The truth in comics

Sometimes a comic strip hits the truth spot on, as with today’s Stone Soup, one of my daily reads, as I was mentioning the other day:

I believe psychologists talk about “confirmation bias,” which is the tendency for us to seek out or to accept information that reinforces our existing beliefs. One of the plagues of modern politics (and the wider “culture wars”) is this very tendency. Republicans tend to watch the right-leaning Fox news, and Democrats prefer to watch left-leaning MSNBC. Thus we limit our exposure to other viewpoints and never really make the effort to appreciate them.

Then things go a stage further and we build up what are in fact mutually-exclusive alternative realities. For some people Obama is a crypto-Islamic terrorist-sympathizing Marxist. For me he’s a very decent guy — very moderate politically. I don’t think that on the left the criticisms of McCain get quite so unhinged from reality, although maybe that’s my own confirmation bias filtering those messages out. But some see him as unstable, erratic, and unprincipled, while others of course see him as having the opposites of those qualities — an honorable, patriotic, decent man.

I have to say it’s a bit frightening realizing the extent to which people inhabit camps into which no positive view of the “enemy” may intrude. A recent example was watching a video of Obama on You Tube:

Now in this speech Obama outlines his vision of participative democracy, including an expansion of Americorps and the Peace Corps, and reopening shuttered consulates. And he says he wants these to be as well-funded as the military who, unlike our schools, never have to run bake sales in order to pay for essential items. I hear a call to service, a call to voluntarism, and a promise by government to help the kinds of programs that will raise the standing of the US in the eyes of the world.

But how is this heard by the right wing? I’d suggest reading some of the comments posted under that video or of a quotation taken from it and posted on YouTube here. Here are a few:

This is a veiled attempt at getting your guns. Obama wants to
create a “militia”(which is what a civilian security force is) then
turn around and say if you are not in the “militia” you will not be allowed to own guns. Militia members will be microchipped
for their own “safety”. COLD DEAD HANDS muthafucka!

I’m with you, hdame! And I’ll say that I’ve got plenty of ammo and several fine guns! IF this creepy radical socialist wins this election, when he sends these jackbooted Obamanation thugs to take me & mine, they best bring a sacklunch. They’ll likely get me, but I’ll get a LOT of them! There are MILLIONS of us who feel the same way. NO SURRENDER to radical socialist tyranny! Semper Fi!

You are correct but when the jackbooted thugs of “The One” come calling and want to search your home for any gun of any kind, what will you do? I am 77 and I will shoot but in futility, I realize. Sandy.

God love you Sandy, I’ll shoot too. Obama wants an armed force like Hitler had his Brown Shirts to bully defenseless citizens. Already Obama is fighting free speech every where (instigating investigations into McCain supporters that run 527 ads to intimidate them, declaring he will not allow people to speak about his wife, launching background checks into people like Joe the Plumber who ask tough questions, banning TV stations for asking tough questions; try to comment on his videos, etc.).

I have lived amongst Obama’s people for years now and have seen this coming. Let’s face it, he has 2 followers, the Liberal FAR left that are all races and then the part of the Black community that HATE whites. I lived near the later. A WAR ZONE! Period.

No one will ever take my guns. If this nation ATTEMPTS to dives into Marxism, Islam, Socialism, Communism then WE will all react and these entities will be taken out.

I really would not worry people. America will not fall.

I literally lifted five of the first six comments.

With attitudes like this, I wonder how we can ever achieve dialog?

2 Responses to “The truth in comics”

1. Rob R says:

   November 3, 2008 at 6:44 pm

   Welcome to the post modern situation. The facts don’t interpret themselves, we must organize them and we can’t nor should we want to be non-subjective interpreters of those facts. But of course, some interpretations are better than others and the data to interpret is not infinitely flexible.

   I think one thing that is of help here is epistemic virtues. Aristotle’s notion of a virtue is in terms of moderation. So is it possible to lack moderation in open mindedness? It sure is. You can be so open minded that your brain falls out the back end. It’s not good to second geuss yourself every time some seemingly contrary evidence arises. Open mindedness needs to be balanced with epistemic sobriety where one is steadfast to their beliefs that have been useful, seemingly evident in the past, rational, and so on, especially beliefs that have been important in their integration of the world. And of course, there may be intuitions that these beliefs are based upon, and these intuitions may be their for very good reasons. That’s why it is important to attempt to unearth them, become aware of them and attempt to examine the reasoning behind their existence. But though this may only be possible in degrees, and though one may not be able to completely get under her intuitions, it does not mean that those intuitions may very well be important and rooted in our very humanity.

