“They just dont get it.
We said this kind of thing a lot during the election. It marked the moment when we despaired at the sheer wrong-headedness of the opposition.
“They just dont get it was sometimes followed by grand declarations:
“Im moving to Canada.
[or]
“Im moving to a gated suburb.
Moving to Canada? Dude! Youre that alienated? Moving to a suburb? You must be joking. This is how bad you think it is?
This is separatism. This is exit. This is what happens when we feel theres no hope of getting our point across. Republicans are from Mars. Democrats from Venus. Lets call the whole thing off.
But what if this is a symptom of a larger problem: the new reality of culture and politics?
We are more multiple than we used to be. The ideological spectrum has stretched in both directions. The Right is further right. The Left is further left. And both camps are more heterogeneous. The absolute ideological space has expanded extensively and intensively.
We have a systematic problem on our hands. If there is more ideological space, it is inevitable that we should find ourselves dealing with people “who just dont get it. How could it be otherwise? They live on one coast. We live on the other. What are the chances were going to share assumptions? This is the nature of the new political beast.
It is time to rewrite the rules of discourage. As it stands, we make our arguments with the blithe assurance that they will carry the day by their own their own inherent plausibility. If we engage the opposition, it is to snipe and cavil. (I have done my share of this, as readers have noted.)
It is better to know the enemy, master their assumptions, and address these assumptions explicitly. In the case of the argument for Gay marriage, this means saying things like, “I understand that this proposition threatens your idea of the family. Heres why [in a very detailed way] I believe Gay marriage would not put the idea or the reality of the family in jeopardy. On the Right this means saying things like, “I understand that you believe the marketplace stands at odds with social justice. Heres hwy [in a very detailed way] I believe the marketplace actually serves the goals of social justice.
Clearly, some differences are non negotiable. Some on the Right will say “but the Bible says. Some on the Left will say, “only a perfectly equal distribution of resources is acceptable. Fine, we have got to rock bottom differences. But sometimes some people on the Right and Left are going to say, “Oh, thats interesting. Let me think on that.
And certainly, they are going to think, “I still believe you are deeply mistaken, but thanks for making the effort. If nothing else, a detailed engagement with the opponents terms does them the courtesy of saying, “I get that you are sincere. I get that you have an idea. And I have done by best to respect this idea in my response.
The problem is that we are now responding to the great gaps between us by shouting our positions across the chasm. And all this does is create the impression that there is no middle ground when there might be a little.
And a little is a lot. It begins to rebuild the center. It begins to resupply our now almost exhausted stocks of mutual respect. This is the right thing to do, the Millian thing to do.
But it is also the strategic thing to do. This is the way to split the monolith. A few people on the other side will say, “Oh, interesting. And that begins the process of separating the lunatics from the party of thoughtfulness, the doctrinaire from those who are truly interested in “building bridges.
In sum, there is a way to rebuild the center but it depends upon a new mutual interest, a kind of anthropological investigation (forgive me if I see this in parochial terms) of who the other is. It could be that we will come away from this with the grim understanding that mutuality is impossible. But if we continue in our present fashion, we may be quite certain that we will make this so.
Acknowledgements:
Ennis. 2004. Several posts on this blog (for forcing me to think about the real challenges of “discourse)
Last note:
Another way to begin to close the ideological gap is to see if we cant fashion a peace treaty for the culture wars. “They just dont get it comes in part from the fact that we are unacquainted with the founding ideas and documents of the other party. The problem is not so much that they just dont get it, as that we dont get them.
One way to do this is to propose the 20 cultural documents that one side should master in order to “get what the other side is saying.
A first candidate for those on the Right who would understand the Left is DVD just released by Universal that contains 5 Marx brothers movies: Duck Soup, The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, and Horse Feathers.
This will seems an odd choice, but consider this quote from Duck Soup:
A minister of cabinet of Freedonia: I give all my time and energy to my duties and what do I get?
Groucho: Well, you get awfully tiresome after a while.
