Why Our Politicians Are Sooo Bad...

[Annie]

It's us, who'd have thunk it? Thought provoking and of course, fits in with my biases:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010407A

Two Strategies for Avoiding Truth
By Arnold Kling : 05 Jan 2007

brain

"Physicists do it...Psychologists do it...Even political scientists do it...Research findings confirming a hypothesis are accepted more or less at face value, but when confronted with contrary evidence, we become "motivated skeptics" ... picking apart possible flaws in the study, recoding variables, and only when all the counterarguing fails do we rethink our beliefs...

But what about ordinary citizens?...On reading a balanced set of pro and con arguments about affirmative action or gun control, we find that rather than moderating or simply maintaining their original attitudes, citizens - especially those who feel the strongest about the issue and are the most sophisticated - strengthen their attitudes in ways not warranted by the evidence."

-- Charles S. Taber and Milton Lodge, Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs

I am going to suggest that democratic politics is a very poor information-processing mechanism. The great mass of people form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. However, the elites also have a strategy for avoiding truth. Elites form their political beliefs dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses' strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elites' strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts and arguments to emphasize or ignore....

 

[trobinett]

It's us, who'd have thunk it? Thought provoking and of course, fits in with my biases:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010407A

Damn, that makes TOO much sense.

So we're all, in one way or the other, victims of Pre-conceived notions. Does take the "mystery" out of it.

I know I've argued a point by "twisting" the supporting information, to make MY point, or position.

 

[dilloduck]

It's us, who'd have thunk it? Thought provoking and of course, fits in with my biases:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010407A

But what about ordinary citizens?...On reading a balanced set of pro and con arguments about affirmative action or gun control, we find that rather than moderating or simply maintaining their original attitudes, citizens - especially those who feel the strongest about the issue and are the most sophisticated - strengthen their attitudes in ways not warranted by the evidence."

Hence anyone attempting to provide a different thoery using different evidence or logic is written off a conspiracy theorist.