Voter Certainty

VOTER CERTAINTY

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To avoiding the swirling slime posing as political discourse, my thoughts turn to how the mind works, or does not work, to evaluate all of the sludge.  Splattered with so much spun-reality, how can any of us receive, decipher, sort, and choose the factoids that represent truth?  Yet, we make those assessments confident that all our opponents must be wrong.  With the minutiae and scant firsthand knowledge available to any of us, how is it that we feel our grasp on truth and our conclusions are superior to all others? 

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November of last year, when the primary elections spun into shape, I consulted several articles describing how the mind molds its sense of certainty.  A dictionary definition of the mind says, “The mind is the part of a person that thinks, reasons, feels, and remembers.”  Most dictionaries also mention that the mind has both conscious and unconscious mental capacities.

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UNCONSCIOUS MIND

“Certainty” registers in the conscious mind but forms in the unconscious mind.  John A. Baragh, researcher at Yale University studying the unconscious mind reported its influence on judgments and decisions in 2006.  His work dealt with the unconscious mind’s “pervasive, powerful influence over immediate and unintended evaluation processes.”  His work on reflex actions showed that, “The unconscious mind is a behavioral guidance system and a source of adaptive and appropriate behavioral impulses.”  It is an, unconscious guidance system and responsible for the confidence we feel about the decisions we make, despite insufficient or contrary information.  

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CONFIRMATION BIAS

David McRaney, a prominent author, lecturer, media producer in the field of psychology and the cognitive sciences, dealing with unconscious certainty and conformational bias, cautions that, “Confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.”  He further warns that cognitive bias “represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study.”

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As a media producer, McRaney points to broadcasting as a major contributor to our conscious certainties, “Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias.  Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views.  If their filter is like your filter, you love them.  If it isn’t, you hate them.”  His reminder demonstrates, “Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point.  You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.”  The application of his point is, “In science, you move closer to the truth by seeking evidence to the contrary.  Perhaps the same method should inform your opinions as well.”

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EMOTIONAL BIAS

One of the most interesting aspects of our unconscious bias system is the way we avoid the scientific method, which sets out to test a conclusion by finding contrary evidence.  We do the opposite.  Those who study this dynamic the closest are sales professionals, like Geoffry James of Sales Source.  In his study of tactics that change people’s minds, Geoffry says, “Presenting the evidence is a huge mistake.  People tend to make decisions emotionally and only then evaluate the evidence.  Once they've made a decision, people tend to either disbelieve contrary evidence or mentally manipulate the evidence so that it supports their decision.  In other words, when people are wrong about something, the more evidence you present that they are wrong, the less likely they are to change their minds.  Decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or under-weigh evidence that could 'disconfirm' their hypothesis.” 

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In 1960, the deductive reasoning researcher, Peter C. Wason, provided salespeople like Geoffry rules of effective transactional influence.  Wason offered one of the basic means of closing a deal called the, “makes sense stopping rule.”  Sense our tendency is first to determine a conclusion and then work backwards, finding evidence to prove it.  Consumers are not looking for errors leading to their conclusions; instead, they seek only to verify their conclusion.  Rolf Dobellis offered data proving that buyers usually confuse the “results” hoped for with legitimate information to form a decision.  The idea, then, is not to sell the item itself, but confirm the purchaser’s subconscious feelings about what the purchase will do for them.  Confirming the unconscious bias makes the sail.  Raymond S. Nickerson, research professor of psychology of Tufts University agrees.  With our emotional bias confirmed, we stop considering the possibility that our bias may be flawed and accept it as true.  The way Nickerson puts it, “Once your presumptions are satisfied, you stop searching.” The makes sense stopping rule is also the underlying strategy for both presidential campaigns this year.
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PROTECTING OUR BIAS
The person we belief we are, is bound together with the cords of conscious or unconscious biases.  Nickerson says, “Whenever your opinions or beliefs are so intertwined with your self-image you couldn’t pull them away without damaging your core concepts of self, you avoid situations which may cause harm to those beliefs.  You seek out safe havens for your ideology, friends, and coworkers of like mind and attitude, media outlets guaranteed to play nice.”
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The harm he speaks of is the threat to our self-perception.  1) Our estimated value as a person, 2) our assessment of personal abilities, 3) our emotional stability, and 4) our overall sense of control (internal or external) are all under the influence of our unconscious and conscious bias.
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Americans and Europeans are more venerable to belief-system threats because we tend to have rather inflated opinion of ourselves.  “When asked to rate them-selves on virtues, skills, or other desirable traits (including ethics, intelligence, driving ability, and sexual skills), a large majority say they are above average.  Power and privilege magnify the distortion: 94% of college professors think that they do above average work.  This effect is weaker in Asian countries and in other cultures, which value the group more highly than the self.”
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Robert Wright, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, highlights our bias self-protection when he wrote, “Humans are very good at challenging the beliefs of other people, but when it comes to their own beliefs, they tend to protect them, not challenge them.  A consistent finding of psychological research is that humans are fairly accurate in their perceptions of others, but generally inaccurate in their perceptions of themselves.  Humans tend to judge others by their behavior, but think they have special information about themselves – that they know what they are "really like" inside – and thus effortlessly find ways to explain away selfish acts, and maintain the illusion that they are better than others.”
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Acknowledging the strength, pervasiveness, and effects of unconscious biases, leads me, along with the for mentioned experts, to wonder if these biases could, “Account for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations.”  However, there is no escaping it; “biases” are an unavoidably part of the mind and contribute a dominate influence in our selection process.  The question then is not will you or I overcome our biases and vote rationally.  The question is will America overcome its biases and thrive as a united nation or merely survive, splintered by our biases.
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Binna Kandola believes there is hope in the friction biases cause.  His presentation on Diffusing Bias, Reimagining Self and Others, concludes, “In an age of globalization, new ideas about identity are at once the spark for conflict and at the same time the hope for greater cooperation and tolerance.  In the last decade identity has been used as a justification for genocide, terrorism, and war.”  Kamdola expresses the hope that the human bias-structure will come-out of its hidden self-protection, where it is secretly, “…sheltering long held assumptions about the development of identities and their boundaries suggesting new narratives in the way we think about who is “us” and who is “them.’”
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In achieving that goal of cooperation and tolerance, Kandola recommends individuals take, what I call three baby steps in that direction,  
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STEP ONE- Self-awareness…Turn the mirror on your-self and tell your-self to stop

