Application

Now that it looks like we know who the two candidates/contenders/interlocutors will be for this November’s election, it’s time to start applying some of the ideas that have appeared on this blog over the last several months to actual political content (speeches, advertisements and the like).  So next up will be a bit of critical thinking analysis of one of the candidate’s stump speeches.

But before we go there I should point out that, unlike last election’s Undecidedman blog, this exercise is purely about using something we all have in common (a national election) to teach, learn about and apply various critical thinking skills.  The goal is not to come to a conclusion on which candidate to vote for, but to use one of the few experiences we all share as Americans to study a topic that struggles to find a home in traditional educational settings.

I mention this because one of the most important things you need to do to engage in this kind of activity is to embrace a Principle of Charity which requires you to actually take both sides in a political contest seriously. 

This is far easier said than done in a poll-tested and media-driven political age when political campaigns are informed far more by advertising and marketing techniques (branding – both positive and negative, targeted communications, demographic-driven decision-making) than by analysis of actual people or issues. 

As noted previously, most of us have pre-sorted ourselves into communities where genuine political disagreement is considered peculiar or profoundly uncomfortable.  And within these communities, we carefully filter our input, leveraging new technologies (notably cable or satellite TV and the Internet) to stream ourselves a steady diet of opinions we already agree with, coupled with pre-digested invective against those we don’t like.  Even the current affairs shelf of the bookstore (if you’re lucky enough to live near one) groan under the weight of ghost-written tomes by professional partisans who treat voters as market segments to be sold into.

More sinisterly, this same type of targeted marketing is the cornerstone of most professional campaigns.  To take one example, because I signed up on one of the candidate web sites during the last election, I ended up on the mailing list for one of the party’s congressional campaign committees who send me a steady stream of e-mails declaring that only I can stop the unceasing evil of the opposing party by writing an ongoing series of requested checks.  The notion that I would be appalled by such a transparent (and pathos-driven) appeal is irrelevant to the e-mail marketers sending out this spam since, as far as they’re concerned, I’m simply one of the millions of people who sit outside their anticipated 1.5% “hit rate.”

But to actually immerse yourself in a genuine political debate requires you to start with the Principle of Charity assumption that both candidates are reasonable and dedicated men who have things to say, arguments to present, and a genuine dedication to doing the right thing for the country.  Now even with this assumption as a starting point, we will likely find one candidate’s vision more compelling or their argument better presented than the other.  And since we need to make some decision as November rolls around, we will eventually need to choose a side in order to place our vote.

The alternative (especially if you knew years or decades ago how you would vote in this election, regardless of who the candidates are) is to spend the next 6-7 months creating justifications for a decision that’s already been made and calling that political deliberation.  This is actually the easiest option which both candidates (and their scientifically managed campaigns) fully support, so long as you do your thing in a state they can take for granted, allowing them to focus their resources and attention elsewhere (i.e., ignore you). 

The downside of such an approach is that it leaves you totally irrelevant as a political actor, letting you hole up in a sorted community, trading news about your preferred candidate’s virtues (or, more frequently, the vices and weirdness of his opponent) with the like-minded and awaiting orders from on high regarding where to send your money (since your vote is already taken for granted). 

The Principle of Charity offers an alternative (but equally simple) filtering mechanism.  For example, would Romney supporters be freaked out if their candidate spent his childhood abroad and was the product of elite American universities (as was Obama)?  If not, then this is not a genuine issue.  Similarly, are Obama supporters as curious about the hijinks their candidates participated in during his youth as they are regarding Romney’s high school behavior?  If not, this too can be put aside as we treat both candidates (and ourselves) as adults ready to use our full freedom (including freedom of thought) to make an informed decision – the most important one we will all make this year.

Sorted

During the 2008 election, I ran into an interesting book while working on my Undecidedman blog, a book entitled The Big Sort by Bill Bishop.

The thesis of Bishop’s book, summed up in the title, is that America has sorted itself over the last 35 years into communities of the like minded where agreement on key political issues is assumed and thinking outside this consensus shunned.

Bishop’s evidence for this phenomenon is compelling. Looking at an electoral map from 1976, Bishop discovered that 26% of voters lived in so-called “Landslide Districts,” that is districts in which one candidate beat the other by a margin of over 20% of the vote. Fast forwarding to 2004, the writer discovered that that number had almost doubled to 48%, meaning half the voting population lives in districts where one political candidate (and, one assumes, one political disposition) reigns supreme.

I’ve not found any recent data that would show if this trend has continued, declined or leveled off,  but I think it’s safe to assume that the specific type of polarization many of us experienced in 2008 will likely be as intense this election cycle (if not more so).

Bishop theorized that much of this polarization derives from fact that most of the people taking part in discussion and debate over the election do so within environments where it is very unlikely they will ever hear an opinion that dissents from their own. Fold in narrow-casted cable TV and Internet sites that allow people to only receive news and opinion they already agree with and you’re left with half the nation (maybe even more today) living in a world where rarely is heard a political opinion outside the consensus shared by neighbors, friends, colleagues and relatives.

You can begin to see the challenges this type of mindset poses to anyone engaging in critical thinking about the upcoming presidential vote.  For thinking in a political context pre-supposes interaction with others, ideally in the form of dialog with interlocutors whose minds are open – at least a little bit – to considering options they might not naturally gravitate towards.  Keep in mind that the does not require people to ultimately accept those options (much less act on them), but just to try them on for size – if only for the sake of conversation.  

But if trying on different ideas that cut across your personal-political grain is already somewhat unnatural, how much more unnatural will such explorations be for those who have not only never thought this way in the past, but who have never interacted with someone who does not share their world view?  When we all agree with our family members, our friends and our neighbors (except, perhaps, for that odd uncle or person up the street, with whom we agree to disagree in silence), how can being asked to think about the most important decision we can make in a democratic society seem anything other than positively weird?

I’ve noted how imagination gives us a small opening to consider options we might not consider once a two-man race is truly on (if only because it allows us to imagine candidates even more like us than the ones we have to choose from).  But that window will close more and more tightly once election emotions begin to run high, leaving anyone contemplating the election through a less-than-predictable lens (such as the lens of critical thinking) looking more and more out of place.  You can anticipate blank stares or polite nods from people trying to figure out what you’re really up to. And if you’ve been a loyal partisan up until now, expect questioning as to why you don’t come right out and admit that you’ve actually switched sides (the only possible explanation for why someone would think outside the tribe).

How to explain to them that spending yet another election cycle interacting only with like-minded friends and colleagues means that they are effectively opting out of the political process altogether? 

To take the most obvious example, here in Massachusetts (the bluest of blue landslide states), our vote doesn’t even matter!  More specifically, no presidential candidate will campaign here because we, like most Americans, do not live in a “swing state,” meaning our state-level landslide status has already caused us to be taken for granted. Thus the very consensus my neighbors cling to make us completely irrelevant to this year’s vote. With luck, we’ll get some spillover commercials from a neighboring state of “swingers,” but for the most part we’ll spend this election wringing our hands over events that we have opted out of taking part in.

Think about that the next time you think the election is so clear cut there is no point in thinking about it any further.