Minds resisting change
“Open Blogger” at Ace’s has a good piece on political argument and why it’s so hard to change minds. His point is that a lot of liberals seem to actively resist hearing facts that might challenge them. He mentions people blocking him on Twitter when he merely offers a fact that contradicts their position.
I haven’t had personal experience of Twitter because I’m not on it. But I know about this sort of thing (although in my experience, it takes the form not of blocking but of ad hominem attacks and yelling)
A few weeks before the 2012 election, I started to ask [a liberal friend] something about something Obama had done. I don’t remember what, it might have been about abortion (she’s a doctrinal lib except on abortion, where her Catholic upbringing still holds sway). She literally stuck her fingers in her ears and started saying LALALALALALALA. Literally literally, not Biden literally. I just stared at her. I couldn’t have been more shocked of she’d torn off her clothes and run naked down the street. She’s not a stupid woman, but I’d never seen anyone over the age of 4 do that. The chance that some contradiction in her belief system might be brought to her attention was so frightening to her that she regressed to infancy to avoid facing it.
Well, I’ve written an entire series of posts on how and why people resist change. Open Blogger is correct: for most people, the prospect that they might need to change their minds is frightening. It threatens the very foundations of identity, and of our sense of whether we have been making good decisions all along. It makes sense that people don’t want to face even the possibility that they’ve been wrong. Easier to block that threat.
Most of the liberals I know are not especially interested in politics or history, and so they feel handicapped when they have to argue on the merits or facts and they resist doing so for that reason, too. But I have to add as a caveat that I certainly know some liberals who are well-informed and who will argue substantively. It is talking with them that is most interesting of all. Usually I find that we aren’t really that far apart; we just differ on what to do about the problems in the country and the world. In most cases, it’s not so much that they love the Democrats or the Left so much, it’s that they don’t like the Republicans and don’t trust them to have the best interests of the country at heart. Interestingly enough, that last sentiment is shared by many on the right as well.
“In most cases, it’s not so much that they love the Democrats or the Left so much, it’s that they don’t like the Republicans and don’t trust them to have the best interests of the country at heart.”
Do you trust Boehner, McConnell, Rubio, McCain, Graham, etc. to place the best interests of the country first? Or even second? If so, upon what basis? If not, how can you like someone you don’t trust? I’ve reluctantly concluded that liberal’s take on the GOP is the one thing they have right.
Liberals will never admit they are wrong because they believe they are superior people. They will never admit they fell for a con job. They are like people that fall for the Nigerian scam and are too embarrassed to report it to the police. They would have to admit they were fools and that would be too humiliating, a disastrous blow to their pride. That is why hubris is number one of the seven deadly sins.
the prospect that one might need to change one’s mind is frightening.
Only to the mental child. Mental adults have learned to face such challenges.
Granted, MCs are 65% of the population, and 95% of liberals… but this is mere statistics…
….AAaaaand I will once more repeat an earlier post which is particularly relevant to this:
IQ is not the only form of intelligence, just a single facet of it.
Another is WISDOM. I’ve already made my case about liberals and WISDOM. As well as the related case about the “Liberal Midnight Reset Button®”
First, I’ll repeat verbatim an earlier commentary about Wisdom and liberals:
===================
and
Allow me to ask a simple question – how many people convert from Right to Left as they mature and grow older?
I’m sure it does happen, but what are the percentages going each way?
======================
And then there’s the Liberal Midnight Reset Button®….
He mentions people blocking him on Twitter when he merely offers a fact that contradicts their position.
They are guilty and they know it. They try to hide it and rationalize it later by claiming ignorance, that they “didn’t do it”. But it is all a farce, to hide their own recognition of the blood guilt on their hands.
The chance that some contradiction in her belief system might be brought to her attention was so frightening to her that she regressed to infancy to avoid facing it.
They are afraid. The Left has severe pain and torture for those that break from the Circle of the Faithful and the Zealous. That is why pain, interrogation, is often the only tool capable of breaking through their shell. So long as they feel safe, so long as they can quietly kill their conscience and Obey Orders from their Authorities, they will not change. What reason do they have to change?
