The Mind of Political Mindlessness

"Men at some time are masters of their fates:  The fault [brutal] is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Why do we permit political Caesars to double speak us into mindless cognitive complacency?  Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner, provides a partial answer by positing two more or less distinct systems of thought.

System one, our default system, operates via speedy, often emotional, intuition.   Under ordinary circumstances, we respond to messages instinctively.  We look to validate what we already believe.  Kahneman uses the acronym  WYSIATI  (What You See Is All There Is) as a memorable pneumonic to underscore that proclivity.  All we seek is a story that “seems” consistent with our beliefs and accurate in the context in which it is delivered.  As always, context is critical.  And context, in this case, means the message AND the messenger.  We not only are likely to fall for a thinly supported message that we already believe, but more so if it is delivered by a person who frames the message in a neat, simplistic, easy to swallow package.  Put together the “Tell me what I want to hear” content with the “He’s so smart and righteous” messenger and you see why Barack Obama does so well with desperate minority and elitist majority citizens.

The alternative to system one, of course, is system two thought.  Kahneman posits that system two is capable of monitoring and challenging system one.   Note, however, that while system two CAN influence its naive brother, it rarely does.  In fact, two is more likely to convert one’s intentions into actions rather than to negate them. 

We must educate and discipline ourselves intellectually in the most critical spheres of living, if system two is to have any chance of over-riding one.  In politics, that means that we have to challenge each and every political pronouncement and program, all the more so if we like the communications and those who deliver them.  In short, only effort—intense and consistent—can counter our endorsement reflex.  And that level of effort presumes an enduring commitment to struggle, even to obsess, about our political opinions.  Just writing about it makes me tired.         

The power of Kahneman’s theory lies not so much in the originality of the basic ideas, since virtually all of his major tenets had been articulated by “big theory” psychologists of yesteryear—persons as familiar as Sigmund Freud and as thoroughly forgotten as Harry Stack Sullivan—but in its timeliness.  In our age, neuropsychologists tend to command most of our attention.  We wait with bated breath for discovery of the next neurotransmitter that psychopharmacology can exploit into a medication.  That expectation helps fuel the system one mentality that emphasizes effortless, automatic processing of events rather than effortful, deliberate system two thought.  And nowhere is system one thinking so detrimental for us, our loved ones, and our country than it is in the socio-political sphere.   Whenever a politician says anything beyond hello, we need to launch system two, since he is no more likely to advise us to challenge his ideas than is the proverbial used-car salesman likely to point out the mechanical defects of the automobile that he hucksters.