   Of course you ask in light of some choice comments on politics, if dialogue is possible but I think it’s important to note that while it is always possible with some people, we have free will and that to a significant degree includes how rational we are willing to be. But the problem of world views is not just about world views on a rational and intellectual level. We cannot seperate our very lives from our thought lives. Our emotions and needs come into play, and though you as a Buddhist might view this as something that you work to bring under control, you are asking about dialogue, interacting with others, and what ever disciplines you may put your body or mind through, it is limited in how it affects other people.
2. bodhipaksa says:

   November 5, 2008 at 1:12 pm

   Hi Bob,

   It’s true that facts don’t interpret themselves and that we have to engage in interpretation. One of my main concerns on a personal level is to keep clear in my mind what is a fact and what is an interpretation. To take an example, both Michelle Obama and John McCain have said words to the effect of “I’ve never before been proud of my country.” Those words are facts, and of course there are different ways to interpret them. I choose to interpret them as the rhetorical device of hyperbole, where one exaggerates for effect. Some may choose to take those words quite literally. Without fuller information about the people making those statements it would be hard to know which interpretation is more accurate. But I’ve heard people take Michelle Obama’s words and present them as “She’s said she always hated her country.” When someone does that they’ve interpreted “not previously proud” to mean “previously hated” (which is a stretch as an interpretation) and then confused their interpretation (“I think her words mean I previously hated America“) with the facts, so that in their mind Michelle Obama actually said “I previously hated America.” This is the kind of thing that results from attachment to a particular position. aversion to opposing positions, and a lack of regard for intellectual integrity.

   In fact the term “intellectual integrity” is one that preoccupies me, while the phrase open-mindedness doesn’t really resonate with me very strongly. Obviously it’s possible to be too credible, and it’s important to have a critical faculty as well. For me the term intellectual integrity implies being willing to take opposing viewpoints seriously, without dismissing them out of hand, indulging in ad hominem attacks (if you don’t like the message shoot the messenger), or distorting the view to represent something it’s not. These things are all too common. I’m prone to them myself, as are we all. But I think they need to be guarded against. The Republican Party is now reaping the harvest they planted through contempt for what they disparagingly called “the reality-based community.” If you keep dismissing people who disagree with you as “nay-sayers” or “traitors” then you end up being out of touch. The McCain campaign ended up out of touch. (Kerry and Gore ended up being out of touch with many voters as well, but for rather different reasons, I think — more of a lack of ability to empathize.)

   Anyway, I don’t think the fundamental issue is of having an “open mind” but of realizing that your own grasp of reality is necessarily limited and being prepared to scrutinize your own views on the basis of new information, including others’ opinions. At the same time, as you point out, we need to build on what we’re reasonably sure of. But even there it can sometimes be necessary to adjust those views, or at least to consider that they might be incomplete. Carrying a mistaken view for a long time does not make it any less mistaken, and confirmation bias may have been screening out contrary information.

   I’m not sure that irrationality is always a choice. Sometimes it may be, but when people are in the throes of powerful emotions and views that are detached from reality they may not be able to access their free will (although that’s another term that doesn’t have much resonance with me and that I tend not to use). If it’s a choice, it’s generally an unconscious one, and having made that choice sometimes one just has to go along for the ride; I may choose to jump of the cliff of irrationality, but it doesn’t make much choice half-way down the cliff to say “I’m choosing to plummet.”

   I suspect that there are some people who live in such a paranoid realm of being that it’s virtually impossible to have a genuine dialog with them, but there are some who can be reached and talked out of a state of self-delusion. I think McCain did a bit of that last night (although not enough, in my opinion), when he tied to pacify people who were booing the mention of Obama and Biden’s names, and when they booed the very notion of supporting the new administration. McCain is a relatively reasonable man, and the leader of many people. He has the ability to call the “marginally unreasonable” on some of their paranoia, and thus encourage the rippling-outwards of a more reasonable approach to politics than might otherwise prevail.

   Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.