Political Consequences of Not Balancing Impulse Thinking With Deliberative Thinking, Part 3

This is the last post building on my post of a few days ago: We have, to me, reached an imbalance and a need to shift in our use of smart phones, iPads, Twitter, Tumblr and that kind of technology. These things have, as John J. Pitney Jr. wrote in the 10/15 Christian Science Monitor, “increased the speed and reach of communications…so that almost as soon as a thought enters your mind you can send it everywhere. Twitter-like thinking—the kind that relies on quick intuition and impulse—can work well when we’re playing sports, for instance.

 

“Of course, the internet also brings huge benefits. It is now possible to access more kinds of information than ever before in history. But most people have neither the time nor the know-how to sort through the countless government documents and scholarly studies available online. They have to rely on public figures and news organizations that are the objects of distrust or partisan scorn.

 

“As columnist and former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan has written, ‘Someday we’ll be told something true that we need to know and we won’t believe that, either.’ Long before anyone could have imagined the technological marvels that we carry in our pockets, the Founders understood the risk of hasty judgment.

 

“In The Federalist No. 71, Alexander Hamilton wrote: ‘When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them [the people] time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.’

 

“The moral is that public figures, reporters, and commentators of all kinds should take a breath and think before they post. Slow down, because speed kills.”

Now what?

 

We’ve got to remember that the millions of Americans who voted for Romney are still here. They are not going anywhere. They are not all moving to Canada; tho it would be fine if Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs went. But even Adelson and the Kochs are still Americans, as are the millions that voted for Romney. We need their skills, hearts, minds and compassion. We don’t want to throw people away, deprive, diminish or dismiss them. We want to win them over, need to include them, but not at the cost of diminishing or dismissing the work—climate change, equal rights, immigration reform, greener energy, banking reform, ending the wars without starting any new ones--that must be done.

 

I have blogged about new process, methods and procedures for building and maintaining a healthier, more inclusive democratic governing consensus. We must learn more about these methods and implement them. Let this be the last BS election! If we always do what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got. Enough of that! Enough of either/or, win/lose thinking! Let’s shift to win/win and both/and. I find it difficult to believe that if we get over the polarization and the process, methods and procedures that sustain it, we won’t be able to meet the challenges we face. We can do it!

Political Consequences of Not Balancing Impulse Thinking and Deliberative Thinking, Part 2

The next few posts will build on my post of a few days ago: We have, to me, reached an imbalance and a need to shift in our use of smart phones, iPads, Twitter, Tumblr and that kind of technology. These things have, as John J. Pitney Jr. wrote in the 10/15 Christian Science Monitor, “increased the speed and reach of communications…so that almost as soon as a thought enters your mind you can send it everywhere. Twitter-like thinking—the kind that relies on quick intuition and impulse—can work well when we’re playing sports, for instance.

 

“Political polarization heats up when discourse moves faster than the speed of rational thought. Given a chance to consider an issue carefully, people may see the strengths and weaknesses of each side. But when they respond immediately, they will cheer for the home team and boo the opposition.

 

“This tendency is especially strong during the ‘live blogging’ of a speech or debate. We will often read ‘Wow!’ ‘Yea!’ ‘lol’. We will seldom see a commentator saying, ‘Gee, I wonder what will be said next. Let’s all sleep on it.’”

 

“Moreover, people of all persuasions know that the mainstream press is not as thorough or thoughtful as it used to be. Reporters are reacting to what they see online, then posting their own stuff in hopes of keeping up.

 

“As Jay Root writes in his wonderful new book on the Rick Perry campaign, ‘We’re not so much reporting the news as blurting it.’”

 

“Even basic factual accuracy can [and does] suffer. Racing for a scoop this summer, CNN and Fox initially – and falsely – reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the comprehensive health-care law.”

Political Consequences of Not Balancing Impulse Thinking and Deliberative Thinking

The next few posts will build on my post of a few days ago: We have, to me, reached an imbalance and a need to shift in our use of smart phones, iPads, Twitter, Tumblr and that kind of technology. These things have, as John J. Pitney Jr. wrote in the 10/15 Christian Science Monitor, “increased the speed and reach of communications…so that almost as soon as a thought enters your mind you can send it everywhere. Twitter-like thinking—the kind that relies on quick intuition and impulse—can work well when we’re playing sports, for instance.

