
Why People Are Irrational about Politics - aylons
http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/irrationality.htm
======
Liver
Let's face it, political parties are designed to divide the people. Why that ?
Because political power like every power seeks its own limits. It looks to
increase its own power. In a (so-called) democracy, government negociates the
boundaries of its own power with the people. One way to get more power for the
governement is to weaken the people by dividing them. Now you see the people
divided in many different ways with engineered and/or mythical social
struggles : poors vs rich, women vs men, young vs old, native vs foreigner,
religious vs non-religious, black vs white, gay vs heterosexual etc...

Everybody want essentially the same things, to have their essential needs
fulfilled : food, home, health, family, freedom

A minority divides the majority and acquires dominion and prosperity,
achieving an effortless and comfortable life.

That minority has essentially created the initial Ponzi Scheme and they need
division, wars and struggles so that they can maintain their dominion.

~~~
bovermyer
This implies that government, in and of itself, is a conspiracy to perpetuate
consolidation of power. That's enough of a broad generalization that I can't
take it seriously - while it may be true for some forms of organization, I
don't think we have enough data (or the right KIND of data) to actually make a
call like that, let alone claim that political parties in particular are
defined by power orchestration by a central entity.

~~~
JoshTriplett
It's entirely possible for this kind of thing to fall out as a natural
consequence of a set of constraints and institutions, without any central
planning or conspiracy.

For instance, look at Duverger's Law
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law)),
which says that the standard "one person one vote" voting system we use
naturally tends to produce a two-party system. Beyond that, there are
institutional tendencies towards compromise and centrism that will tend to
make key parts of both parties similar to each other and drift towards each
other, while roughly matching overall society sentiments, and emphasizing a
handful of ideological differences that match/create those in society (with a
feedback cycle). Put that together with standard political tactics like
proposing an extreme position and "compromising" with what you wanted in the
first place, and with the tendency of any system made up of people to
perpetuate itself and give itself more power.

So it's entirely plausible that we'd naturally tend towards something like we
have: a two-party system, with differences on some high-profile items that,
common agreement between those parties on other issues (most notably on the
self-perpetuation and growth of government and bureaucracy, even if in
disagreement with substantial fractions of the public), near-impossibility of
electing a third-party candidate, etc.

~~~
zurn
Is there reason to think that the two-party system emerged accidentally from
the voting system?

(Nit: You mean "first past the poll" or something, not "one person one vote")

------
dreamdu5t
It's not that people are irrational. _People have different prefences_. There
are winners and losers in politics, and peoples' preferences are often
mutually exclusive.

The idea that there is some kind of "correct" political position is absurd and
grossly ignorant of what politics IS.

Example: Some people think there shouldn't be an income tax. Someone else
thinks there should be. There is no such thing as a "correct" position, just a
winning position.

“War is politics by other means,” as Carl von Clausewitz said.

~~~
sjtrny
There is no "correct" position. But there are positions that are objectively
better if you measure outcomes like health, education, safety, prosperity etc
etc.

~~~
TulliusCicero
They are not, in fact 'objectively' better, because the degree to which you
prioritize each of those things differs based on each person's values. Take
welfare, for instance. Social welfare programs help the vulnerable, and
undoubtedly some non-zero percentage of people are taking advantage of said
programs wrongly. In the US, people who are liberal are more interested in the
former, and people who are conservative are more interested in the latter.

This is a chief reason why one group is for it and the other is against it.
It's not that liberals don't think welfare fraud exists at all, they just
don't think it's a big problem compared to the good such programs do. And it's
not that conservatives don't think such programs do help some deserving poor
people, they just hate the thought of some of their tax money going to someone
mooching off the system.

~~~
aidos
I'd hope that most conservatives don't attach that justification to welfare
cuts. You effectively said that they would be happy to punish the vulnerable
to ensure that those taking advantage of the system would also be punished. I
Am Not A Conservative, but I'm fairly sure most of them would be horrified
with that categorisation.

I didn't downvote you, I do agree that you can't just say one or other thing
is objectivley better. I think your example missed the mark though.

