Political Partisanship on the Brain

"Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds," according to Live Science. The article continues:

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.

Whole thing here.

Now if the researchers had experimented on libertarians….

Many kudos to Jeff Patterson from over at Gravity Lens for the link.

Comments

[Jennifer]

See, guys? I told you libertarians need to appeal to emotion rather than reason to win voters over!

[theCoach]

Jennifer,
Reason would suggest that Libertarians appeal to emotion, but that conflicts with their ideology.

[Jennifer]

that conflicts with their ideology.

Yeah, so does winning elections.

Snark, snark, snark.

[john sub d]

Oh, like this is a surprise?

[Matt]

Is it just me, or does a raving Carville kind of picture run through your mind while reading this? ::shudder::

[john sub d]

I take back my last. I’m surprised that any portion of the brain was being used..

[Jeff P.]

I fully expect mouthpieces from both parties to be OUTRAGED at this SLANDEROUS accusation from ACTIVIST scientists intent on no less that DESTROYING our way of life and the VERY PLANET ITSELF!

[Kid Handsome]

Ummm . . . who determines what cannot rationally be ignored? I want to see some sample questions.

[John]

Of course “libertarians” would never engage in this sort of thing or ever be guilty of faulty reasoning. Those distinctions are reserved for the followers of every other political ideology in history, except libertarianism.

[fyodor]

See, guys? I told you libertarians need to appeal to emotion rather than reason to win voters over!

I know you’re being tongue-in-cheek, Jennifer, but I should hasten to point out that what wins voters over was not what was being studied in this study.

I suspect the answer to that question, particularly with the sample in this study (ie, “staunch party members”) would be just about nothing at all.

[Jennifer]

I know you’re being tongue-in-cheek, Jennifer, but I should hasten to point out that what wins voters over was not what was being studied in this study.

No, it points out what doesn’t appeal to voters–namely, appeals to reason.

[mediageek]

“Reason would suggest that Libertarians appeal to emotion, but that conflicts with their ideology.”

Yes, but evidently we can conveniently ignore that fact to no ill effect.

[gaijin]

What’s striking to me is that any of this would be surprising (or even newsworthy at this point). “I will see it when I beleive it” is as old as faith and not limited to politics.

For a fun look at an actual experimental (with data and everything) in this domain, see

Vallone, R.P., Ross, L. & Lepper, M.R. (1985) The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perception and perceptions of media bias coverage of the Beirut Mssacre.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 577-585.

[fyodor]

it points out what doesn’t appeal to voters–namely, appeals to reason.

No, it doesn’t even address the issue. It only examines what happens in the brain when presented with “information that’s contrary to their point of view.”

BTW, I consider myself neutral on the matter of whether or not a candidate should take the high road or use whatever means necessary to win votes. I’d say offhand that there’s a place for both.

[Pro Libertate]

This reminds of when I made a joke back in my University of Florida days about running for student body president while wearing my gorilla suit (long story). Interestingly, I got huge pressure from the politicos at the school to actually do it. They figured there was no way I could lose. Of course, that would be okay if that sort of thing were limited to crazy college kids. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that a gorilla suit-attired candidate would at least beat out a serious third-party candidate in a presidential election. He might even do better if he had a good knowledge of the issues (“Our primate brethern must be freed!”, “Free bananas for everyone!”–that sort of thing). Maybe I should lend my gorilla suit to the next LP candidate. Couldn’t hurt.

[Eric the .5b]

I saw a guy dressed up as a cartoon-style female butterfly or moth in line to speak at the 2000 LP convention.

[Eric the .5b]

Jennifer:

No, it points out what doesn’t appeal to voters–namely, appeals to reason.

But will people who learn to play the game and appeal to reason and call their opponents traitors, etc. use the same reasoning to determine their actions in power? More concisely, will emotion-based politicians govern with reason? If not, that doesn’t seem a very useful approach.

[Jennifer]

But will people who learn to play the game and appeal to reason and call their opponents traitors, etc. use the same reasoning to determine their actions in power?

Well, on the thread in question, when I suggested “appeals to emotion” I meant things like, for example, persuading people that school vouchers are a good idea by finding a nice, bright kid currently trapped in a hellhole public school, as opposed to quoting a bunch of facts and statistics demonstrating that vouchers are superior to the system we have now.

