I.O.U. – Ideas in the main page have been condensed-and-revised from the less-revised versions in this page, so you should first read the main page. Eventually I'll thoroughly revise both pages — by comparing the two versions of a particular section (the newer version in the main page and in this page) and deciding what to add & subtract from each version, and revising each version — but for now (so I can move on to other projects) the main page has been more thoroughly revised.
Hostile Polarization: By contrast with respectful attitudes, currently an unfortunately common tendency is hostile polarization, with some people (especially when they're in groups) promoting disrespectful attitudes toward people who disagree with their beloved positions. This tendency is affected by many factors, including principles and pressures.
Important Principles: Sometimes an issue-position is considered extremely important, which tends to decrease the probability that an opposing view will be considered supportable by "good reasons, both logical and ethical." In this context, an opponent may be viewed as an enemy who must be defeated in “us versus them” warfare. But even though it's almost always wise to avoid "warfare" we shouldn't try to buy peace at the high cost of abandoning important principles. As explained above, "respect does not require agreement," and sometimes we should intensely pursue efforts to actualize "practical reality-based principles that can be used as a solid foundation (along with good values) for designing better life-strategies, for wise-and-effective thinking, decisions, and actions, as individuals & societies."
Interpersonal Pressures: To reduce disrespectful attitudes, accurate understanding is useful but isn't sufficient, because other factors also influence our thoughts & emotions, attitudes & actions. In extreme cases, especially in some politically-oriented groups (on both left & right), tribal attitudes develop when members of a group convince themselves that “we are smart, they are stupid” and “we are good, they are bad” and “they are a threat, are the enemy.” This kind of thinking, with not enough understanding and too much oversimplifying & overconfidence, can lead to un-critical groupthink and un-productive words & actions, online or in person. Interpersonal pressures occur when a person wants to be respected in a group where the social dynamics expect-and-reward a disrespectful attitude toward those who for any reason — including their “stupid and bad” views on issues that are important for the group's insiders — are defined as outsiders. Unfortunately, disrespectful attitudes toward "outsiders" is a common human tendency, and extreme doesn't mean uncommon. Attitudes have become increasingly polarized in the United States where instead of being united our citizens are now more divided, with less mutual respect. But maybe disrespect can become less common IF more people encourage their groups to socially reward those (both inside & outside the group) who try to promote peace by communicating more enjoyably and productively when there are disagreements.
A Rational Strategy for Teachers – Avoid Controversy
When a teacher accurately describes each view {and the best arguments for defending it} — so all views {and defenses} are described accurately and strongly — it will not be perceived by everyone as being NEUTRAL. This is due to both perception (because many people prefer a treatment-of-views that is biased in favor of their own view, and they consider a treatment to be neutral only if it's biased in the way they want) and reality (because it's impossible for a teacher to describe views in a way that is totally neutral). But teachers can try to be FAIR by aiming for accurate descriptions, treating different perspectives with respect, and providing access to high-quality resources where skillful advocates for various views each describe their own views, explain their logical reasoning, and criticize other views.
Unfortunately, students (and parents & others) who feel strongly about an issue-view can make life extremely unpleasant for a teacher who tries to promote a lively discussion with accurate-and-strong descriptions of all issue-views. Because of this, a teacher who wants to have an enjoyable life has a personally-rational reason to avoid controversy, and therefore to avoid this kind of “thinking skills” activity. Sigh. :<( {and there are other reasons to avoid “thinking skills” instruction} / Our teacher knew this. On the first day of class, and occasionally afterward, he would describe “ground rules” for productive discussions. His first rule was “don't be a nut” who would be angered by discussions that included strong-and-accurate descriptions of views they didn't like. This kind of anger was a cause for concern then in 1965, and is even more so now (especially in public schools) due to increases of hostile polarization in society.
clever and kind: My section about empathy in relationships (with empathy helping produce understanding-and-respect, and being produced by it) ends with an insightful self-observation by Abraham Heschel — who wisely said "when I was young, I admired clever people; now that I am old, I admire kind people" — and an educational application; with skillful Monday-plus-Tuesday activities, "teachers can help students, while they are still young, appreciate the value of being truly clever (with skills in creative-and-critical productive thinking to solve problems, to make things better) and also kind."