------
golemotron
The best thing I've read about political differences is the book Predisposed
[http://www.amazon.com/Predisposed-Liberals-Conservatives-
Pol...](http://www.amazon.com/Predisposed-Liberals-Conservatives-Political-
Differences/dp/0415535875)

It makes the argument (supported by copious research) that there are
biological correlations of conservatism and liberalism with disgust reflex,
taste in food and art, perceptual cues and threat response. I'm not convinced
that they have the direction of causation settled but it is interesting
research. Conservatives and Liberals literally see the world differently. No
surprise that logic doesn't work to help either side sway the other.

~~~
lexcorvus
This sort of research only makes sense if you use an expansive definition of
"liberal" and "conservative". From a historical perspective, it makes hardly
any sense at all. For example, Englishmen in 1590 presumably split into
"liberal" and "conservative" camps as defined by such research, and yet
essentially _everyone_ was ridiculously reactionary by modern standards, in
that most people were monarchists who supported the personal rule of a queen.
This suggests that the liberal/conservative divide, while real, need not
necessarily bleed into politics. It's democracy, of course, that changed the
game.

------
nostromo
> There are three reasons why I disagree with this explanation. The first is
> that value questions are objective, and moral anti-realism is completely
> unjustified.

This is probably the longest-running debate in human history, and he dismisses
it completely with a link to his undergraduate paper on the subject.

Putting that aside, the problem with this argument is it doesn't allow for
changing beliefs. If we are only driven by fitting in with our group, then no
political views would ever change as they wouldn't ever reach critical mass.

Just look at the changing opinions of gay marriage. Political views absolutely
do change over time, and they can change very quickly. Yet this paper is all
about how that is impossible.

> I have witnessed few political conversions, so the most I can offer is
> speculation as to how one might occur.

I feel like this is an admission that the paper is entirely speculative.

~~~
ilaksh
Looks like we have a political disagreement. Beliefs can change, but they
usually do not change quickly or easily. That's why we call them beliefs.

~~~
TheGRS
I believe OP was referring more to the hockey stick model of wide-spread
change in political beliefs. It is a very, very long road toward a change in
the public's perception of some issue, such as equal rights or gay marriage,
but there often seems to be some tipping point where the minority view becomes
the majority in a very short amount of time. Also see legalization of
marijuana, prohibition and women's suffrage.

------
VLM
Is irrationality in politics a bad thing? The article seems to assume so, I'm
not so convinced.

If you follow the "opiate of the masses" theory then the bigger the spectacle
the better people are fooled into thinking their votes matter etc resulting in
theoretically less social unrest, and the more yelling and sloganeering about
politics, the less demonstrating and violence.

Another way to look at it is something that is rational is by definition no
longer political. We can't have a political discussion about that subroutines
memory leak, or how to fix it. Perhaps its not possible to have a rational
discussion about an irrational lifestyle subject, aka a political topic. If it
were not a non-actionable non-relevant opinion based evidence free discussion
topic, by definition it wouldn't be political. So worrying about politics
being irrational is like worrying about cats being excessively feline-like.
Its not a bug, is the definition of the topic.

~~~
aylons
You can't have a political discussion about subroutines memory leak because
this is not about politics. But surely people get irrational about technical
topics, from programming languages to the last gadget. I see these discussions
all the time, even on HN.

People get passionate and irrational about a lot of themes, but politics seems
to potentialize this and this article tries to discuss this topic. And the
article makes a point of making a distinction about being irrational and
having some preference or belief.

------
sjtrny
No mention of believing what your parents told you to believe (consciously or
otherwise). This seems to be the biggest factor among people I know.

~~~
refurb
Or the idea that you rebel against whatever politics your parents held.
Conservative parents? I'm a liberal! Liberal parents? I'm a conservative!

------
EGreg
Because people selectively cherry-pick facts to support the narratives they
are invested in, and in doing so become more invested. Both narratives can be
supported using data, provided one interprets the data in a certain way. Same
with religions. Very rarely does a slam dunk case appear totally disproving
one particular explanatory narrative.

Karl Popper's "Science as Falsification" essay is very useful here.

And furthermore, many of the propecies are self-fulfilling. For example, if
atheism were true, it is still the case that Jews around the world have never
forgotten about Israel and Jerusalem and have at long last returned there.

You can also see this in technical fields. The Black-Scholes valuation model
may or may not have been a good way to price derivatives, but once everyone
started using it, it BECAME the best way to price derivatives because everyone
used it.