[Eric the .5b]

finding a nice, bright kid currently trapped in a hellhole public school

And then they pull out class of nice, bright kids from a magnet public school, because they’re a hell of a lot better at appealing to emotion.

[thoreau]

There’s more to it than emotion. Libertarians are good at getting worked up and denouncing their opponents as evil, just like any other bunch of partisans.

It’s about putting a personal face on your issues. Denouncing a regulation as evil won’t be any more effective than being a consequentialist and rattling off numbers. What works is getting a little old lady who was hurt by the regulation and telling her story.

[Jennifer]

And then they pull out class of nice, bright kids from a magnet public school, because they’re a hell of a lot better at appealing to emotion.

The nice, bright kid I’m using lives in a city that doesn’t have magnet schools.

[John]

You make a good point Thoreau. A lot of libertarians come accross like 15 year olds telling their parents that they don’t need to ever cut their hair and get jobs or go to school or anything like that. Liberitarians too often phrase their positions in such a way that it seems to deny the existence of any problems outside of the government being too large. That leaves them wide open to liberals and big government types who dutifully point to a particularly nasty anicdote illustrating a problem and frame the arguement as a false choice between doing something and letting grandma starve or the puppy die. Libertarians and believers in small government would get a lot farther if they would frame their arguments in a more positive tone as market sollutions or by pointing out the value of freedom in solving social problems rather than just blythy claiming that the government shouldn’t be able to tell people what they can and cannot do.

[Eric the .5b]

What works is getting a little old lady who was hurt by the regulation and telling her story.

But that’s narrative, not emotion.

[Eric the .5b]

A lot of libertarians come accross like 15 year olds telling their parents that they don’t need to ever cut their hair

Except for the libertarians being, you know, adults. You’re never going to be able to completely get away from the whole “freedom” thing unless you just cede those issues.

[Jason Ligon]

No, no, no. This can’t be right. Democrats are not ideologues. They are the Reality Based Community. They keep telling me so, at least.

[Peter K.]

This just proves the obvious: In elections or debates, you win votes from the undecideds first, and the soft opposition second. You waste your time trying to convince, or undermine the beliefs of, the hard core opposition.

[thoreau]

Eric-

I agree, maybe I used the wrong choice of words. The bottom line is that you tell a story that appeals to people, rather than trying to make a philosophical point or overwhelm them with numbers.

[happyjuggler0]

I am outraged, incensed, horrified, indignant, and apalled that anyone is even suggesting that there is anything wrong with the way that liberatarians are trying to get elected.

Cough.

[happyjuggler0]

I am outraged, incensed, horrified, indignant, and apalled that anyone is even suggesting that there is anything wrong with the way that libertarians are trying to get elected.

Cough.

[happyjuggler0]

sorry about the double post. Waaaaaaaaaaah. 🙁

[John]

A good example of small government rethoric is Reagan’s “government is not the sollution but the problem slogan”. Implicit in that is the idea that people could solve thier own problems but they are just being prevented from doing so by the government. There is no small amount of feel good cheerleading going on there. But, it succeeded and painting liberals as the glum, patronizing, elitists that they are. Really that is what social programs at heart are saying; “you, the people, are too stupid and too opressed to help yourselves, so therefore we need to take your money and let smart people like us spend it for you and ensure that it is spent for your own good.” Put in that light, liberals don’t look so good anymore.

Admittedly, making the small government argument can be hard sometimes because the sollution is often counter intuitive and liberal sollutions are often very seductive in a superficial way. For example, it sounds so simple to say that people need affordable housing, therefore, let’s just make a law that landlords can only charge a certain amount in rent. Anyone who has taken a basic economics course knows of course that doing that will ensure that there is no affordable housing, but at a simplistic level, it makes sense. Indeed, there are millions of otherwise smart people who beleive such nonsense and go through life thinking that they are the “reality based community.”

[Eric the .5b]

The bottom line is that you tell a story that appeals to people

I agree.

[linguist]

One quick word of caution: any scientist who claims that “we know/understand” what certain neural pathways are for, in any brain imaging study, deserves to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

That said, I haven’t read this study and won’t have time to anytime soon…and the reported results sound interesting.