productive communication: Because respect does not require agreement, for important issues we (all of us, not just students) should not be timid or mentally lazy by accepting a foolish postmodern relativism claiming that “evidence-based confidence isn't possible” so “you should not claim your position is better, you should claim only that you prefer it.” Disagreeing with others, and clearly explaining why, should be socially acceptable. But we can help make the process of disagreeing about some things (while agreeing about most things in life) more enjoyable and productive. I'm still hoping (although with less optimism than before) that we can use productive communication — in an effort to achieve understandings and mutual respect — in a search for knowledge that is true & useful, and for actions that help make life better.
appropriate confidence is also appropriate humility: Improved understanding should promote an appropriate humility — with a logically-justifiable appropriate confidence that is not too little, not too much — instead of two errors-of-thinking described by Bertrand Russell: "error is not only the absolute error of believing what is false, but also the quantitative error of believing more or less strongly than is warranted by the degree of credibility properly attaching to the proposition believed, in relation to the believer's knowledge." Having appropriate humility — with logically-justified appropriate confidence, with belief that is not more strong than is warranted, and is not less strong than is warranted — will help a person avoid two of these three kinds of error.
inappropriate over-confidence: Let's look at two kinds of overconfidence – postmodern and personal – that happen when... • postmodernism is used to discredit the views of other people, and • a person is overconfident about their own personal views. { Both kinds of overconfidence are common in the politics of left & right, in supporters of both parties. }
• Although we might look at postmodernist relativism and say “they're too humble, with not enough confidence,” it's more accurate (and more useful) to see postmodernists as being unjustifiably over-confident in their strong claim that “NOBODY can have confidence in their beliefs” or — when postmodern relativists want to use their claim as an offensive weapon, trying to weaken an opponent — that “YOU cannot have confidence in your beliefs.” { The socio-political effects of postmodernism are complex; it's difficult to understand-and-describe how individuals & groups are affected, so the rest of this section is mainly about personal overconfidence, not postmodern relativism. }
• It's much more common to see people being over-confident about the logical justification for their own personal views, and the views of their in-groups. Why does this happen? and how?
over-confidence by individuals: Why are so many so confident? Because most of us become satisfied with the consistency and quality of our own beliefs-and-actions, after we've made adjustments in our beliefs & actions, and have done some rationalizing. A useful way to understand this aspect of human thinking is cognitive dissonance: when a person recognizes an inconsistency between two of their beliefs, or between their beliefs and actions, this recognition produces an unpleasant dissonance (it's a dissonance-of-thinking, a cognitive dissonance) within the person; most people respond by trying to reduce the dissonance, by making adjustments (in their beliefs or actions) so they can see their personal system of beliefs-and-actions as being internally consistent. And they want to persuade themselves that their system of beliefs-and-actions is not just internally consistent, but it also has high quality, it's better than other beliefs-and-actions they could choose. / How? A person can reduce their cognitive dissonance — by increasing their confidence in their own views, and against opposing views — in many related kinds of motivated reasoning.* As described above, they can adjust some of their ideas or actions. And if necessary they can rationalize by saying “my thoughts (or actions) are acceptable because ____” and filling the blank with a rationalization, as when thinking “the justifiability-and-consistency of my beliefs isn't perfect, but it's good enough,” or even using a postmodern self-defense by thinking “I don't have to justify my beliefs with evidence-and-logic because they're my personal beliefs that I'm entitled to have,” or in other ways. And they can increase their confidence in the evidence-and-logic for their view (and against other views) by changing their perception of the relevant evidence, or the logic they use for evaluation. For example,... With confirmation bias, they accept evidence that supports (confirms) their own view, but they reject evidence that de-supports (disconfirms) their view, or that supports an alternative view. Or they use gentle uncritical logic when evaluating the pros & cons for their own view, but not for other views; and they can shift the evaluative “burden of proof” so it favors their own belief by asking “can I believe this?” for the view they want to accept, and “must I believe this?” for a view they want to reject. Or... {there are other ways to increase confidence for individuals and for groups, as described in pages I've linked-to here.}
How? * motivated reasoning occurs when people (individually and in groups) "use emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe." {quoted from Wikipedia} {other sources}
Why? people (individually and in groups) have mixed motivations, combining logic and emotion; logically we want to have accurate understanding, but emotionally we want to have a positive self-image so we can feel good about ourselves (as individuals) and (as individuals in groups) we want to get respect from others and have supportive allies, and (as individuals & as groups) we want to win arguments and have a positive group-image.