~~~
WalterBright
Doesn't this imply that all political opinions and regimes are essentially
equivalent?

~~~
EGreg
No

------
nikdaheratik
I'll give the OP points for ambition, but I believe the article leans too much
on Psychology for explanations rather than Political Science. This makes
sense, if you are looking for the conclusion that people are irrational, but I
don't find this satisfactory.

My personal view, from reading Jonathan Bernstein's blog and his take from a
Political Science view, is that people hold _strong_ and _weak_ political
beliefs/preferences and people are rational about both, but apply different
standards depending upon whether they are a strong or weak belief.

For example, a person may have a strong preference that abortion should be
illegal. They would have thought about this issue a great deal and have
rational reasons why they feel this way. However, the political party that is
in favor of passing laws to restrict abortion is made up of constituents that
are also in favor of less regulation of firearms and also capital punishment
so the person who really cares about the abortion issue (their _strong_
beliefs) may also take cues from the party elites about gun control and
capital punishment (as _weak_ political beliefs).

It may seem irrational/inconsistent for someone who argues about the sanctity
of life when talking about abortion to also be in favor of capital punishment
(which involves taking of lives) or gun control (which also can result in a
number of deaths by firearms). However, if the person really cares about
changing the laws on abortion and may not care as much about the other policy
areas they are perfectly willing to go along with the position of the elites
in the party/coalition and make these less rational arguments without too much
dissonance since they don't actually care that much about the weaker beliefs.

So political change is both possible and rational. It can be effected either
be getting a large number of people to care about this single issue (making it
their _strong_ belief) or getting party elites/actors convinced your position
is the correct one and knowing that the other people in the coalition will
take your side as long as you also go along with the beliefs that they value
most.

~~~
thatcat
Using the word belief makes it sound like we're discussing religion here
rather than politics. A belief is an attitude toward the likely truth of
something. It isn't possible to literally believe in guns or abortions, one
can only have opinions regarding their proper usage. This is likely why OP
finds political discussions irrational - he is investigating political
"beliefs" and when it becomes a debate of Truth by believers rather a debate
about the best policy for the context from people with varying perspectives
and opinions then of course nothing can be conceded; beliefs are fixed by
faith while opinions can vary considerably.

------
ilaksh
Human rationality is a myth.

------
calibraxis
Weird, this gives false choices. (Or I've missed the discussion of
propaganda.) Massively-funded propaganda specifically promotes things like
"Beliefs as self-image constructors" and "Beliefs as tools of social bonding".

~~~
xnull2guest
Now propaganda makes it onto mass social media campaigns. Techniques include
propagandizing "nudging" 'social influencers' who are hubs of social bonding
and information. The US is known to use celebrities in their Twitter campaigns
targeting the Middle East.

Can you speak more about what literature you are aware of?

~~~
calibraxis
Bernays' 1928 book "Propaganda" is an entertaining intro. He's considered the
father of modern public relations. It reads like satire, except he was
serious.
([http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html](http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html))

Many like the BBC documentary "The Century Of The Self", on the origins of
modern PR. (Easy to find online.) Nowadays of course, the field is way more
advanced.

Noam Chomsky's done well-known work in this area. His books are dry, but he
gives enjoyable talks, zillions of which are on youtube. For example:
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPKH6BVcoM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPKH6BVcoM))

~~~
xnull2guest
Thank you, I was aware of these. Chomsky is a must, but he's so anarchist its
easy to fall into an intellectual trap. Great resources.

I would add, to understand propaganda's current direction, the work of Cass
Sunstein (whose Wikipedia article also reads farcically) including "Democracy
and the Problem of Free Speech" and "Nudge". The father of "liberal
paternalism" and "choice architecture", the Wikipedia article is full of great
nuggets: “in light of astonishing economic and technological changes, we must
doubt whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is
adequately serving democratic goals.”

Cass Sunstein was the Administrator of the Obama Administration's Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs.

