The art of reasoning

Recently I watched a portion of an interview with an articulate young conservative black political activist. She (I missed her name) has given up on liberalism, believing that liberal policies deliberately entrap African Americans in a government-subsidized victimhood, in effect replicating slavery or Jim Crow laws in preventing equality as citizens. Her views have gained her a million-plus social-media followers, and she seems to be leading a considerable black citizen’s rollover from Democrat to Republican. I guess it was an interesting story, but I soon changed channels.

Some months earlier on a similar show I caught the beginning of an interview with another activist, this one white. She immediately insisted that “the first thing you have to understand is that I am a lifetime Berkley progressive.” When she said that, I switched channels.

I don’t automatically have something against either a liberal or a conservative view, nor against African American political activism, nor even against Berkley University, a far better college than I attended. I changed channels because as soon as these young ladies identified themselves as either “a conservative” or “a progressive,” I figured I already knew what their opinions would be, whatever the topic.

Had either of them said something like “I initially lean conservative on this, however …,” I would probably have continued listening, because I enjoy hearing others’ views, especially when they have broader experience or education than mine. While I’m not always tolerant, I also don’t always need to hear my own views validated. I’m even wrong occasionally, and heck, after enough servings, wrongness tastes just like chicken.

But when people insist on labeling themselves as either of the two political polarities as the absolute basis of all other aspects of their existence, I think they have given up that great gift of the human mind – the ability and methods of reasoning. They’ve accepted the flawed, either/or premise that “because I am not this, I must be that,” and they’re saying, “I’m willing to accept the whole package without question.”

There is at least a third choice. I’m not sure “independent” is a good description of it. It’s more like “cautious, temporarily neutral, perhaps skeptical,” coupled with real curiosity about what other information or possibilities are available, or likely to be influential. But people seem really reluctant to embrace this fuzzier third position.

That reluctance is explained in scientific terms in Thinking, Fast and Slow, a 2011 book by Nobel Prize recipient Daniel Kahneman, who labels human thought as Systems 1 and 2.

System 1 is primarily intuitive and automatic; you don’t need to stop and analyze every turn of your daily commute. System 1 forms knowledge from quick, random, repeated impressions gained from the person’s physical or intellectual environment. Opinions formed by System 1 require little objective questioning. We believe what we see or hear because it is what we want to believe, or because we have a favorable impression of the source, or because it is familiar. It happens pretty much effortlessly.

System 2 operates differently and separately. It is slower, more analytical, and much less vulnerable to subjective factors. Surprisingly, Kahneman and others have proved through psychological experiments that System 2 is measurably harder physical work, so we naturally, though usually unconsciously, avoid it whenever we can.

Apparently, no human can escape this physical exertion element of reasoning, and that is the scientific explanation behind the fact that if you admire President Trump, you will likely, despite opposing evidence or even common sense, adopt the opinion that California wildfires happen because Californians don’t rake the forest, or that a steel wall will stop illegal immigration.

Ron Rude,

Plains