In honor of your ending quotation from Langston Hughes, I have been thinking for some time that the next Democratic candidate for President should campaign on: “Make America America again”.
If you used the mental model, "Conservatives tend to uphold traditions and rules that have been in place for the last few generations" you would have been terrible at predicting the actual actions of "conservatives" over the last 20 years.
If you used the mental model "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." you would have been quite accurate in predicting the actual actions of "conservatives".
Our politics is filled with these definitions that are "common knowledge", yet seem to have almost no ability to predict the future. In terms of relevant incorrect myths I would add:
-Republicans are good for the budget deficit
-Scientists are always open to new ideas and respond to evidence (although this may be true for the idea of science in general, individual professional academics are fiercely defensive of their own ideas and unwilling to shift paradigms)
-Corporate executives are hyper rational long term planners
-Nonprofits/charities are altruistic and not self-interested
-Rich people earned their wealth through creating value for other people
-Hitting your children makes them behave better
You can provide mountains of evidence to show this common knowledge is utterly wrong, but a majority of people will simply go with what is common knowledge, which is extremely frustrating for those who have studied a specific issue at length. Evidence seems to have little impact, you need a powerful story (real or fictional) to get people to see the other side of things. Maybe the left should invest more in making movies/popular media or popularizing individual events which illustrate the counter-factual, because graphs and tables and actual human experience doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I guess Gramsci already had this figured out
A tad convoluted for the cheap seats but brilliant in showing up conservatives as the actual destroyers of American history and tradition and honoring liberals as upholding the revolutionary promise of America on its 250th birthday. Something worth celebrating on a national birthday that feels particularly un-celebratory.
No snark from me today, John, just frank appreciation for an excellent piece of work.
In honor of your ending quotation from Langston Hughes, I have been thinking for some time that the next Democratic candidate for President should campaign on: “Make America America again”.
If you used the mental model, "Conservatives tend to uphold traditions and rules that have been in place for the last few generations" you would have been terrible at predicting the actual actions of "conservatives" over the last 20 years.
If you used the mental model "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." you would have been quite accurate in predicting the actual actions of "conservatives".
Our politics is filled with these definitions that are "common knowledge", yet seem to have almost no ability to predict the future. In terms of relevant incorrect myths I would add:
-Republicans are good for the budget deficit
-Scientists are always open to new ideas and respond to evidence (although this may be true for the idea of science in general, individual professional academics are fiercely defensive of their own ideas and unwilling to shift paradigms)
-Corporate executives are hyper rational long term planners
-Nonprofits/charities are altruistic and not self-interested
-Rich people earned their wealth through creating value for other people
-Hitting your children makes them behave better
You can provide mountains of evidence to show this common knowledge is utterly wrong, but a majority of people will simply go with what is common knowledge, which is extremely frustrating for those who have studied a specific issue at length. Evidence seems to have little impact, you need a powerful story (real or fictional) to get people to see the other side of things. Maybe the left should invest more in making movies/popular media or popularizing individual events which illustrate the counter-factual, because graphs and tables and actual human experience doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I guess Gramsci already had this figured out
A tad convoluted for the cheap seats but brilliant in showing up conservatives as the actual destroyers of American history and tradition and honoring liberals as upholding the revolutionary promise of America on its 250th birthday. Something worth celebrating on a national birthday that feels particularly un-celebratory.
The quote from Hazlitt, alone, is worth the price of an annual subscription!