Politics: Emotional or rational?

Way back in the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed that American society was grounded in reason, science and pragmatism, for the most part. That view of reality came from someone in the middle class in a homogeneous Midwest population lucky enough to attend high quality public schools and colleges. Prosperity seemed to be there for the taking, if you worked for it. There was some reasonable degree of consensus among the public on most political and social issues. When there wasn't consensus, there was enough accommodation for things to appear to function reasonably well. Those were the appearances, at least. It doesn't look that way any more.

Maybe it never was like that. The Midwest was and and still is relatively isolated and not representative of everything else. Self-delusion is part of human nature and comes easy because it tends to be unconscious. People believe what they want because its comfortable. By comparison, facing reality is uncomfortable and it takes conscious effort to see reality based on reason and objectivity. There's the conflict: Emotions, like comfortable, unconscious self-delusion and rigid belief in ideology (political or religious) compete for the mind's view of reality with disquieting even-handed reason. These days, emotion dominates most issues most of the time. Reality usually loses to fantasy. Reason just doesn't seem to compete well with emotion. That's probably always been the case.

So what?

Regardless of where "truth" lies, does it matter? Why should it be of any concern that people tend to see what they want, not what reality actually is? After all, when someone believes something that isn't true, why should anyone else question it? Whose business is it? Well, it can matter a lot.

Whose business it is depends on what the false belief is and how it affects others. In politics, false reality arguably is the basis for a lot of political policy and that is one root cause for a lot of failure in politics. False beliefs in politics are every one's business because they lead to political policies that can be good, bad or neutral. If you disagree with the proposition that our political reality is littered with fantasy, listen to what Democrats and Republicans have to say about each other. Hard core Democrats know the goals of some Republicans wanting to drown the government in a bathtub and massive spending cuts on non-military are necessary. Hard core Republicans know that Democrats are destroying the American economy and our way of life.

Those views are largely incompatible. They therefore can't both be right - one or both of them has to be living a fantasy. In view of their clear track records of failure, it is pretty easy to argue that they both live a fantasy. Their false worlds are largely built on rigid, sacred political and religious ideology and loads of hypocrisy about public service coming before public service. Unless you are lucky, you can't efficiently solve a problem you don't clearly see or understand. That's just common sense. Given our disconnects from reality, it is no surprise our political policies and institutions continue to fail.

There is no authority on reality, right?

Can anyone say what reality is and claim authority, especially in view of the vast gulfs in how different people see things? Yes. That can be done if (i) one's personal biases and ideologies are acknowledged and consciously set aside (very hard for hard core partisans), (ii) true facts are acknowledged and accorded fair and reasonable weight (also hard for partisans) and (iii) the best competing policy arguments flowing from the facts are honestly acknowledged and accorded accorded fair and reasonable weight (essentially impossible for partisans, hence their vast differences). Of course, that recipe isn't perfect so how can what comes from that be accorded more weight than what the partisans see?

It gets weight because it is grounded in fact and honest assessment of all reasonable alternatives, not just the usual narrow battle between the sacred ideology of the left and right. We don't seriously consider all reasonable alternatives and we arguably have political failure from that lazy business as usual mentality. What partisans give us has no moral authority in view of partisan failures. Unless one likes the situation we are in, it is easy to see that something is wrong. One of the things wrong is the sloppy, lazy tendency of many Americans to substitute comfortable fantasy for unsettling reality. If people don't like the implication of some fact or policy argument, they deny it, ignore it or distort it into something more easily dealt with. Political business as usual gave off the appearance of success in the past, but the fantasy of success is looking a lot less real now that things have been bad for a while and may stay that way for some time.

The political tide is going out and lots of political fantasies are beginning to look like they were out there swimming without clothes. Partisans will see nothing ususual as the tide recedes - their fantasies will still look just fine while the opposing fantasies will still be ugly and naked. Those of us capable of seeing reality are probably not going to like what we are going to see from either side.