STEP TWO- Conscious effort…Instruct your-self and set fairness as a personal goal

STEP THREE – Responsible action…Take social action while leading and challenging others

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This approach is better than doing nothing and it has my endorsement.  However, I know from experience that methods based on willpower are unsustainable.  Like so many other approaches to overcoming biases, they work fine, until the practitioner wares out or becomes discouraged in the effort.  The bias system is a part of the way the mind works.  Therefore, transforming this feature of our mind requires radical alteration, beyond the mind’s rational and emotional capacities.  It takes activating a third part of human personality…the human spirit.  We usually ignore or dismiss the spiritual aspect of our personality, but if we ever bring our unconscious biases under control, the human spirit must change.  As a Christian, I am as susceptible to unconscious biases as the next person.  However, I know when I yield to God’s Spirit, He alters, not just my thoughts and feelings, but my whole personality.  Unless I am much different from the rest of humanity, I believe He will make the changes necessary within anyone who seeks Him.   

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All of these unconscious biases make it difficult to accurately evaluate and choose between normal presidential candidates.  This November’s abnormal contestants make an unbiased selection impossible…without supernatural intervention.  Despite the questionable character of the candidate and the unconscious biases that guide our selection, the real question is, can the USA rise above our irrational biases, and reunite as one nation after the election.  The world and we will see.  God help us.  

COMPORTMENT CRITERIA

2016 ELECTION CRITERIA

COMPORTMENT

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The role of Comportment in the 2016 election.

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Persuaded that everything is a lie, voters must select the fiction that best fits their own notion of reality.  When politics, itself, becomes a fictional endeavor, the only choice voters have is the fiction that best suits their taste.  In his latest article, Phantasmagoria, Ned Resnikoff concludes that politics has been, “…devoured entirely by personal aesthetics.”  Because everyone assumes the candidates are lying, voters are forced to suspend their critical faculties and choose to believe the unbelievable.  Therefore, Trump supporters tolerate him lying, about such things as his Cuban dealings, and Hillary supporters tolerate lies, which include her Emails.  A voter observing the 2016 campaign, knowing it is a work of fiction, resort to political narcissism or cultural affiliation.  As a result, the criteria degrades to which contestant expresses their own point of view or promotes their personal self-interest, rather than which one is best suited to the job.   

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Resnikoff, blames Trump, but both candidates call into question the existence of any political reality.  Ned’s article says, “By telling so many confounding and mutually exclusive falsehoods,” Trump has created a sense of unreality in which, “Truth is little more than an arbitrary personal decision.”  So what is wrong with backing someone who advocates your own sense of reality?  That is the way democracy works…right?