It threatens the very foundations of identity, and of our sense of whether we have been making good decisions all along.
It goes beyond that. People have become insane, killed themselves, killed their families, and been destroyed mentally by attempting to handle the Truth when they didn’t equal that task on the human scale. Identities and being wrong, is a light interpretation of the potential consequences. To the biological organism being trained, it is nothing short of death and extinction, or perpetual pain and punishment (Hell).
In most cases, it’s not so much that they love the Democrats or the Left so much, it’s that they don’t like the Republicans and don’t trust them to have the best interests of the country at heart.
The same conditioning was designed to make Germans support socialism and fascism. It is very different from the Germans that tried to take back Germany from fascism, however.
The thing is, Geoffrey, is it doesn’t MATTER if they’re right.
In the current climate, if you elect a Democrat, you’ve given them free reign with the power of government. See Obama’s IRS.
If you elect a member of the GOP — the media does its job as a watchdog and oversees and heckles everything they do.
So even if they are interchangeably bad, the GOP is the better choice to vote in most cases.
It’s just the Narrative contest of the activist game.
As I see it, the problem is not that people don’t care about or deny the facts, although that behavior is the manifestation. The problem is that many people, even our ‘elite’, conform due to social nature and real incentive and disincentive.
Most people would rather go with the flow and conform to the Narrative that prevails in their milieu. It’s more natural and rewarding that way. If the prevailing Narrative is true, then that’s not a problem and contributes to a healthy culture.
But, as activists understand, the ‘politically correct’ prevailing Narrative need not be true. Truth-tellers have no inherent advantage in the Narrative contest. Just telling the truth is not enough. They must compete the same as any other activist to define the prevailing Narrative.
Narrative frames social action and past is prologue. Left activists have taken advantage of our manipulatable social nature to achieve control over much of the prevailing Narrative, which is their power.
As such, while truth-tellers wielding facts should persist for the good of our society, the way to convince people requires more than interpersonal dialectic or even interpersonal rhetoric. It requires winning the Narrative contest of the activist game that lays the lines to follow for the majority of people who naturally socially conform.
Ray:
Liberals will never admit they’re wrong or change their mind?
Have you not been reading this blog, and my story? I am hardly alone. I know a lot of political changers from left to right or liberal to conservative. Some of them even write books, since they tend to be so stunned by what happened to them that they want to explain it.
It might be in the wiring:
Some look at facts, have thoughts, reach conclusions …
Some have feelings, emotions rise, opinions develop and, they become the reality based community with concepts like…
Natural Societies vs Rational Societies….
Sing along! Ah!
Geoffrey Britain:
I do not trust the list you mentioned in any absolute sense. But I trust them all—every single one—to do the right thing far more often than a single Democrat I can name (especially on foreign policy, but on liberty as well). I trust them as a party to support the nomination of more conservative justices than the Democratic Party ever will.
To me your argument is a case of “the perfect is the enemy of—not necessarily the good, but the less bad.” And that’s good enough for me for now, while I work on trying to get more of the “more good” into office.
Neo,
In Ray’s defense, this post is about people who “actively resist hearing facts”, which if I understand your change story, differentiates you and other changers like you from the people we’re discussing here.
Eric:
But he didn’t say “these sorts of liberals.” He made a blanket statement about liberals. A lot of people generalize that way, and I think it helps foster a fairly rigid “us-them” mentality that is counterproductive. I continue to think that change of mind/politics is possible, and that it is important not to give up on rational argument with liberals because you think all of them are completely closed to it or closed to changing.
Neo,
I saw that, too, but you did set the scope of the post to point the way that Ray went.
I agree with you: like I said, truth-tellers wielding facts should persist. Give people a fair chance to do the right thing.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize the line dividing those relative few, like you, who can be reached with interpersonal fact-based dialectic from the greater portion of Narrative conformists who go with the flow.
I agree the Narrative conformists aren’t lost causes as Ray implies. But for them, interpersonal dialectic is insufficient to change. For them, social methods – activism – to change the flow of the zeitgeist are required.
The Left understands social nature and uses those ways prolifically. The Right needs to catch up.