[Brett]

In memory of the departed Matt Welch, I will regurgitate one of his favorite quotes from Vaclav Havel, which seems to fit here…

“Why bother with the never ending, genuinely hopeless search for truth when a truth can be had so readily, all at once, in the form of an ideology or doctrine? Suddenly it is all so simple. Think of all the difficult questions which are answered in advance!”

[happyjuggler0]

What cracks me up is when “they” argue that real estate developers need to go through zoning board approvals and NIMBY community hearing approvals etc., and then also claim that rents are too high. D’oh! The two are cause and effect.

Also, “they” are unhappy when someone builds high end apartments or condos, but without including “affordable housing” in the project. new high end living units mean that people are giving up living units priced somewhere below those high prices, and others are also giving up still lower priced living units to move intot he newly vacated units, etc. Thus, building high end units has the effect of creating affordable housing simply from “moving” arbitrage.

[Captain Holly]

Libertarians and believers in small government would get a lot farther if they would frame their arguments in a more positive tone as market sollutions or by pointing out the value of freedom in solving social problems rather than just blythy claiming that the government shouldn’t be able to tell people what they can and cannot do.

That approach has worked well with concealed carry laws. Most proponents explain them in the context of everyone should have the right to defend themselves against criminals. It is successful because it appeals to the basic human instinct of self-preservation and need for security.

The fact that the anti-gunners are so over-the-top in their opposing arguments (“blood in the streets!”) doesn’t hurt, either.

[Again]

Substitute “Democrats and Republicans” with “human beings” and the opening conclusion is just as true.

Read “How We Know What Isn’t So” by Gilovich. Human beings are pre-designed to readily accept information that fits in with their pre-copnceived notions and similarly designed to be skeptical of information that doesn’t.

This goes for Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Marxists, Fasicsts, Anarchists, Pacifists, Fundamentalists, Atheists, Researchers, etc.

If you think it doesn’t apply to you too, then such a belief is concrete evidence that, in fact, it does.

[happyjuggler0]

Again,

You may be right, but I still think self-identified libertarians are more likely to use reason when confronted with evidence contrary t our beliefs. We are among the few in this country who were not raised to believe in our political beliefs, we had to figure it out ourselves. Therefore our beliefs are grounded in logic while many/most others are grounded in parental upbringing, with all the emotional baggage that ensues.

This does not mean that self-identified libertarians as a group would ace the “test”, just that we are more likely to continue applying our reasoning abilities to the issue at hand, as always.

I want to take the test now, but of course I’m a “contaminated” subject now. I would of course try to reason things out now that I know this is the way to get an A. 🙂

[anon]

This reminds of when I made a joke back in my University of Florida days about running for student body president while wearing my gorilla suit (long story). Interestingly, I got huge pressure from the politicos at the school to actually do it. They figured there was no way I could lose. Of course, that would be okay if that sort of thing were limited to crazy college kids. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that a gorilla suit-attired candidate would at least beat out a serious third-party candidate in a presidential election. He might even do better if he had a good knowledge of the issues (“Our primate brethern must be freed!”, “Free bananas for everyone!”–that sort of thing). Maybe I should lend my gorilla suit to the next LP candidate. Couldn’t hurt.

Or how about the Pirate Captain?

[happyjuggler0]

I didn’t follow the link, perhaps I should have. Nevertheless I can’t help but think the test may be flawed. Any libertarian who was conducted a face to face debate with someone who is not famliliar with the libertarian concepts and ideas knows the “other” side is sooner or later likely to get heated and say something like: “How dare you suggest that drugs should not be illegal? Drugs are evil and should be illegal.”. If one assumes that drug use is bad, and I won’t even go into risk/reward concepts, then it does not necessarily follow that making them illegal is the best way to reduce harm. It is possible to be opposed to drugs, and also be opposed to drug prohibition for practical reasons. But you won’t even get to the logic part of their brain, they just emotionally lash out at you and think you are a bad, irresponsible person.