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The problem is when both candidates shave the truth, voters must structure a reasoned political decision based on something other than “their word.”  It might follow that the innate wisdom of a candidate would surface as the default qualifier.  Unfortunately, neither aspirant ranks high in the opinion of the electorate in the wisdom arena.  Wisdom reflects “the soundness of one’s action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.”  Our dynastic-politician candidate has extraordinary governmental knowledge but questionable judgment.  On the other hand, her opponent, an entrepreneurial-showman, possesses strong capitalization and marketing judgment, but little political knowledge.  In the “application of experience”, the records of them both reveal gaps in ethical, moral, and principled decisions.    

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Usually, when other criteria fail to identify the best person for the office, voters turn to party ideology as their alternative selection criteria.  However, there is no certainty that either presidential candidate will adhere to their party’s platform.  Funding sources normally provide clues about which entities will be favored when the candidate takes office.  Unfortunately, a shrewd self-funded businessperson knows he can use the power of the presidency to recover and advance his own financial interests.  Examples of this are Berlusconi of Italy, Putin of Russia, Marcos of the Philippines and many others.  Even if they honored their constituencies’ preferences, given the provocative exclusivity of one, and the enmity gendered by the other, it is unlikely ether will gain legislative support necessary to implement those preferences.  It is certainly unreasonable to hope either will strengthen and unify the nation.  Nonetheless, one of them will be the next president of the United States of America.     

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That is why I, for one, have chosen another reference point for this year’s political deliberation.  In my opinion, the only reality-gauge applicable to this election is the candidates’ comportment …his or her “personal bearing or conduct; demeanor; behavior.”  Comportment is different from “temperament” in that it deals with the manner in which people conduct themselves, not a person's nature, character, or fitness.

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It is sad that the only reality-based quality left to formulate a reasonable presidential selection is so superficial.  Comportment refers to the way people carry themself — their general manner.  “A queen's comportment is usually regal, a bit stiff, and dignified.  The comportment of a bunch of little kids at an amusement park is very different.  The Middle French root is comportment, ‘bearing or behavior,’" In an environment filled with fiction, it is a real quality…free from deception.  Either they behave themselves properly or they do not. 

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Faced with the truth bending candidates of this 2016 election, I plan to put aside guesses of their character or intentions.  My focus, free of spin, will not be caught up in who the candidate claims he or she is, how sincere they claim to be, what deeds they claim they will accomplish, nor how despicable their opponent claims they are.  In so doing, I will be free from the fantasy, so I can make an informed decision based on something real, their comportment…conduct and manner.

TOLERANT INTOLERANCE

TOLERANT INTOLERANCE

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Canadian Tolerance Restrains Intolerance

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Muslim parents demanded the abolition of pork in all the school canteens of a Montreal suburb.  The mayor refused, and sent a note to all parents. 
"Muslims must understand that they have to adapt to Canada and Quebec, its customs, its traditions, and its way of life, because that's where they chose to immigrate.  “ Muslims must understand that they have to integrate and learn to live in Quebec. "They must understand that it is for them to change their lifestyle, not the Canadians who, so generously, welcomed them.”

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An inclusive multi-cultural united system, which respects the rights of everyone within the system, cannot tolerate the intolerant aspects of any of its sub-systems.  Unrestrained, an active intolerant minority can impose its intolerance on a tolerant system.  At this time, the USA is an inclusively united governmental system that must tolerate sub-systems including a number of religious systems.  Most religions contain intolerant aspects that if imposed on the overall union, threaten the freedom of the multi-cultural unit.  Therefore, the United States government must tolerate sub-systems, even though they historically contain intolerant features, without permitting those intolerant aspects to limit the tolerance of other members of the union.

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. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader, and risk analyst, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty, believes that a tolerant governmental system cannot restrain the intolerant aspects of actively committed religious minorities.  In an article called, The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority, he says, “that we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities.”  He goes on to say, “It is not permissible to use ‘American values’ or ‘Western principles’ in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion).”  With this assessment he then declares, “The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.”  I must agree with him, but only if we cannot restrain the intolerant aspects inherent in most religions. 

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Pew Research Center’s latest data shows that, “Islam is currently the world’s second-largest religion (after Christianity), it is the fastest-growing major religion.  Indeed, if current demographic trends continue, the number of Muslims is expected to exceed the number of Christians by the end of this century.” 

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Pew’s demographic projections estimate that Muslims will make up 2.1% of the U.S. population by the year 2050.  That is a very same minority.  However, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb explainsHe describes this as the minority ruling by a principle he identifies as the “Asymmetry Rule of Renormalization.”  To appreciate the threat, I recommend reading his article.