“One cannot reason a man out of something he did not reason himself into.” ~ Johnathan Swift (loosely)
I first recognized the futility of trying to argue with otherwise intelligent, but over-the-top Evangelicals. I would argue with people who seemed to understand chemistry, that Carbon-14 dating proved that the earth was more than 6,600 years old. But no, they’d say. Carbon-14 was a trick that God played on us to see if we were true believers.
Hard-Left Liberals are a lot like that. They must at all costs defend the narrative; it’s all they have. They have not analyzed the facts to get to their positions. Some (as Gruber noted) are incapable. Instead, they believe – deeply – without understanding. Take away that belief and there’s nothing supporting them . . . and it’s a long, long fall to reality.
Changers (like you, Neo) are simply smarter.
I’m sure the person who stuck her fingers in her ears would say that she did it ironically, somehow. The problem is, it had the same effect as if she’d done it un-ironically.
If I rob a bank “ironically,” does that make it less illegal?
neo,
I was not making an argument in regard to, “the perfect is the enemy of–not necessarily the good, but the less bad.”. I was explaining why the left has been able to paint them as untrustworthy.
I too trust them –every single one–to do the right thing far more often than a single Democrat. But… I do not trust them to do the right thing on the critical issues of our day; such as ObamaCare, Common Core, Amnesty, Iran and Islam. They do not do so because they place principle second to all else, so that when a matter of vital principle is before them, they fail to distinguish it as such.
Geoffrey Britain:
Then I guess we are in agreement.
I am just so used to conservatives giving the argument “so they’re all alike,” and/or “so I’m not going to vote for RINOs.”
>>>IGotBupkis, “Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.”
Measured IQ, Stanford-Binet style, is actually a test for pattern recognition — most of all.
It has no metrics for social or cultural memory…
It lacks IF-THEN metrics…
It lacks any metric for base knowledge, say the periodic table, Newtonian laws,
It lacks any metric for social knowledge, from etiquette to religion, to myth, to fable.
&&&&&&&&&
Pure pattern recognition is actually very, very significant. It taps critical sectors of the brain. It’s a brain function that must have been very handy in the hunt — and finding ones way around the forest.
Unfortunately, this particular test has been taken to mean it covers the waterfront…
Wonderlic has developed an entire catalog of industry specific metrics and the test queries that reveal them.
Their results were so spectacular that they’ve been outlawed. Griggs vs Duke Power (actually the defendant was the hyper-liberal, activist union for linemen: the IBEW — though not listed on any of the court proceedings)
Duke Power ONLY hired union cleared apprentices. It was the IBEW tests that were shooting down the darker applicants. The irony is that the IBEW is an absolute bastion of Democrats — and way to the left as any union might be. It’s starting cadre — way, way, way back when was a bunch of hyper-liberal Swedish blue collar tradesmen. (Swedes dominate the utility trades the way Jews dominate Hollywood. They founded them! For the Swedes it’s from their legacy as lumberjacks — and running telegraph lines from tree to tree in the 19th Century.)
&&&&
The upshot is that, with current DC politics, no major firm dares test for relevant metrics for their particular fields.
For a period piece from wartime America, you may find a media blurb, circa 1942, explaining to those entering the war economy why ‘the system’ is slotting them based upon their (Wonderlic) test scores.
Naturally, there is absolutely no mention of the specialty firm that’s come up with the various tests.
Yes, yes, yes, Wonderlic — out of Minneapolis — is larded to the gills with liberal Democrats! Their intent from the very first was to permit UNCREDENTIALED talent (off the farm/ off the boat boys) to rise to the top without further ado.
Like Jerry Brown’s conflict with Edmund Brown [Jr. vs Sr.] the Liberals of each generation are going to fix things in their generation — and for all time. This usually takes the form of reversing all of their father’s Liberal reforms.
In the case of Jerry, virtually every Liberal position he’s ever taken has been 180 against that of his father. When queried about this reality, Edmund, Sr. refused to comment — now that his son held his old office.
Cap’n Rusty: “They must at all costs defend the narrative; it’s all they have. They have not analyzed the facts to get to their positions.”
