What Do We Americans Think We Know, 27
The Crisis of the Moment
“It’s something called furries,” said the Nebraska state senator, Bruce Bostelman. According to this politician, schoolchildren were identifying as cats and dogs and they were meowing and barking, and teachers and school administrators wanted to put litter boxes in the schools for children to use. Yeah, I know. But at least your five-year old will understand how to use a litter box when necessary.
The deeper question is why apparently functional adults find these outre suburban legends plausible. (“Why Are Seemingly Functional Adults Falling For the ‘Furries’ Myth,” by Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist NYT, 4/5/22)
None of this was true and the ridiculous yahoo, Bostelman, eventually apologized. But he believed it was true when he first heard it. Bad enough, but the same story also appeared in several other states, was brought up in a school board meeting and reported on a conservative talk show.
The Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton Meme
First try to imagine the burning factory building, a barrel of water standing between either end of the building and Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton with a children’s pail racing back and forth from one end of the building to the other, stopping quickly to scoop up some water to toss on the fire he is unable to put out.
Of course fear and bewilderment and a heavy dose of ignorance often play a part in our beliefs, no matter how irrational and absurd and no matter where we reside on this planet. It’s been going on, well, forever. Today, our global social media only adds fuel to the fire, the fire we’re not going to extinguish anytime soon.
This becomes even more true when individuals and groups, here and abroad, deliberately fan the flames. Clearly it works. Yes, it does seem brighter and more glaring in the United States because we remain the world’s media and marketing capital, for better and for worse. Nonsense here goes up on giant billboards. And, it can get much darker.
The near hysteria, alarm and cruelty have arisen in some parts of the U.S. over transgendered folks, as well as gay people unwilling to exist any longer in the shadows, sometimes appears almost pathological in its reaction. Fear, bewilderment and ignorance.
And of course the manufactured issue of Critical Race Theory sets heads spinning across large swarths of America, especially white America, even though many of those that oppose its “teaching” have little understanding of what it is and where exactly it’s being taught. It’s oftentimes generational, it threatens the familiar and it of course must be a zero-sum contest; if you win I must of course lose.
When people get emotionally involved in an issue, common sense and reason go out the window. People believe what they want and need to believe. (Ken Lanning, former FBI agent with the bureau’s behavioral science unit)
In the 1980s it was the Satanism panic that swept suddenly across the United States. It was a time (in many ways like today) of American anxiety, dealing with a recession (inflation today), difficulty finding good daycare as more women joined the workforce, the growing influence of religious conservatism and of course the fear that the “traditional” family was collapsing. For some Americans the traditional family is always collapsing.
There were accusations of abuse in a California preschool. Then baseless conspiracy theories began, along with tips on identifying pagan symbols. Innocent people were accused of horrible crimes against childfren and lives were destroyed. Then it all suddenly collapsed.
Alabama governor signs anti-transgender bill
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Named after two psychologists in 1999, the Dunning-Kruger effect looks at our cognitive bias. It essentially says that people with low ability or a low level of competence at a particular task or a particular area of study tend to overestimate their ability. This is most often measured by comparing self-assessment with objective performance. Some researchers also include in their definition, high performers. The high performers seemingly have a tendency to underestimate their skills; they tend to make an overly positive assessment of the skills of others.
Of particular interest and according to some researchers, people who know little about politics and government are more likely than other Americans to overestimate their knowledge of these topics.
On a practical level the Dunning-Kruger effect points out that people can make bad decisions, end up in careers that they are unqualified for and even engage in dangerous behavior. Certainly if one is unaware that they in fact lack certain skills it is conceivable that the individual might not attempt ro improve himself or herself.
Genopolitics
A fascinating area in genetics and neuroscience—and political science—is genopolitics, both controversial and thoroughly engrossing, but quite promising. Do political views have a genetic component? Do we yet have certainties and direct causation regarding genopolitics? No, but researchers are now seriously analyzing the probabilities and correlations. When do brains start processing the world differently? Is it from the beginning or does it become increasingly different as our politics evolve.
I know the Russian spirit, and I know that Russians do not shoot at civilians. Only Nazis do that. (Aleksandr Chernkh, Russian who lost his 22 year old son because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine)
Scientists have found, among other things, that the amygdala (a region where the emotions are located) does act in different ways related to viewpoint or issues. These could be personality traits that lead to feelings on gay marriage, contraception, voting rights and so forth, and these personality traits could be ancient and way older than humans. A key question, especially in America at the present time, is can we locate shared values that we need for any sense of national unity?
This is an incredibly interesting subject and it is important to remember, in terms of belief, that different basic biology may lead to particular beliefs, but many factors are involved and we can’t say that political opinions are directly controlled by genetics.
But, research has shown that people with larger emotional responses to threats are more likely to have right-wing opinions.
A talk presented in 2020 byDr. James Fallon, one of the foremost authorities on serial killers and the makeup of dictators:
The Actual World
This is not an academic exercise in a country where a large segment of Americans—and their political representatives—think committing treason and ripping up the Constiution are worthy endeavors. Even after Putin, most certainly a thug and war criminal, has invaded Ukraine, he retains many admirers in the U.S, who are quite willing, given the opportunity, to throw our democratic republic (albeit imperfect) into history’s ashcan. Of course the question is, what are we willing to do about it.
Conservative and Liberal Brains
Political Orientation Correlated With Brain Structure in Young Adults