Come back and back again over days, weeks, or even months or years and it often sinks in. This is why it so important to get coverage of libertarians for public office in an official debate. We may not convince many people at all, not at first, but we will plant the seed in their mind that their way may not be best. Then the next time a libertarian candidate (of any party) comes around they may get a fair, open-minded hearing. Or more open-minded anyway.

[Pro Libertate]

anon,

Exactly. Of course, if I’d done this back in 1987, I would’ve been on Letterman and feted as a god. Oh, well.

Brett,

I’ve been watching Michael Palin’s Himalaya series, and, in one of the episodes, he interviewed the Dalai Lama. During the interview, the question came up about who impressed the Dalai Lama the most of today’s political figures. He said, Vaclav Havel. I wonder if that makes his Lamaship a libertarian? Or if that kind of endorsement might get Havel the secretary generalship?

[Brett]

Pro Libertate,

I must be out of the TV loop as I’ve never heard of that series. I assume we’re talking about the Monty Python Michael Palin?

I certainly think his Lamaship’s experience with big authoritative government might have influenced his thoughts on the subject. Unless he’s been in Hollywood too long.

I’m no big fan of the UN, but just might have to give them another chance if Havel was named SG.

[Bonar Law]

More research from the Institute for the Blindingly Obvious!

What else should these geniuses study?

Wait, I know — how about examining heavy drinkers and find out from brain-scans whether their motor reflexes have been impaired.

[Again]

“You may be right, but I still think self-identified libertarians are more likely to use reason when confronted with evidence contrary t our beliefs.”

And that would also be part of the same phenomenon. Consistently in polls where people are asked to self-evaluate their positive traits like honesty and open mindedness, the polls come in where 80 to 90 percent of the people believe they are more honest or open minded than the average person. By defintion many of those people are, of course, incorrect. People tend to favor information that fits in with their beliefs, and they also often think their beliefs are more widely held than they actually are.

I’m not saying you are incorrect in your theory about libertarianism, just that most people tend to think of themselves as more open minded than others. Remember, someone who comes on here espousing Marxist theories or the beauties of central planning aren’t exactly going to be met with the most reasoned of queries.

I’m not trying to rag on anybody, I’m just trying to suggest an excellent book that does a fascinating job of explaining how and when we make errors in our reasoning. And the “we” in that sentence is critical: you, me, Gilovich, everybody.

Here’s a good example: I’m a libertarian who is puzzled by the beauty and wonderfulness of Chicago’s lakefront. It’s all (or it used to be) public property, designed and engineered by a single person (Daniel Burnham) and it is simply a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing made possible by government ownership of property and onerous zoning restrictions to preserve that property for public use.

It came about through a variety of things that I remain staunchly against, and yet the lives of Chicagoans are that much richer for having it. So the question is: how do I fit this clearly contradictory information into my existing world view?

[Eric the .5b]

A rational libertarian worldview doesn’t require that absolutely everything done by the government be horrible, ugly and wrong. This is especially true for the minarchist majority that wants government to do some things.

[jeffiek]

It came about through a variety of things that I remain staunchly against, and yet the lives of Chicagoans are that much richer for having it. So the question is: how do I fit this clearly contradictory information into my existing world view?

You acknowledge that you’re only seeing part of the picture. The damage done through those things you’re staunchly against is unseen. The benefits are what is seen.

Which is greater? Ask a statist and a libertarian and you’ll get two different answers. The libertarian can back his response with logic, the statist can’t. What’s the real answer in this particular case? You’ll never know. Governments are made of humans, they are by definition imperfect and therefor cannot get everything wrong .

That’s just the way to bet.

[Stevo Darkly]

Maybe I should lend my gorilla suit to the next LP candidate. Couldn’t hurt.

Or how about the Pirate Captain?

Link:

By an overwhelming majority, the Raleigh school last week elected a candidate called “The Pirate Captain” student body president, giving the old sea dog 58 percent of the vote.

Some staunch partisans will simply vote for anybody with an “Arrrrrrrrrr!” after their name.

[Shem]

The libertarian can back his response with logic, the statist can’t

Actually, I would say that the libertarian can back his response with empirical evidence, not logic. The Statist position is just as logical, it’s just that experience doesn’t bear it out. Don’t confuse being right and being logical. Anyone with a BA in philosophy can construct a crazy-ass argument that’s perfectly logical, but falls apart when it touches the real world.