Don’t discount the ones who aren’t stupid and know the facts, but have made a cold cost/benefit calculation to arrive at the pragmatic conclusion that a particular narrative, though false, yields more benefit.
The paradigmatic example is the Democrats who were in office for the Clinton administration’s enforcement of the Gulf War ceasefire who have subsequently mischaracterized Bush’s ceasefire enforcement despite that Bush’s case against Saddam was really Clinton’s case against Saddam and the enforcement procedure for OIF was carried forward from Clinton’s enforcement procedure with Iraq.
I had a “LALALALALALA” experience with my lefty sister a year or so ago. I was able to get her to agree that reasonable blacks could have differing views on subjects, including politics, just as reasonable whites. In other words, it was not to be expected that all people of one race should think alike. So far, so good. However, I brought up Clarence Thomas. She immediately interrupted and said, “Well, he’s an Oreo.”
I was stunned and asked her to think about what she had just said. We didn’t continue the discussion and I doubt very much that she thought about it.
For those unaware: Wonderlic is THE source of all of the corporate testing that you’ll ever hear about.
What they did for the War Department set them up as the monopoly purveyor to the Fortune 500 after the war, too.
Wonderlic absolutely shuns the public eye.
For a totally Liberal firm, it has to sting to find out that it’s under attack from Liberal activists — all the time.
Wonderlic can’t catch a break: their test keep showing that non-White citizens don’t stack up well across the entire IQ front — and every other metric.
The taboo reality: the average IQ — world wide — is just 85ish… the very same as American Blacks.
When an entire population/ collective is a full standard deviation below another — you get tremendous social stress.
It’s the TRUE source of persistent anti-Jewish cultural and social sentiments. It’s why no amount of rain-dancing and government statutes are going to make the stresses go away.
The White-Black divide is of the same character. Blacks want the same toys, homes, lifestyle. They are just (economic performance wise) in the back-seat.
This IQ gap entirely explains why highly politicized Blacks are — to a man — anti-Semitic — usually in the extreme. ( Liberal booze and a dead microphone are highly revealing on this matter.)
My Jewish friends approach the matter logically — and with historical references. So they can’t get to square one figuring out the ravings of Farrakhan.
&&&&&&&
Neo…
Farrakhan is always pushing for segregation.
He wants to leave America… taking the Nation of Islam with him.
It’s just that he favors neo-Bantustans or some such; leaving America without actually taking a plane ride.
No doubt Wright would join him there. I find it curious that Wright’s retirement features leaving the continental US. Yes, he went STRAIGHT FOR THE TROPICS.
I don’t blame him. His pad has an ocean view, too.
blert,
Stanford-Binet IQ “is a cognitive ability and intelligence test that is used to diagnose developmental or intellectual deficiencies in young children. The test measures five weighted factors and consists of both verbal and nonverbal subtests. The five factors being tested are knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, and fluid reasoning.”
Social or cultural memory… base knowledge, say the periodic table, Newtonian laws and social knowledge, from etiquette to religion, to myth, to fable… are measures of education not intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to readily grasp these and other factors and place them in a coherent context for use.
“It lacks IF-THEN metrics…”
“The GRE ‘Quantitative Reasoning’ measure assesses basic math skills, understanding of elementary mathematical concepts and ability to reason quantitatively.”
“Fluid intelligence or ‘fluid reasoning’ is the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge. It is the ability to analyze novel problems, identify patterns and relationships that underpin these problems and the extrapolation of these using logic.”
There’s that pattern recognition you mentioned but I would argue that without ‘if-then’ metrics, “the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge” i.e. “fluid reasoning” cannot be demonstrated.
“I was able to get her to agree that reasonable blacks could have differing views on subjects, including politics, just as reasonable whites. In other words, it was not to be expected that all people of one race should think alike. So far, so good. However, I brought up Clarence Thomas. She immediately interrupted and said, “Well, he’s an Oreo.”” Susanamantha
In other words, Clarence Thomas thinks ‘white’. Which means he shares/embraces certain values with whites. Your friend’s problem isn’t an inability to appreciate differences, your friend’s problem is one of racial bias.
blert,
“their test keep showing that non-White citizens don’t stack up well across the entire IQ front – and every other metric.”