The Marx Brothers were one of the founts of my transformation as an adolescent. It was one of the documents that encouraged me to scorn authority. They were in fact architects of the 1960s and its anti-establishment point of few. Some people on the Right believe that this is the time to restore our respect for authority, and they will find this films not the least bit funny. But others will begin to see that even a deeply conservative soul can take pleasure in ludic play. While we are building bridges, this is one place to start.
I’m open to all suggestions for other seminal documents, a kind of briefing compendium for the Left and the Right.
At the risk of intolerable arrogance, I think both sides should begin with How We Know What Isn’t So by Thomas Gilovich. This book strikes right at the heart of confirmation bias and scares you cynical. Then maybe a few episodes of Wife Swap to seal the deal.
Folks on the right need to watch The Simpsons and read Tom Robbins and folks on the left need to watch King of the Hill and read P.J. O’Rourke.
Now I feel dirty. Read whatever you please.
I just started reading this thread and I agree it is necessary to understand how others make decisions if you want to influence them.
However I’m surprised by the assumption that people make decisons in a primarily logical manner. It seems much more the case that people use logic to defend decisons they have reached in other ways. In this case, detailed arguments supporting an opposing view miss the mark. To follow your example, a person who has a gut feeling that gays are bad is not going to be convinced by any detailed argument to vote for gay marriage.
Keelay, that’s very interesting. If I “get” you, you’re saying, last remark, that recommending readers for either side has a curious effect. It’s profoundly disheartening somehow. Why is that. This is for an anthropologist a signature that some boundary is being crossed, some deep rule of the category is being violated. But as Mary Douglas would say, the unclear is the unclear. When we blur these categories we feel dirty. Maybe we are more vested in these distinctions than we think. This is interesting…
Anonymous, I take your point but I dearly hope its not so. But maybe this is what separates the hard boiled from the still flexible: that they are not thinking out of emotion but still with reason. Maybe this is the key political distinction, that one that separates the sheep from the goats (and across party lines). Thanks.
I envision a series of double features — iconic films of the Left and Right. I mean, everybody likes movies, right?
Left Movies: To Kill A Mockingbird
Right Movies: The Searchers
Could be an interesting list.
Profoundly disheartening would be about right. I find that, more and more, my attempts at opening my mind take the form of undermining the coherence of my own personal narrative rather than building something more inculsive. Perhaps it is an artifact of poor breeding that I have long defined myself in opposition to an “other,” but despite my best efforts I can’t see a salient distinction between open-mindedness and cynicism.
As a newly minted economist, I am persistently shocked by the temptation to define human behavior as something outside of myself. And worse, I’m paralyzed by the alternative. Of course, people define themselves in terms of their beliefs. But doesn’t the recognition of this fact undermine the effectiveness of narrative mechanism in ourselves.
So how about it, Grant? As you are currently holding Democrats and Republicans at arm’s length, how fares your own narrative?
M E-L, brilliant. I don’t know the Searchers but TKAMP is exactly right. I think the Right might claim Animal House as iconic, esp. the scene in which Belushi smashes the guitar. This was a repuditation of the 60s and its quivering piety. (Because, hey, guys just want to have fun.) The trick here I think is the set up. The movies by themselves will only provoke. I see a boxed set of iconic films with voice over commentary from the likes of This Blog Readers. “now this scene speaks to me because…etc….etc.” Thanks, Grant
Keelay, you are a brave man, sir. It is just so easy, and I do mean facile, to climb into an ideological box and stay there. It takes courage to take to the cat walk of the ideological world and move about. But the dissonance is, as you say, formidable. (As an anthropologist of course I am obliged to move around, and all the talk of courage is just my usual, florid, self congratulation. Hey, someone’s got to do it.)
