Gravity
April 11, 2019·3 comments·In Brief
Research identifies four traits shared by people at opposite political extremes: psychological distress, cognitive simplicity, overconfidence, and intolerance. The first trait, a sense of meaninglessness stemming from anxious uncertainty, appears to be the foundation. The question becomes: if this is what drives polarization, what does that tell us about how to think about it?
• Psychological distress itself is the variable. Not ideology, not values, not rational disagreement about policy. The research suggests that anxious uncertainty creates a particular vulnerability to extreme positions.
• Three observable behaviors follow. People in this state see problems as simple and solvable if others weren't so stupid or corrupt. They express unreasonable confidence in their own knowledge. They use fear of outgroups to organize their thinking.
• These traits cluster at both poles, not in the middle. Extremes on opposite sides have more in common with each other than with moderates. This pattern itself is the interesting observation.
• The tells are straightforward to spot. Listen for whether someone acknowledges that intelligent people disagree on hard problems. Does epistemic humility appear anywhere in how they think? Or is disagreement treated as evidence of moral or intellectual failure?
• If psychological distress is the engine, then the usual arguments about politics might be missing the point entirely.You're not persuading someone into a different ideology. You're encountering a particular psychological state that happened to attach itself to a political position.
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Comments
“Psychological distress – as defined here – is ‘a sense of meaninglessness that stems from anxious uncertainty.’”
That quote is a great jumping off point for thinking about the evolution of America’s collective psychology and mythology. I have mixed feelings about Kissinger’s appraisal of modern American foreign policy in Diplomacy, but there is at least one thing he NAILS throughout the book and it is the constant narrative tension between America-As-Shining-City-On-A-Hill and America-As-A-Self-Interested-Great-Power.
Using the power of “and”, I’d argue America is both of those things simultaneously.
In my view, a good deal of our political angst has its origins in our Cold War victory, and the “anxious uncertainty” that necessarily followed, seemingly (to me, anyway) amplified by the gradual re-emergence of a more multi-polar geopolitical landscape.
“Evil is like gravity, all you need is a little push”.
Joker in Dark Knight.
My understanding of the old Chinese definition of “saint” in old Chinese medicine books is a person who can understand and control his emotions.
So… a saint can fight gravity. hmmm…
One day, hopefully while I’m still cognizant, we will look back on the ‘blackhole’ ‘picture’ above and laugh at the main stream Neo-Ptolemystics who actually propagated that to confirm the ‘common knowledge’. (In case I’m not, Haha)
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