The Psychology of Politics
I am planning an article for next month's column on the psychology of politics. A lot has been written about the personality, etc of D. Trump, and I have already written a column about the psychology of populism (mobilizing fear, anger, hatred) See: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17718035/The%20Power%20of%20the%20Shout.docx
I have thought about doing something on the polarization of political points of view. Much of this phenomenon is a psychological way of dealing with the human inability to deal comfortably with ambiguity, and a need for certainty. At least this accounts for some strongly held political stances.
Racist/non-racist, pro-abortion/pro-rights, for and against gay marriage, etc. are examples. I am not the first person to write about how there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue, so I want to think about the psychology of politics from a fresh point of view.
For quite awhile I have wanted to write about " Are We Smarter Than Our Congressmen?", but there is not much objective material , for example, on the IQ's of individual congressmen. I would start with the fact that the general population believes strongly in climate change, yet congress has repeatedly refused to take any action. I suppose much of the entrenchment is political response to lobbyists, and the need for individual congressmen/women to engage in "political speak" which might be different than what they privately believe. Is there a psychological issue here? I mean the two-minds theory which gets them off the hook. They can't really be that dumb about climate change, can they? But this issue may have to wait. I could not get my local former congressman to respond.
So what is a focus of psychology of politics which is current? It changes every day. If I go with the polarization issue, there is some new TED talk stuff on tolerance for the "other" point of view, but it doesn't seem to plow much ground. I like the idea of facing our own inner (and maybe unacknowledged ) need for black-white thinking, but where to take it? I don't want to just moralize. Psychology, as a discipline, should be more factual, and observe, for example, psychological development of the person's participation in a democratic process. Yet it can't be too theoretical, and for the majority of the readership of the column, probably needs to be a little bit "pop" psychology, as an article on "Are We Smarter....." would be.
Maybe something like,"Your Vote and Mine: Are We at Odds?" or "Voting as a Human Act: Are There Any Grey Areas?
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I'm glad you wrote on this topic! One thing I am trying to do is to find out how "The Other" comes to believe the way he or she does, even though we may have very different points of view. Doing this helps me at least understand "The Other" a bit more, even though I probably would not adopt his/her position.
ReplyDeleteAnd a response to "stupidity": it may not just be kow-towing to lobbyists, but it may also be pandering to a group whose votes the politician wants. For example, I believe prior to the primaries for this past election, Mr. Trump was pro-choice. But when he realized he could garner many of the "Religious Right's" votes, he flip-flopped to a pro-life position, and thus gained the support of a bloc of many voters.
Then again, as far as climate change is concerned, I am unaware of any science courses Mt. Trump has taken, or how much scientifically based current issues/events articles he reads. many time a business-oriented person may just do what is expedient, not what is right for society or the future of the nation. In other words, if he can show that he has made the company or nation a "profit" in the short run without attending to the underlying infrastructure, many would not question the error of not considering intermediate- and long term effects of actions on the condition of the supporting infrastructure. However, it is my view that we MUST continue to update our infrastructure on a prioritized basis to keep our country working well.
Additionally, I wonder how much news and analysis people read. For many, not much. (If we can't put the work into understanding important issues from many sides, and contacting our congresspeople in our state and federal government, we get what we ask for in our leaders!)