Me? I guess I come out as a libertarian or a liberal in the old fashioned sense of the term. I believe that we should apportion the world according to effort, ability and outcome. This is what makes the world most fecund. (And here too I am being self serving. I’m interested, in both senses of the term, in seeing what happens when we let things rip…as we largely have. Its hard to think, but to use my new term from Damione Lewis, golly, it is interesting.) Poor Canada tries to keep a lid on and the results are kind of tragic.
Some people come to the game with historically imposed disadvantages and here I think the state should intervene for one generation (two max) to level things out. Also, some people are drawn by personal tragedy or misjudgment or something into desperate circumstances. Here too the state should make a one-time “get out of personal hell” card available. The kids of these people should have good schools. Otherwise, less government is good government. I am in short all over the map. Thanks, Grant
Grant:
I think, in part, that you and I disagree about precisely how much of success (lets use cash as the measure) is a result of individual effort. I would think that the way to measure this might be to look at tax rates historically in the US and see what effect they’ve had on GDP. I would think the primary rule, for public policy, should be “maximize total production value.”
Beyond that, I think it’s a matter of establishing a baseline for what we just won’t let people fall below, and paying for it. I’m more than willing to be really parsimonious (Cripes! spelling?) on this matter. But we should acknowledge, for example, that we are unlikely to be willing to see large numbers of elderly die in abject poverty b/c they weren’t good at life planning. It’s not a moral issue, per se – it’s just that we’re a relatively rich society and don’t like seeing it.
It’s all consonant with what you’re saying, but I sense a moral framework motivating your structure that I (perhaps wrongly) just don’t have.
Grant:
I think, in part, that you and I disagree about precisely how much of success (lets use cash as the measure) is a result of individual effort. I would think that the way to measure this might be to look at tax rates historically in the US and see what effect they’ve had on GDP. I would think the primary rule, for public policy, should be “maximize total production value.”
Beyond that, I think it’s a matter of establishing a baseline for what we just won’t let people fall below, and paying for it. I’m more than willing to be really parsimonious (Cripes! spelling?) on this matter. But we should acknowledge, for example, that we are unlikely to be willing to see large numbers of elderly die in abject poverty b/c they weren’t good at life planning. It’s not a moral issue, per se – it’s just that we’re a relatively rich society and don’t like seeing it.
It’s all consonant with what you’re saying, but I sense a moral framework motivating your structure that I (perhaps wrongly) just don’t have.
SCMT, Sure, it’s more that effort. It’s also good fortune, contacts, brains, and so on. But dont we maximize production value when we create several paths, and of course incentives, to some kind of achievement. And yes, I forgot to mention the elderly. Everyone has to get the consulation prize of some comfort and some dignity at the end of the line…and presumably those who did least well need and deserve this most. Thanks, Grnat
SCMT, I may just have put you on my MT blacklist. I was weeding out the spam. Please post again and let me know if you cant get through. Sorry! Grant
Grant:
I think I agree with you about multiple paths, and I think it suggests the vector along which Democrats moved rightward, in the 1990s, toward the center. Specifically, I think Dems admitted how poor our predictive systems were – that is, I can’t think why you wouldn’t have a state-run economy, except that it does a wildly poor job of producing things efficiently – it limits total production.
So the difference between centrist Dems and centrist Pubs and (if we are counting them as a separate group) liberterians are primarily ones of nuance, prediliction or tones. But for the most part, we all seem to agree that (a) there should be a safety net that provides minimal services to any of our citizens, (b) the market provides a lot better solutions than the government, and (c) the market is imperfect, and occassionally needs regulation to correct those imperfections.
But I don’t think Bush fits into any of the above categories, and my irritation is primarily with the latter two groups, who I believe sold out our basic agreement from the 1990s over some fairly stupid and limited disagreements (e.g., the Kerry health plan, which would never have passed). I don’t believe I’m ever likely to reach the waitress in a Red State, and I don’t begrudge her her vote. If I am occassionally cruel to her, it is because she is much more attractive than me, and I’ve always been insecure about that.
(It strikes me that what I’m saying about centrist Republicans sounds an awful lot like the criticism of FDR – that he worked against his class. That might be an indication of how little notions of “caring” end up being a part of my voting strategy).