[Dan T.]

I didn?t read every post carefully, but I do wonder if anybody has noticed the irony of this study?

Namely, if this study is correct, you?ll only believe the results of it if you already believe that people can?t be swayed by rational arguments and ignore information that contradicts their beliefs. If you don?t believe that, you?ll simply ignore the results of the study, right?

In other words, all people fall into two categories: people who correctly believe the results of the study are correct, and people who dismiss the correct results of the study because they didn?t hold a comparable viewpoint beforehand.

[thoreau]

Dan T.-

There is no irony in science. Science is serious business. I refuse to believe that there could be anything ironic about this study!

[James Anderson Merritt]

I wish libertarians (and Libertarians) had been included in the study, or will be included in a future one. I’m a “staunch libertarian,” for instance, but endeavor to keep an open mind; I often find myself considering opposing arguments seriously, if for no better reason than to educate myself about the opposition and construct or adapt counter-arguments. I’m wondering if such activity would have been indicated by the monitors, and how often the researchers would have seen it in my fellow libertarians.

This is not to assert that such mental activity has any benefit at all in politics. But, as people are quick to tease libertarians for being “different,” I am just wondering if there is any scientific basis for the insult. If libertarians are just like others in terms of the mental activity studied on this occasion, then perhaps libertarians ought simply to give in to emotion and gladly eat those who would subdue them.

[science]

“That libertarians could better reason their cases merely means that they have better cases and that any “contradictions” they are presented with are probably false. Nonetheless, their first reaction will almost certainly be emotional and seemingly preconceived.”

I must put in my two cents here and support Again’s comments. If libertarians think that they have better cases and that contradictions presented to them are false, they are proving the generalizability of the results of the study. All of the parties (humans as a group) base their beliefs on something that they see as reasonable. To do this requires a healthy ability to deny the parts of the model that don’t fit with reality.

I would also like to add, that work by Antonio Damisio and his group clearly shows that those who do not include emotional responses to issues as part of their rational decision making are showing signs of brain dysfunction.

So, anyone claiming libertarians are not responding mainly to the emotional resonance of the arguments to their particular world-view are claiming that libertarians have brain dysfunction.

Not that there aren’t some good candidates on Hit&Run on occasion, I bet it’s not true for the group.

[MikeP]

If libertarians think that they have better cases and that contradictions presented to them are false, they are proving the generalizability of the results of the study.

This is patently wrong. This study says absolutely nothing about the actual truth of the positions or the cases people can offer to support them. It only says that people who staunchly hold a position react emotionally when offered a contradiction.

If the psychologists here offer a mathematician a lengthy and involved proof, the result of which is that 1=0, he will no doubt react emotionally, certain that the contradiction is false. Given time he can go through every step of the proof and find the place where two sides of an equality were divided by 0. But what their brain scans will show when he first views the proof is an emotional reaction.

The fact that he is right with absolute and universal certainty does nothing to dispell the fact that his first reaction will be emotional.

I for one would love to see what “contradictions” were offered by the researchers. I wonder whether they didn’t bring more bias into the experiment than the test subjects did. Perhaps we’ll hear about it from the lead researcher on another of his NPR commentaries.

[Pro Libertate]

Brett, Michael Palin has been doing a whole string of travel shows (with associated books) for the BBC for quite some time. I really enjoy the shows, even though they aren’t in any way “Python”. It’s amazing what a wealthy, fairly senior guy like Palin subjects himself to. Check out the offical Palin’s Travels web site for more information.

Stevo, I think a pirate could become mayor here in Tampa. In a few days, we’ll be enjoying our annual invasion of pirates, where they hypnotize women into revealing various body parts for $0.03 beads. Which is a phenomenon that also deserves further study.

[science]

Mike P

Ahhh but you miss the point. And to say anything is patently wrong shows an emotional reaction to someone else’s point, not a reasoned one. Your argument did not even touch on the point I made, but it satisfied your emotional need to defend your position. You chose to see me as wrong, rather than holding a legit position that is different than yours. Contradictions to the position you hold on politics aren’t “right” or “wrong” like a math equation. They are just contradictory. There is no absolute truth in this arena.