over-confidence by groups: How? Earlier there is a summary of polarization, principles, and interpersonal pressures in groups. I won't say much more here, because the interactive dynamics of groups is more complex than the "ways to increase confidence" for individuals, and I still have a lot to learn before I try to write more about it. And also because you probably know much of the "how" already, from your own experiences in groups that are small and large, in person and online.
Should we be pessimistic? Maybe. At least we should be realistic. I think postmodernists "began with useful questions" by critically asking “what evidence do you want to find?” and “how are you evaluating the evidence?” but they have pushed their useful ideas to foolish extremes. As an optimistically confident educator, I want to believe that most people can be rational, or at least can become more rational. I describe the Reality Checks you make by comparing Predictions (based on “how you think the world is”) with Observations (of “how the world really is”) for the purpose of deciding whether to modify your worldview so it helps you more accurately see the world as it really is. But if some people (many people? most?) want to continue seeing the world in the ways they want to see it, even after they see evidence that logically should lead them to modify their views, the use of Reality Checks will be less effective. The students in our class "learned that IF we want accurate understanding we should get the best information and arguments that all position-views can claim as support." But maybe this "if" doesn't describe the way people often think, if instead we often want to see things in ways that support our own views, whether or not this is an accurate understanding of reality. But despite reasons for pessimism, I'm hoping more people will want to think-and-do in ways that lead to better understanding and more respect.
Soldier Mindset or Scout Mindset? I like the comparison of these different ways to think (with different goals for thinking) by Julia Galef, who explains why you think you're right - even when you're wrong (11:37). Soldiers & Scouts — The goal of a soldier is to be an effective fighter; for achieving this goal, it's useful to see things over-simplistically, to view yourself as “the good guy” (totally) and your opponent as “a bad guy” (totally) who deserves to be the enemy you hate, and fight. The goal of a scout is to find truth, to accurately know the current situation, to know the number of opposing soldiers, their locations, their equipment, and other relevant information; as a scout, you're trying to make observations that are correct, to serve as a solid foundation for a wise planning of strategies; to achieve this goal, it's useful to see things accurately, to view the world as it actually is. Julia ends (beginning at 7:38) by describing a Scout Mindset — "trying to get an accurate picture of reality, even when that's unpleasant or inconvenient" — and some emotional characteristics that motivate this way of thinking: being curious (wanting to learn, enjoying new discoveries); being willing to change views when it seems wise, after finding reasons for the change; being solidly grounded with feelings of self-worth that are not diminished by admitting “I was wrong” so you're free to wisely say “I'm trying to be less wrong than I was before.” By contrast, with a soldier mindset you would be thinking “I'm never wrong, so I must be correct now,” and your goal is to defend your current beliefs; if you change a belief, this would be admitting “I was wrong” and you would define the change as weakness, when you're thinking-and-feeling like a soldier. But when you're thinking-and-feeling like a scout, a change will be strength if the change is logically justified by what you've recently learned about reality; as a scout, your goal is to see the world clearly, the way it really is, to search for truth so your understanding will become more accurate.
