. or Ronald Reagan, can reframe debates and envision coalitions that don’t exist. Their visions emerge out of unique life experiences, which are unusual but have broad appeal. They build trust not through a few targeted messages but by fully embodying a moment and a people. They often don’t pander to existing identities but arouse different identities.
  • Data-driven candidates sacrifice their own souls. Instead of being inner-directed leaders driven by their own beliefs, they become outer-directed pleasers driven by incomplete numbers.
Javier E

How Much Do Our Genes Influence Our Political Beliefs? - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...nce-our-political-beliefs.html

genes political beliefs psychology conservatism tradition ideology genetics

shared by Javier E on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Why do so many poor, working-class and lower-middle-class whites — many of them dependent for survival on government programs — vote for Republicans?
  • three psychologists write that “authoritarianism, religiousness and conservatism,” which they call the “traditional moral values triad,” are “substantially influenced by genetic factors.”
  • all three traits are reflections of “a single, underlying tendency,” previously described in one word by Bouchard in a 2006 paper as “traditionalism.” Traditionalists in this sense are defined as “having strict moral standards and child-rearing practices, valuing conventional propriety and reputation, opposing rebelliousness and selfish disregard of others, and valuing religious institutions and practices.”
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • based on the correlations presented here, knowing the scores of one identical twin gives you a pretty good indication of the scores of the other.”
  • the Democratic Party — supportive of abortion rights, same-sex marriage and the primacy of self-expressive individualism over obligation to family — is irreconcilably alien to a segment of the electorate.
  • If these predispositions are, as Friesen and Ksiazkiewicz argue, to some degree genetically rooted, they may not lend themselves to rational debate and compromise.
  • concluded from their study comparing identical and fraternal twins that “the correlation between religious importance and conservatism” is “driven primarily, but usually not exclusively, by genetic factors.” The substantial “genetic component in these relationships suggests that there may be a common underlying predisposition that leads individuals to adopt conservative bedrock social principles and political ideologies while simultaneously feeling the need for religious experiences.”
  • the outcome of the 19 presidential elections since 1940: Nine Republican victories; 10 for Democrats. In those races, the winner received less than 53 percent of the vote in 10 elections. This equilibrium suggests that political opinion may be less volatile, and more firmly grounded, than is sometimes suspected.
  • “To the extent that my political opinions can be predicted by my genome, or by an identical twin separated from me at birth who grew up halfway across the world,” Pinker writes, “I have reason to question whether those opinions are justifiable by reason or evidence rather than a reflection of my temperament.”
  • “the discovery that political ideologies are partly heritable points our attention to what the common psychological threads of competing ideologies are – namely temperamental differences such as authoritarianism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, together with intellectual differences such as intelligence. These could help pinpoint some of the common denominators beneath competing ideologies which cut across the particular hot buttons of the particular era.”
  • such research can enhance our understanding of the larger framework within which public discourse and debate shape key outcomes.
  • We need every tool available to increase our understanding of our systems of self-governance and of how we came to be the political animals that we are.
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