Your conclusion that your case is better than someone elses in the fuzzy world of politics is always, by definition, based on your emotional reaction to the position and how it fits into your world view. If this were not the case, if you were operating and making your decisions based solely on a logical analysis of the issue, you would be operating in a decidely unusually manner, indicating dysfunction in important centers for rational thought (i.e., you emotional reaction helps you make up your mind which argument is the best for you based on all sorts of implicit information that you cannot access explicitly).

Your reaction of “patently false” is a reaction to information you feel is implicit in my statement. You are having an emotional reaction to the suggestion that some of the libertarian philosophy is based on emotion rather than reason. I did not ostensively say as much. But if you feel that your position is more valid than another in the world of politics, and you believe that it is better because it is based on a more rational/reasonable examination of the facts, you are proving Again’s point, and mine.

You, like everyone, believe that your beliefs are based on firm ground. You believe you are a better than average driver/lover/ and thinker. It is natural, but has NOTHING to do with the reality of the facts of a situation or some superior ability to reason about society and solutions to its problems.

And to be precise, I should have said you support the conclusions of the study, not the results. The results don’t say anything beyond which part of the brain is active during the study activity. Inference from their is all pretty subjective.

[MikeP]

And to say anything is patently wrong shows an emotional reaction to someone else’s point, not a reasoned one.

My reaction was entirely reasoned. You used the word “prove”. “Prove” has a very strong meaning, and to claim that the inferences suggested by this study and by prior psychological research “prove” that libertarian positions can’t be rationally supported is patently wrong. While they may provide evidence of such, they do not prove it.

Contradictions to the position you hold on politics aren’t “right” or “wrong” like a math equation. They are just contradictory. There is no absolute truth in this arena.

It is rare to see such naked moral relativism. Surely you realize that few if any libertarians would agree with this position. And surely you realize that such a belief belies a rational basis for decisions at all, invalidating the original experiment in toto.

I don’t disagree with most of what you are saying. People do react emotionally when their positions are challenged. People do try to rationalize their positions to agree with their emotions.

But I believe that truth is somewhat more rationally knowable than you do. And I believe that at least some emotions of some people result from internalizing the conclusions of prior rational thought.

I might make stronger claims, but I fear you’d think I was reacting emotionally.

[science]

“by prior psychological research “prove” that libertarian positions can’t be rationally supported is patently wrong. While they may provide evidence of such, they do not prove it.”

I did not suggest that the libertarian position can’t be rationally supported. I claimed that a libertarian claim that their position is more likely to be correct, and therefore contradictions to it are more likely incorrect (i.e., not based on the facts), is the result of an emotional evaluation of the situation that is unlikely to be supported by objective reality. Holding such a position supports the conclusions of the study.

The claim I am making is that libertarian positions are NO MORE rational than many others, not that they are NOT rational. As for your evaluation of my original statement… use of the word “prove” and “result” was sloppy on my part, but this is just an internet thread.

Let me rephrase,

The suggestion made by many libertarians on this thread that their positions are, unlike others, based on rational and correct assessment of the facts suggests that they have the same blind spot to contradictory evidence that is suggested by the conclusions of this study. To hold a position that says libertarians are basing their postions on the correct version of the facts, while others are using degraded information, incorrect assumptions and the like is more realistically the result of a bias in your world view than it is a description of objective reality.

The claim that proper assessment of objective reality leads to a libertarian philosophy is patently silly. But it is a claim I see floated on Hit&Run frequently (yea, even in this very thread).

Re:”It is rare to see such naked moral relativism. Surely you realize that few if any libertarians would agree with this position. And surely you realize that such a belief belies a rational basis for decisions at all, invalidating the original experiment in toto.”

Again, I will refer you to the work of A. Damisio. There is an element of emotional response in all rational thought. Lack of emotional response leads to less valid reasoning, not more valid. I realize that many libertarians would disagree with the postion I put forward…”moral relativism” and all. Predicting the reaction does not invalidate the point.

It is unreasonable to assume that any schematic model of reality (i.e., the libertarian world view) is close enough to reality to be taken as more than an approximation, a best guess, an educated stab in the dark. To claim otherwise is not patently false, but shows a lack of appreciation of the difference between objective reality and our access to that reality through the perceptual-emotional systems of our brain.