Combinations of Soldier-and-Scout: {a disclaimer: This paragraph is mainly my ideas, not those of Galef, who I assume would agree with some (but not all) of what I'll say.} Nobody is purely soldier or purely scout. Each of us combines some of both, with our thinking-and-feeling occasionally near an extreme of all-soldier or all-scout, but usually somewhere between, a blending of soldier and scout, with their relative strength depending on the life-context. As emphasized by Galef, the key to scout mindset is motivation, it's wanting to see the world accurately, as it really is, to find truth. My hope is that a scout mindset will be used by more people, more often, in more aspects of their lives. But is this too optimistic? Often it seems more likely that many people will continue in their over-confidence in thinking and feeling that “my view is almost-totally correct, and those with other views are almost-totally wrong, because they are (to some extent) stupid and/or bad.” Why does this happen? One reason is because all of us have mixed motivations; we want to have accurate understanding, but we also want to win arguments and have supportive allies. When our main goals are wins & allies, a common strategy is to get knowledge as a scout (to improve understanding) and then use knowledge as a soldier (to win arguments & gain allies); unfortunately, when this happens and understanding is weaponized, often the overall result is increasing polarization and disrespect, instead of increasing mutual respect. / In addition to the metaphor-pair of soldier & scout, another useful pair (similar in some ways) is lawyer & judge; opposing lawyers argue for their views (as in soldiering) and (as in scouting) a judge tries to determine what is more accurate and/or more useful. Typically a judge (or jury) is the “audience” who gets conflicting information from the lawyer-debaters who argue for different views. By analogy, any person who is getting information about differing views may want to aim for neutrality, like an ideal judge. If they really want to be a neutral judge, they can try to understand-and-reduce the influences (coming from within themselves and from other people) that tend to make their judging be biased (either unintentionally, or consciously to pursue a goal-directed purpose) in ways that will help them achieve personal benefits in their self-image and in their groups, at the expense of neutral judging. {more about Julia Galef}
I.O.U. – This section is in a "brown box" because it's very rough & undeveloped. In the main page, my link to this sections says it will explain "why revisions of our electoral system would produce many positive effects (and some negative effects), but these revisons have been slow and limited." a revision: RANKED CHOICE for INSTANT RUNOFF [[ ranked-choice voting: with this system, a candidate cannot "win" unless they get more than 50% of the votes; this would produce many beneficial results, but probably it will never happen because many politicians in both parties will fight it, mainly (i think) for self-motivated reasons, not for the good of our country. ]] a revision: Final Five Primary Elections (plus Ranked Choice General Elections) would help reduce extremism, by helping moderates win elections. For example, 84% of the U.S. House can be elected by just 7% of Americans and many of these voters have views that are more extreme-left or extreme-right. a revision: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION [[ a benefit and non-benefit: with ranked-choice voting (RCV) one benefit is that people could vote for candidates of minor parties (3rd, 4th,...) without “wasting their vote” so these parties would get more visibility when society sees the many votes they're getting; but almost always, they won't get enough votes to win, instead major-party candidates will win, so RCV would not lead to representation among any other parties (3rd, 4th,...); so in practical ways — e.g. if third-party politicians were able to serve in office, as executives (mayor, governor, president) or legislators — ranked-choice voting would not provide any benefits for minor parties; one way to solve this problem of "no representation" is to change the system so there is... ]] [[ proportional representation would be a way for politicans in minor parties to serve in office — not as executives (mayor, governor, president) but in some parts of legislatures; e.g. at the national level, we could elect the president and senators in the usual way, although hopefully with Ranked Choice Voting; but the House of Representatives could have proportional representation; e.g. if based on population a state gets 10 representatives (reps), and if minor parties A & B get 10% & 20% of votes,* they'll get 1 rep & 2 reps, with the major parties splitting the other 7 reps, with their rep-numbers depending on their share of the votes. {* of course, math-formulas would be required, and these would have to be decided before an election, and this would lead to battles among major parties who each want the "rep splitting" to occur in ways that will benefit their own party; this would be sort of like the current geographic splitting of a state into districts, in a process where "gerrymandering" occurs when the party-in-power chooses to split districts in a way that will give them more reps. / e.g. math-fomulas (or more likely, math-tables) would be needed, regarding how to split the reps if two minor parties get vote-percents of 6 & 16 (so do they get 10% and 20% or the reps, or not?) and major parties get 32% & 42%) and several very-minor parties combine to get 4% of the vote; or if the vote-percents are "5 & 14, plus 31 & 42, with 8 split between very-minor parties," how should the representatives be split? because there are a huge number of possibilities, deciding on the math-formulas/tables (and thus the splitting of reps) would have to be very complex, to deal with all kinds of possibilities, and the splitting-criteria would be hotly debated. ]] EFFECTS — POSITIVE & NEGATIVE [[ I think almost all effects of ranked-choice voting would be very positive. But... it could be difficult-and-expensive to do it well, and (as we've seen in November-December 2020) it could lead to delayed reporting & contested results. ]] [[ with proportional representation, coalitions-between-parties would occur (would be pragmatically necessary) as in european (or israeli) systems, and this gets very complicated, with effects that are some-positive but also some-negative; and the balance of effects (positive vs negative) would be different for different issues. ]]