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I disagree that ideology has much to do with anything, outside of the chattering classes. When people say, ‘They just don’t get it,’ they mean something specific. They mean that the other side doesn’t understand how important the right to have an abortion is, or how important it is to stop it. They don’t understand how important the safety net is, or they don’t understand how important economic freedom is.
Most people adopt the ideological language of the coalition they happen to be in, but that is only because they have no other way to advance their One Big Issue. The nature of the winner takes all electoral system is that oppositional issues will be adopted in pairs, one side to each of two coalitions. After the coalition has your issue, it is very hard to leave, because you have nowhere else to go. You wind up defending the whole coalition with the fervor you need to defend your Big Issue from the Bad Guys.
The only time broad, ideological decisions can be made is when the two candidates are so close on your major issue that you don’t feel threatened. I submit that this is pretty rare, and if it is true across several major issues, no one would bother going to the polls.
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We are more multiple than we used to be. The ideological spectrum has stretched in both directions. The Right is further right. The Left is further left. And both camps are more heterogeneous. The absolute ideological space has expanded extensively and intensively.
The ideological spectrum of the parties in the United States is extremely narrow compared to the actual spectrum of ideas and parties in the world. An examination of parties in say South America would easily reveal several parties to the right of the Republicans and to the left of the Democrats, and very few that come somewhere between them.
This also tends to mean that the solutions our politicians come up with to solve problems are equally limited in scope. In the grand scheme of world politics both parties fall into the center-right category.
Sorry, don’t have time to read the comments, so I’m just responding to the original post and first couple comments…
First of all, I think most voters on “the right” and “the left” either don’t have the ability or inclination to develop their own moral rule-set, but they will trust their “annointed leaders” to tell them the DO’s and DON’Ts of how to live. The “masses” aren’t amoral, they’re just too busy being accountants, parents, etc. to do it themselves. They want to have morals, but like their car or computer, they just want to purchase “the whole package” without having to know how/why it works. Part of the trick of this game is finding the gifted leaders on both side who still have an open mind.
Suggested Readings:
To Understand Red States: Bill Whittle. I’m not being facetious. Republicans did the whole Civil War thing and saved the Unions, but after that Teddy Roosevelt tried to “free” the Phillipines, and eventually FDR ate their lunch. They never really recovered until Reagan’s optimism, which Bill embodies.
To Understand Blue States: Any well-written first person account of the Great Depression/Vietnam. The energy and vitality of the Democratic Party was embodied in FDR and the Warren Court. They’ve been living off that ever since, and now it’s pretty old. Carter and Kerry are but poor shadows of that (Clinton had no philosophy to speak of except personal gratification).
To understand Blue States requires you to forget “the big picture” and concentrate on the human tragedies inflicted upon innocents in a world they cannot control. “It’s not their fault, they’re just victims.” During the Depression this was arguably true. It was true about Vietnam Vets too. It wasn’t the Vets’ fault the political leadership wasn’t able/willing to push for strategic victory, and “the little guy” was just caught up in the mess.
I guess “Born on the 4th of July” would be a good pick. “Forrest Gump” is a bad one, because it’s actually a satire of the Left’s second crysalis, not an honest portrayal.
The situation is asymmetrical. Virtually everyone on “the right” is familiar with the ideas of liberals and leftists. They learned them in school or from the media, and they hear them regularly from the Democrat voters who form a minimum of 26% of the electorate even in Utah. They also get them from any television or cinema they are exposed to. Leftists and liberals, on the other hand, usually are clueless about the ideas of those who don’t agree with them. Their lack of knowledge is sometimes acute, as in the case of coastal urbanites who believe that Idaho is full of Nazis, that Republicans want to enslave blacks again, et cetera. Most conservatives have already seen To Kill a Mockingbird and Born on the Fourth of July. Seeing them again would only underscore how inapplicable they are to today’s reality.