Be aware of the emotinal underpinnings of your beliefs, and don’t take a challenge to your positions as a challenge to your worth, and you may be able to get past a blind spot in your reality checking devices that this study suggests dominates in the thinking of all staunch supporters of a particular position, libertarian, communist, or otherwise.

[MikeP]

science,

Let’s try looking at your argument rationally:

1. People react emotionally to challenges to their positions.
2. Some positions cannot be supported rationally.
2. Libertarians are people.
3. Therefore, libertarian positions are NO MORE rational than many others.

You may think the “some” in statement 2 should be “all”, at least in the domain of politics. In that case your conclusion would be correct.

But I am curious why you said libertarian positions are no more rational than many others. Why not “any”? Clearly you are putting some ordering of rationality on political positions. Why can there not be a most rational position? Why does someone claiming his is most rational automatically demonstrate he is being emotional? Why does it apparently invalidate any attempt by him to support his claim by rational argument?

I don’t think I’m the one who is making claims outside the rationally defensible.

[science]

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Your above analysis is correct as far as it goes (although I don’t think I made the first of the claims represented by you as “2”). But it is unrelated to my main points.

I am claiming that there is an emotional component to rationality… to claim otherwise shows a poor understanding of how human brains work. That is the point, not that there is no gradient for rationality in logical arguments. You assume a false dichotomy between emotional and rational approaches to problems. I am claiming there is not such a dichotomy.

As to validity of libertarianism in general. Some on the thread were arguing that the libertarian position was based on FACTS, and that other positions, by definition in disagreement with libertarianism, were therefore not based on facts. The implication of this position is that the libertarian, when faced with a position in disagreement with their own (as in the study task), would be facing something different than the person with the opposing position (dems/repubs in the study).

The claim is that the libertarian is facing someone making FALSE claims, while the person in opposition to the libertarian position is facing not a FALSE claim, but only a claim that contradicts with their own FALSE claim.

If you believe the above, and use it to argue that the libertarian is therefore less likely to react to the opposing argument emotionally, then you do not understand human nature (you, by the way, did not make this claim), and are providing an example in reality to support the conclusions suggested by the study. You support the study conclusions by ignoring the possibility (or at least minimizing it) that your own beliefs are based more on your emotional reaction to the argument as a function of implicit processing of inputs over a lifetime than they are on a accurate model of the external universe.

As to the gradient nature of rational arguments, there is certainly some positions that are better than others. It is not necessary that there be a best argument, however. And the wider a field you try to apply your argument to, the smaller the chance it is the best across the entire field.

When we are discussing libertarianism as an approach to problems, we are discussing a model for the world that attempts to generalize across situations. It is unlikely that any single model will be the best for all situations. It will apply to some more than others, and the main disagreements will be regarding which model is best to address a particular problem. A staunch libertarian will be one who believes that their model fits all situations better than any other model and will therefore defend his/her model despite the evidence, not in accordance to the evidence. In this sense, libertarians are just like everyone else.

Again, if you want to understand the role of emotion in rational thought, don’t take my word for it. Read Damasio’s work, and evaluate it for yourself. He deals with individuals who have had the emotional centers of their brains eliminated by trauma and examines the impact this has on their ability to form and act upon rational plans to solve real problems in the world. They retain all logical skills, can remember the facts, explain the advantages and disadvantages of a position… but fail to act according to the most rational plan. Why? Because they fail to have an emotional reaction to the decision. Emotional-rational are not ends of a continuum, so I applaud your ability to incorporate emotions in your rational thinking. If you can’t, you have brain damage. Some on this thread have claimed that they are operating without emotion (you included, I now believe, but that may be unfair) when they choose libertarian solutions to problems. If this is the case, they are acting like an individual with a specific brain deficit that has been shown to be maladaptive.

Understanding the emotional underpinnings of rational thinking should help you avoid some of the traps inherent in approaching our complex world. Simplified models of reality (e.g., communism, libertarianisms) are very limited in their ability to help you recognize verdicality when you are faced with it.

Please avoid responding to points I have not made.