Wednesday, January 29, 2020

False Strength and the Artificial Polarization of Our Era

Most of the polarization of our time is due to people's failure to direct their skepticism inward. Skepticism is associated with strength of mind--an ability to resist and scrutinize what others accept as true. But people who claim, for instance, to be climate skeptics are merely pretending to be tough minded, because they practice one-way skepticism, aiming it all outward. True skepticism, the kind that demonstrates strength of mind, is directed inward as well. The current president is an extreme example of directing criticism outwards but none inward. He's tough on others, soft on self. Scientists have an incentive to practice two-way skepticism, because the rigor of their profession requires that they look for flaws in their own data and conclusions, lest they later be discredited by their peers. They have to be tough on themselves, as well as others.
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Independence of mind runs deep in the American tradition. It, too, is associated with strength, since it involves resisting the mainstream flow. But for those who don't want to accept that we are faced with a climate crisis, the pose of strength is in fact a clever game rigged to make the denier always win. The usual tactic is to find flaw in the overwhelming consensus by cherry picking which evidence to pay attention to. That demonstrates not tough mindedness but rather a finding of excuses to continue thinking what one wants to think, a clinging to false notions that generates artificial polarization. Though resisting the herd mentality can be a useful instinct, there are also times when accepting consensus is justified. We become stronger, as individuals and collectively as a nation, by confronting tough realities rather than running from them.

Truth is a potentially unifying element in society, and thus is a threat to those who wish to promote and sustain division. To survive, those who thrive on political polarization must find ways to dismiss truth by creating resentment towards those who are most likely to speak it. When one political party ignores the overwhelming evidence about the cause and risk of the climate crisis, and additionally continues to claim that tax cuts will pay for themselves, the result is artificial polarization rather than an authentic divergence of views.

There is dismissiveness towards truth, and then there are active lies, which are meant to fill the void left by the rejected truth. When a political party fails to call out its president for being a prolific liar, the solidarity is sometimes interpreted as strength, but is another indication that a political party is artificially creating polarization where none need exist. In a way, the American tradition of independent thinking has been hijacked. Truth has become the new oppressor from which people must gain freedom. In the information age, when truth is so close at hand, just a click away, false reality built on lies is the new frontier people are being encouraged to populate.

In recent years, politicians who make false claims have chosen not to acknowledge their mistaken views, but instead to double down and become even more fervent in their false claims. This brand of stubbornness and rigidity can also be mistaken for strength--a tribal solidarity that becomes its own truth. The sort of humility that we value in friends and associate with quiet strength does not play well on the political stage. The double down behavior is another step in the unmooring of politics from reality and traditional values.

Harsh criticism of others also comes across in the political realm as strength. The harsh critiques that Trump supporters view as strength most clearly originated in Newt Gingrich's training of fellow Republicans to use emotion-laden language that was aimed not at disagreeing with a political rival but at burying liberalism altogether under a sea of negative connotation. That weaponization of language, that shift from fact-based to emotion-driven thinking, from denotation to connotation, and the refusal to consider the possibility that the other side had any legitimacy at all, has continued to this day among Republican leaders. It is rooted not in strength but in insecurity, for acknowledging that the other side has validity is the start of a very slippery slope back to the pre-Gingrich era of Republican minority status.

The result is an increase in the nation's vulnerability as liberal concerns about climate change and pandemics are summarily dismissed, and an entrenched, artificial polarization. These weaknesses and vulnerabilities are sustained by counterfeit notions of strength.

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