why parties have become ideologically purified with bigger differences, thus more polarization in the parties & in American society [[ historical, instigated by 1964 civil rights of Johnson (Democrat), taken political advantage of by Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon (Republican) in 1968, and within two decades the "sorting and purifying" was thorough. ]]
thinking "i've chosen X, so (for personal consistency, to reduce cognitive dissonance) i must decide that all X-policies are better; tending to also "go along with their already-chosen party" on other issues; there is a strong human tendency to simplify things and become over-confident by thinking “I am correct in all of my beliefs” and therefore “I'm correct in my support for everything in the package deal of my party.” / These human tendencies toward oversimplification & overconfidence tend to increase our political polarization, and decrease our mutual understanding & respecting. / people want to believe they have personal consistency in their ideas-and-actions, we want to reduce our unpleasant cognitive dissonance; |
Education to encourage Understanding and Respect
In our schools, we can encourage accurate understanding and respectful attitudes by avoiding the indoctrination that occurs when students hear only Monday's arguments without the counter-arguments of Tuesday. For a variety of important issues, we can design argumentation activities that help students accurately understand the main views — by describing each view {and the best arguments that can be used to defend it} accurately,* so its description {and system of logical defenses} avoids any inaccurate distortion that has been dishonestly constructed for the purpose of turning this view into an easily-defeated weak strawman — and students logically evaluate each of the views. When this kind of activity is done well, students can improve their thinking skills, in their logical evaluating of arguments & counter-arguments, in their planning of persuasion strategies and their communication skills.
How? In common language, an argument often involves hostile attitudes & words, and maybe even hostile actions. But during argumentation in a classroom, students should reduce hostile attitudes that can lead to antagonistic words & angry confrontation. More generally, a teacher can encourage students to be “peacemakers” who try to reduce hostility (in attitudes, words, actions) by themselves and by others, both inside the classroom and (especially) outside it.
How? A simple informal activity — useful in all areas of everyday life, inside & outside the classroom — is to just listen to another person during a conversation, because it's an opportunity to better understand what they are thinking and feeling.
How? One teaching method is that of my teacher (Gery DiCarlo at Loara High School in Anaheim, CA) with HIM doing the expert analysis-and-debating Monday, and then Tuesday. His method was time-effective for helping us quickly learn the pros & cons of differing views on a wide range of interesting life-relevant topics. But methods with STUDENTS being “active” will be more effective in helping students improve their own thinking skills.* For example, one kind of argumentation activity would have expert analysis-and-debating done by students — either individually or (typically more time-practical & educationally effective) in cooperative teams — with students first arguing for one view, and then (after a period of preparation & planning) arguing for the other view(s). A high-level version of this classroom activity is tournaments with debating about two views on a topic, where in different rounds a team is arguing sometimes for one view, but sometimes for the other view. Therefore, students were highly motivated to know "the best information and arguments [plus counter-arguments] that both position-views can claim as support." {an example}
How? * What methods are most effective? Most educators think the best way to improve thinking skills is with active practice, when students “actively think” during a challenging activity. {also: When an argumentation activity has "expert analysis-and-debating done by students," is a teacher less likely to be criticized for being personally biased, and criticized for simply doing activities where multiple views are discussed?}
How? I think it's also useful to explicitly define the educational goals. Although our teacher never said “you are learning the pros & cons of issue-positions, and how to think more effectively, and how to understand others & respect them,” we did learn all of these. But I think more of us would have learned more if he had been more explicit in explaining "what could be learned" from what we were doing. Eventually, by thinking back on my experiences, I realized how the two semesters in his class had affected my thinking in beneficial ways. But probably "more of us would have learned more" if he had explicitly described his goals-for-learning.