Emotion dictates reality; An example

A prior post argued that emotion largely dominates reason or logic in U.S. politics, particularly for hard core partisans and ideologues. That was support for the argument that emotion (irrational thinking) is a key element behind the vast differences between how the left and right perceive reality. Emotion connected to firmly held ideology and, to some extent self-interest, makes it easy to rationalize a world view consistent with the chosen ideology.

That appears to be the case even though reality distorted by ideology and/or self-interest often bears little resemblance to reality undistorted by any ideology. Its just a matter of human nature. It doesn't apply just to politics - it permeates everything.

Anecdotal but informative

Its easy to be misled by anecdotal stories and personal experience. However, there are times when an anecdote accurately reflects a reality. Consider the following. Over the past years, a professional colleague became a Russia-o-phile. California Moderates (CM) doesn't now why, but it happened. Colleague, not a communist, but a hard core true left liberal, got caught up in the exuberance of it all and even wrote letters to Pravda criticizing some aspects of various U.S. foreign and domestic policies. To the amazement of all, Pravda published the wacky letters.

In conversations with Colleague about Russia and recent history, Colleague stated that Stalin was a real hero and a relatively nice guy. To say the least, that was a stunning insight, especially coming from a well-educated, decent and outwardly sane person formally grounded in logic and reason. Puzzling indeed.

Having an inquiring mind with a need to know, CM asked how on Earth anyone could come to that bizarre conclusion. If memory serves, Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler's total kill. Colleague's response, based on research including reading multiple history and biography books, was simple. If Stalin hadn't done what he did to his own people, Russia would have fallen to the Germans and then it would have been even worse for the poor suffering Russian population. They all would have been exterminated.

Stalin was a good guy according to that version of reality. CM simply can't accept that version, even if it is better researched than CM's version. Maybe CM is mistaken, but its version of reality is that Stalin was an ice-cold mass murderer who acted out of self-interest first and national preservation second or not at all.

Well, there you have it. Two versions of a historical reality. Good guy and bad guy. Both can't be completely right because they are mutually exclusive. One has to be grounded more in emotion, spun fact, ignorance and/or illogic than the other. The question is, which is more accurate? An authoritative answer can come from a real historian, not Colleague or myself. I am not going to spend the time to figure that one out. CM tries to be accurate and well-informed, but this point not that important to me. CM simply thinks it is right and Colleague has suffered too many concussions playing some sort of rough game. On this point, CM opinion is that Colleague is completely nuts.

The difference between CM and Colleague is that if a real historian comes along and says (with proof) 'Calmoderate, you nincompoop, Stalin was a selfless, nice guy. All that slaughter was necessary - see here's the proof. Pull your head out.' CM would accord that fair weight, try to figure out how CM could be so wrong and reassess its opinion. But if the historian told Colleague that Stalin was a ruthless mass murderer, Colleague the amateur would tell historian the expert that he was full of baloney.

That's how emotion works. That's how ideology works. Its all just human biology. If Colleague's reality is wrong, Colleague the ideologue, can't easily accept that because it undermines whatever view of Russia exists in Colleague's arguably messed up head. Assuming CM is wrong, that can be faced and accepted more easily because CM doesn't have any ideology to defend or justify to anyone. That's just how pragmatism works. Colleague is boxed in by sacred belief, right or wrong. Colleague is enslaved to emotion and ideology. CM is free.

CO could do another anecdote about the mom who refuses to get her kids vaccinated out of fear of autism, but that would be overkill.

Scary

The pragmatic free thinker is scary, right? Scary because you don't know where that free mind is going to go. By contrast, you usually know exactly where the ideologue is going. That's the subtle always-present allure of giving in to emotion and ideology. But can you see how that emotion and ideology could lead a whole society right over the cliff edge because the cliff edge looked like a beautiful mountain meadow full of wild flowers when in fact it was a mine field?

Who you gonna call?

Who would you rather trust in politics and political problem solving? The rock solid ideologue who stands on rock solid principle and absolutely and clearly sees mostly black and white? Or, the wobbly, pragmatic non-ideologue who sees black and white when its there but mostly grey because that's what unspun reality mostly looks like from that vantage point? Your choice.