In terms of human history, likely the single biggest inflection point we recognize is ‘the Enlightenment’— when we went from Dark Ages to Renaissance and began a great increase in education, in the development of science and art, when we increased the respect for the individual person and proclaimed how important the rational citizen was, paving the way for democracy and the idea of the rights of the governed.
And our democracy is founded on that notion. Democracy simply relies on a rational citizenry.
And this optimism about a rational citizenry was the basis for the United States. Here’s John Adams’ view on this idealistic notion of how citizens could shine:
Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study.
And he wrote of the frailty of the system in relying on this idealistic behavior of the citizens:
Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
So, we have the view of John Adams that our system is “wholly inadequate” for governing a people that does not meet quite a high standard of being rational and moral on their own.
I’m of the view that our modern political culture is well within the ‘any other’ category.
When do 99% of the citizens have rational discussions on issues?
When do they learn of the theories behind the policies to decide, of ones both that affect them and that do not but for which their vote counts?
It seems to me that there is almost an absence of such rational discussion.
That most of the time, most people prefer to avoid ‘politics’ entire. And most of the time they WILL discuss politics, it’s the trivial — about trump’s latest statement and your opinion of it, and similar.
It’s my suspicion that people are largely unaware of their own thinking. That they can’t discuss the issues and question them well because they don’t understand the reasons for their own views.
I think we’ve all had that experience of encountering people where the idea of saying ‘can we discuss why your position on this issue might be incorrect’ is met with only slogans and hostility.
It’s difficult to even start to try to summarize the gobbledygook that replaces the rational views on issues, but it includes things like ‘tribalism’ and ‘identity politics’— referring to the more general definition, such as when people think of themselves as ‘a conservative’ or a ‘something’ which makes them agree with and defend that group they’re in.
Science has found that people who are ‘partisan’ literally don’t have the rational parts of their brain function when they are presented with images of things they have partisan views for or against. It goes right to the emotional side of the brain to react instead. And this fits with that behavior of not being rational about the issues.
And I’d suggest that a cause worsening this situation is the industry of our media.
Our media is little rewarded for rational content much of the time. There is literal propaganda created by interested parties — ‘branding’, ‘vote this way’, ‘the science on the climate is uncertain’.
But even without such motives for propaganda, there are indirect motives for other than rational media — a demand for ratings, and this causes a demand to outrage and otherwise titillate.
And I’d suggest that many people seem practically unable to have a ‘rational discussion’ on many important issues.
For example, the simple word ‘climate’ might push their brain to a ‘trigger’ reaction of their disgust with Al Gore, to their view of the advocates for climate policy change as ‘evil liberals’ who are a threat to them, wanting to waste trillions of dollars and take power from ‘their side’— and even THAT stuff they aren’t really aware of, and simply have a reaction of anger and hostility and don’t hear or process things that question it.
There is a question whether putting that person in a setting where they are confronted with people presenting them with arguments and information could have a chance in changing their opinion — but we’ll never know. It doesn’t happen. Rather, they watch the tv show they like, and that’s all they get on the issue.
I suspect that our modern media is helping to create a citizenry that isn’t even aware of why they have various opinions — which is definitely not the ‘rational thinking’ the democratic system needs.
What influence there can be of them, the modern shamans of the advertising industry have the biggest effect, and they are fueled by much money from the few who have it.
How have people actually behaved as citizens? I think of how the ‘catchy’ slogans and ads are a permanent part of our campaigns, for example, “I like Ike”, the slogan for Eisenhower.
”I like Ike” doesn’t convey much rational in the reasons why to vote for or against Eisenhower.
Eisenhower did important things. During his presidency, they included breaking new ground in the use of assassination and coups around the world as policy. But these important issues had a negligible effect on the voters, far less than the slogan “I like Ike”. This situation is accepted and not even noticed. Like fish who don’t notice water because they’re in it, this is viewed as harmless ‘that’s just campaigning’ as if it’s unimportant and fine. It seems bizarre to question it.
But the larger ‘water’ the people are missing, is how far they are from the idea of rationality they are.
I like Ike wins the day, and the general feeling is things are great — nice slogan, nice candidate, we voted, it’s great and there’s no problem.
Except this level of the citizens not being engaged is just what helped lead us to wrong wars and the risk of others, to policies which serve the few against the common good.
To summarize, the theory of our system is at odds with the actual condition of the citizenry and how it functions in a sea of media, not rational but something else.
And the result is pretty disastrous.
Not disastrous compared to the alternatives we’ve seen of authoritarian regimes, of utterly corrupt regimes, of anarchy, but far from the theory of democracy.
So, what to do?
Not much, sadly. First is to understand that there is a problem — to recognize the ‘water’ we’re in (hot water or otherwise).
Second is to have that understanding make us care about the policies that exploit the problem — to champion and support the good and rational media we do have, to support a good rational public education system, to fight for our media to be incented if not required to perform some public service, to reduce the role of money and advertising in our elections.
Thirdly is to understand why this problem makes it more important to reach out to the people who are not behaving rationally and encourage them to do so.
They’ll resist — and possibly thank you later, if it works.