Careful of blanket characterizations, those tests show the Japanese (North East Asians) as higher than whites with the Ashkenazi Jews at the top of the IQ range.
“Blacks want the same toys, homes, lifestyle. They are just (economic performance wise) in the back-seat.”
I have argued that it is a failure to embrace critical cultural virtues that account for the lack of socioeconomic success for American blacks. This is supported by the fact that West Indian black immigrants, whose ancestors were also enslaved, are right in line with whites average socioeconomic success. Black Nigerian immigrants also demonstrate the same statistical result.
“Rushton & Jensen (2005) write that, in the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. They state that the black-white IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations (SDs), which implies that between 11 and 16 percent of the black population have an IQ above 100 (the general population median).” Standard IQ tests, as you have just argued, measure a narrow definition of intelligence. Since whites of comparable intelligence levels to blacks do achieve on average a higher level of socioeconomic success than blacks, other factors than simply intelligence, must apply.
Matt SE: “If I rob a bank “ironically,” does that make it less illegal?”
Hey, they could send you to jail, you know, ironically.
Seriously though. Neo, I think you’ve hit it here with this statement:
“It threatens the very foundations of identity . . .”
My experience is that Liberals do, in fact, identify with what they perceive as Liberal than most conservatives identify with conservative.
In other words, most conservatives simple acknowledge that their views are what would be classified as conservative viewpoints. While many, many liberals see their viewpoints, not so much as something they have come to believe; but, they view “being a Liberal” as a core part of their identity.
It kind of reminds me of a young woman in college years ago who told the whole class, that she was a liberal, you know, because she cared about people. In her belief system to be conservative would have meant that she didn’t care about others. And, to challenge her on that belief would have been too emotional for her. (and it was sort of fitting that she was going to graduate school to get ready for a career in academia!)
“It kind of reminds me of a young woman in college years ago who told the whole class, that she was a liberal, you know, because she cared about people. In her belief system to be conservative would have meant that she didn’t care about others. “ charles
I suspect we all have met many liberals of the same persuasion in identity.
It’s important however to separate the well meaning liberal from the hard core leftist, whose inner motivation is NOT caring about other people. For such as they, it’s about power and control. Pres. Truman spoke of them, though he labeled them as “professional liberals”, “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.” – Harry S Truman, from a 1970 interview
That differentiation between well meaning liberals and hard core leftists is important because well meaning liberals not only far outnumber hard core leftists, forming the political shock troops of the left but most importantly because they are vulnerable to the truth. Without their “useful idiots”, in a representative democracy, the left is powerless.
We all know that the MSM, the left’s propaganda arm keeps the LIVs in the dark and lies to do so. What the young lady and others of her liberal ilk fail to realize is that a no questions asked handout makes dependent those whom we would help. Charity when needed is essential but the longer a person is dependent upon charity (welfare) the greater the damage to their self-esteem.
What the well meaning liberal refuses to see is that unless people are raised to value education, a strong work ethic, acceptance of personal responsibility and familial obligations and the importance of delaying gratification… they will always need handouts and very few will ever become productive law abiding citizens.
Lincoln understood it; “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
“Most of the liberals I know are not especially interested in politics or history.”
Says it all. And so are doomed to repeat it.
Speaking of not voting for RINOs, at this early date there is only one possible candidate on the Republican side I know I will not vote for. And not because he is a RINO. I will not for a political dynasty – Jeb Bush. Regardless of who the Democratic candidate is.
I have a relation who was speaking of obesity in the country. But, she said, Michelle was taking care of that.
She didn’t have a clue that Michelle’s lunch program is a catastrophe. Kids won’t eat it, school boards can’t afford it, most goes in the trash. She has no idea. She’s in the same world as the rest of us but…she was proof against this fact. Had I bothered to tell her, there would be no change.
Each one, teach one.
If each of us adopts a liberal who shows signs of Going Wobbly, and carefully feeds him/her a myth-exploding fact every month or so, we can make a huge difference. I think most people who vote for the Left aren’t hardcore, but just think it’s the thing to do because they’ve been marinated in Leftist propaganda their whole lives.