 

“[But] public life is different.  Impulse reacting draws on stereotypes and mental shortcuts that can mislead us when we apply them to political questions. It is better to [shift to] a more deliberative and reasoned approach, thinking things through and seeking additional information.

 

“A shrill feedback cycle is at work: hasty reactions to hasty reactions to hasty reactions.

 

“Without clearance from the State Department, a diplomat in Egypt rushes to tweet about an anti-Islam YouTube video. The Romney campaign rushes to attack the tweet. The Obama campaign rushes to criticize the Romney attack. Journalists rush to weigh the political consequences of the campaign exchange. For days, meanwhile, serious questions about terrorism and embassy security get too little attention.

 

“Political polarization heats up when discourse moves faster than the speed of rational thought.”

Either/or Thinking Blocks Empathy

 

Here’s another indication that we’re out of balance, have gone too far in the direction of either/or thinking and need to shift more towards both/and thinking. The October/November issue of the AARP magazine—yes, now you know, I’m old enough to be in AARP—has an article headlined: “Peaceful Politics: How to stay friends during election season—even if you don’t see eye to eye.”

 

The article cites a University of Michigan study showing that political differences made participants less compassionate toward their ideological opposites, even when they shared the same problem.  “Researchers approached subjects outside in the cold, then asked them to read about a hiker stranded in winter. Those whose political views were different from the hiker’s couldn’t identify with his plight, despite being chilly themselves, whereas those who had similar views could.” The study concludes: “It seems like political dissimilarity is blocking us from even beginning to step into somebody else’s shoes. But you don’t have to be this way.”

 

I think all of us, especially those that follow politics closely, have felt the pull of this insidious lack of empathy and perhaps even caught ourselves giving in to it. But, as the study says, “you don’t have to be this way.”

 

Next time you find yourself hating, blaming or enjoying the misfortune of those who disagree with you politically, remember, they’re flesh and blood human beings just like you. Realize you’ve gone too far with your exclusionary either/or, win/lose thinking and choose to shift to a more balanced inclusionary approach with both/and, win/win thinking.

Sports, Public Policy and Either/or Thinking

Clearly in the complex arena of public policy making, impulse thinking aided and abetted by instant communications has “obvious defects.” Impulse thinking may work well in sports games supported by rules and referees, but what rules and referees exist in the public sector are being rapidly eroded by the current win at any cost politics most prominently practiced by Republicans.

 

The constant pressure to get the ‘scoop,’ the need to be first and always right and the rush to judgment, lock journalists and politicians into a vicious spiral of impulse thinking and instant communications. Everything, no matter how complex or how important, has to be reduced to a tweet or a text and delivered instantly, before everybody else can deliver it. “The resulting commentary,” John Pitney says, “is long on reflex and short on reflection.” 

 

Plus this way of thinking and being reduces everything to trivia. Important things are no more important than the current score. People pay more attention to high school, college and pro sports than they do to voting and being informed on issues. Of course that’s understandable being that politics and the important stuff is so complex and messy and sports is so clean and straight forward. Much easier to follow sports and reduce everything, especially the messy important stuff, to a game and think of it as a game with only two sides, two choices, either a winner or a loser. Perhaps this way of thinking and being once worked well for us in the past, but it doesn’t work well now. The interdependence and complexity of real life no longer lends itself so well to the simple minded winner/loser sports/game metaphor.

Balancing Either/or and Both/and

“A shift from either/or thinking to both/and thinking…” is what I posted yesterday. A shift.  Not, one or the other, not either/or or both/and, but both either/or and both/and--a balance.

 

The question then becomes when to shift, when to rebalance?  When have we had too much of one and need to shift to the other?

 

When the results, the phenomena and our experience have gone too far in one direction and are creating problems, not working for the benefit of people—individuals, society, and the planet—when we are not contributing to a world that works for everyone and everything.

 

We have, to me, reached an imbalance and a need to shift in our use of smart phones, iPads, Twitter, Tumblr and that kind of technology. These things have, as John J. Pitney Jr. wrote in the 10/15 Christian Science Monitor, “increased the speed and reach of communications…so that almost as soon as a thought enters your mind you can send it everywhere. Twitter-like thinking—the kind that relies on quick intuition and impulse—can work well when we’re playing sports, for instance.

 

“[But] public life is different.  Impulse reacting draws on stereotypes and mental shortcuts that can mislead us when we apply them to political questions. It is better to [shift to] a more deliberative and reasoned approach, thinking things through and seeking additional information.”