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According to a minority activist during the Czechoslovakian uprising,  Valclav Havel,  it only takes an active minority united in a common cause to change a society and its culture.  His essay, “Power of the Powerless” written in 1978, became the manifesto for the Czechoslovakian, Polish and other uprising against communistic regimes.  In it, he described a defense method against totalitarian systems, in which, “every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state's governing instruments” of ideology, which in that case was a “secularized religion.”  He said that the authority of such systems relies on a, “labyrinth of influence, repression, fear and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it, at the very least by rendering them silent, stultified and marked by some undesirable prejudices of the powerful."

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Totalitarian authority systems are not restricted to secular religious systems only, but characterize all systems that impose religious mandates on a population, whether secular or spiritual.  Living within a politically governed religious system, like communism or in my view America Christian coalitions, Havel says, “Individuals must live a lie, to hide that which he truly believes and desires, and to do that which he must do to be left in peace and to survive.”
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 The goal Havel sought was, “a newfound inner relationship to other people and to the human community.”  He said his vision was to, "provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the 'human order,' which no political order can replace.”
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Our goal, in the United States, should not be a religiously neutral political system, but a religiously tolerant system that restrain the intolerant aspects of any of its religious sub-groups, including Christianity.
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However, I recognize that governing the intolerant aspects of religion, while necessary, is not enough to secure peace and unity with in our multi-diverse nation.  Our population needs to relate to each other in a less authoritative, prescriptive, and intolerant manor.  Havel acknowledges that power is relational.  In agreement, I submit that if we promote the more tolerant, empathetic, and benevolent aspects, found in all our religions, lifting tolerance to a position of our nation’s highest goal that tolerance will not permit intolerance.  Otherwise, I see nothing but more disharmony, strife, and separation ahead.  It would please me, and if I understand God, it would please Him as well, if Christian tolerance took the lead in just such a sociocultural revolution.  That process could start today. 
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Havel wrote, "living in truth meant rejecting the notion that power is something to be grasped or abolished.”  I accept the notion but restate his axiom saying the power of Godly love is not to be grasped or abolished, but released and employed.  Love, including love for our enemies, is the most powerful force a human can release and employ in activating tolerance that restrains intolerance.  Christianity does not need government authority to influence our nation’s sociocultural character.  A tolerant loving Christianity could become the group Nassim Taleb identifies as, “a widely distributed intransigent minority dictates the norms of a society.”   It is up to you and me.

AMERICAN FOG

AMERICAN FOG

Not Where We Thought

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Fog-masked Glorietta Bay hid any landmarks that night as I brought the 25-foot Catalina under the San Diego Bridge.  The family, who charted the sunset-sail, fell silent as the claustrophobic atmosphere closed in on all sides. 

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“No worries.” I assured them, “I sail in and out of this bay sometimes two and three times a day.  We will sail 200 yards past the bridge, and then turn ninety degrees to starboard.  There will be a lighted buoy a mile ahead, where we turn again and the lights from Coronado will guide us the rest of the way in.”     

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If they had chartered a 27-footer, there would have been a compass mounted on the binnacle, but not on the 25-footer.  However, I did not need to take my handheld compass from my sail bag.  Instead, I posted the family on watch for the buoy and/or hazards ahead, and I concentrated on avoid the Navy Seals Training Base to port and the golf course to starboard.  Within thirty minutes, I knew we had a problem, because I caught a glimpse of trees on the portside, where the treeless training base should have been.  

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Focused on the fuzzy blackness on either side of the boat, I had strayed off course, and then the faint glow of the bridge over our bow proved I had turned completely around.  No longer, the self-assured master of the elements, I brought the vessel about.  Then with flashlight and compass in hand, I guided us safely to the lit buoy and on to the dock. 

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Somewhere, in our human certainty, as Oswald Chambers warns, we will reach a place where God must say,

“Don’t be blind on this point anymore; you are not where you thought you were.  Up to the present I have not been able to reveal it to you, but I reveal it now.”

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I believe his caution has more than a personally spiritual application.  We, United States citizens, have reached a point of self-confidence, politically, where we have mistaken shadows for reality, and falsely believed we would never wreck our own boat.  However, every indication is that we strayed off course while focused on the blackness on both sides.  Now is the time for the nation to refocus on its more noble goals.  Our national goal finds its simplest expression in two documents, the Preamble to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

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“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

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Our Declaration of Independence gives the rationale behind concentrating on these goals.

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  (The bold type was added to emphasize that goal.) 

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Those documents describe a free people, all with rights protected by a government deriving its power from the consent of the governed.  The unique goal of Christian Americans is love of God and others, whether in a majority or not.  Christians need to conceder how to express Christ’s love in the furtherance of our national goal.  Honestly, our self-confidence has deceived us, and we are not where we thought we were.  It is time to come about, pick up the compass, and turn on the light.