Most folks aren’t following politics with anything like the attention we give it, as you all know. Nor are most folks, outside the Red/Pinko bastions, rabid about it all. They can be calved off the glacier by a judicious application of the Fact Hammer.
Anyway, that’s what happened to me. If we each take at least one liberal pal and apply the same methods/influence that changed us, there’s a good chance we can change their minds as well.
And at least we can weaken their allegiance to the Leftist overlords.
Remember, the Left has two huge practical weaknesses: it’s built almost wholly on lies, and is vulnerable to exposure of same, and second, It Doesn’t Work.
Be of good cheer; they won’t win in the long run.
Beverly
That’s a good plan as long as the prospect isn’t in the family. They’re likely to react strongly and negatively to facts.
As many have said, it’s not an intellectual position, it’s a part, a pillar of their identity.
For example, a guy who’s thought green, voted green, donated green, written green, argued green, read green, though ill of those who didn’t, finds out he’s been wrong about global warming. It’s not just finding out he’s gotten Neptune and Uranus backwards in order. It’s part of who he is. He got that way due to a propensity–which is not susceptible to fact–and he reinforced it so it is extremely important to who he is. Take away a pillar of his self-identity.
Why rational argument with documented facts supporting a logically incontrovertible conclusion often proves ineffective to combat misinformed prejudice:
1) Studies have shown that some people experience such intense psychological distress when confronted with uncertainty or ambiguity that they are incapable of considering conflicting ideas. Their defense against the threat of such discomfort is preemptive rejection of information that may challenge their pre-existing beliefs — often accompanied by deeper entrenchment of those beliefs to shore up defenses against future threats.
2) Most people are not capable of rational thought, either by training or inclination. They are rationalizing creatures, not rational ones.
First of all, these people are not liberals –we all know that, and we still let them get away with calling themselves that. Every time one of them opens his or her mouth and says “I’m a liberal,” we must answer — “Do you believe in what John F. Kennedy said about paying any price to ensure the survival and success of liberty? Do you believe in what Martin Luther King said about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin? Do you believe in what Thomas Jefferson said about government, that government governs best which governs least? No? Then you’re not a liberal, you’re a leftist.”
Second, as to why intellectuals lean so heavily to the Left, note that they DO have a vested interest in dictatorships. In dictatorships, there is an official class of intellectuals. There is a “Writers’ Union.” There is an official title “Academician.” There are none of those troublesome entrepreneurs inventing new things and upsetting the social order. One can only qet ahead through politics, something they are all intimate with, from faculty meetings. They know and love that scene, and they want it one a bigger scale.
Richard Saunders: “Do you believe in what John F. Kennedy said about paying any price to ensure the survival and success of liberty?”
Re-label as “neocon” and PRESTO – overnight, like the rules painted on the barn in Animal Farm – the fundamental basis of JFK’s foreign policy is no longer a core liberal tenet but an evil right-wing conspiracy.
While the quality of even the willingness for honest exchange on policy details is deplorable, the notion that reason will persuade and win out is at best a noble hope. If you want to win elections, you better be good at branding because these are intuitive decisions made in an instant. The reasoning is just a rationalization process. Read the stunning research in THE RIGHTEOUS MIND by Haidt.
A few years ago, my wife had coffee with one of her liberal friends. When she said “Islam is a pre-enlightenment death cult”, her friend hyper-ventilated and nearly passed out. He could not cope with anything that contradicted the “Religion of Peace” narrative. ISIS is proving my wife right. I wonder if he is following their activities.
PatD: “ISIS is proving my wife right. I wonder if he is following their activities.”
See http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121286/how-islamic-islamic-state .
As Ymarsakar, David Swadell, and Mark30339 pointed out, they’re rationalizers. As long as propagandists are keeping up with events by supplying the Narrative adjustments to rationalize their received worldview, they’ll continue conforming to it.
Since they’re not grounded by “rational argument with documented facts supporting a logically incontrovertible conclusion” (David Swadell), the only limit to their rationalization is the creative skill and imagination of their story tellers.
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