The Case for Lack of Political Certainty
What I read: Popper was right about the link between certainty and extremism by Thomas Costello and Shauna Bowes. Edited by Matt Huston.
In the United States, we are entering the home stretch for the November midterms. Politics and elections once again percolate to the top of American consciousness. The media and social media churn and punditry has begun with many outlets and voters firmly entrenched in one worldview or another.
Being an avowed Left-leaning liberal, I certainly have some of these entrenched views. It would be dishonest to assume I always approach politics with an entirely objective clean slate from which to judge a candidate or proposed legislation. We are all a stew comprised of the ingredients of our upbringings, families, culture, geographic region, friend network, and a host of other factors that taken together with what we learn, observe, and experience create our stance on the political issues of the day.
Rigorous honesty and humility are something I strive for, but rarely attain. But they are valuable qualities if we are to create the political landscape that will best allow us to live in peace and with the best outcomes for as many people as possible.
So, when I read this article by Thomas Costello and Shauna Bowes, the topic piqued my interest. Starting from the baseline of what the writers assume defines progressives (Left) and conservatives (Right), the writers acknowledge that both Left and Right are logically coherent and can each be reasonably defended.
But, we have a problem in our country. Indeed, it’s a problem in many countries nowadays, even countries that have historically had calm recent political histories.
Regrettably, it is now apparent that reasonable, intellectually charitable discussions between progressives and conservatives are quite scarce in many places – leaving little room for compromise or legislative success. Many people hate those who disagree with them, perhaps seeing no possible route to the other side’s political conclusions other than moral aberrance or callous self-interest. Accompanying this vitriol and anomie, it would seem, is a widespread lack of scepticism toward one’s own political beliefs. Some people are not just confident, but absolutely, 100 per cent certain that their views about how to order society are optimal. For these people, extremism and animosity might seem to be the only logical route. The philosopher of science Karl Popper went so far as to argue that absolute certainty is the foundational component of totalitarianism: if one is sure that one’s political philosophy will lead to the best possible future for humankind, all manner of terrible acts become justifiable in service of the greater good.
As an aside, here is an interesting video from Mr. Beat about how the concept of Left and Right politics first emerged in France. Only in relative recent history has it become conventional political speak to reference political views as Left or Right.
Here is my favorite quote from the video and one with which I agree. I don’t think any of us fall neatly into any particular Left, Right, or Centrist identity box.
Of course, these generalizations are incredibly misleading, which is why this political spectrum is pretty much crap. I mean, rarely do folks fit neatly on one side or the other. For example, a person might think the government generally screws everything up when it gets too involved, yet absolutely hates nationalism or hierarchy.
Often folks find themselves caught up with this weird label called “Centrism” because they fall somewhere in between. However, most people fall “in between” on most issues.
And with that, I guess I should stop labeling myself as part of the Left. Back to the article.
Costello and Bowes decided to undertake a study of 3,000 participants across the country to better understand how people think and feel about politics, what they want, and how these “cognitive, affective and motivational processes shape their behaviour.”
To determine how certain they were of their political views, they asked each participant “On a scale of 0 per cent to 100 per cent, how certain are you that your political beliefs are correct?”
They found that 12% reported being 100% certain about their political beliefs. This was reported among both liberals and conservatives. About 31% self-identified as extremely Left-wing. About 41% self-identified as extremely Right-wing.
Interestingly, only about 7% of the rest of the study participants reported being 100% certain of their political views and these included people who were only slightly less extreme in their views. These 7% reported being very Left-wing or very Right-wing.
The conclusion of the study authors is that extremism, both on the Left and Right of the political spectrum, seemed to correlate to absolute certainty in their views.
People who identified as politically extreme here are not necessarily members of radical groups that regularly engage in political violence. They are extreme in a relative sense, as compared with norms in the US. Still, these respondents were about five times more likely than others to claim to be absolutely certain about their political views. Extremism and absolute certainty seem to resonate.
My own take on these extremes at the fringes that refuse to change their minds even when clear evidence to the contrary is presented is that their voices are disproportionately elevated in news and on social media because the extreme garners eyeballs and ears. The more prevalent middle ground of political viewpoints is boring amid the 24/7 news cycles that must be constantly fed new raw meat to churn through their voracious reporting engine. This gives us all a skewed opinion of American political sentiment. I believe there are far more reasoned and balanced perspectives in our country than the media reports would have us believe. This does a disservice to our democracy.
The study results along with a large body of evidence consistently links ideological extremism to the extent to which people consider their political attitudes superior to other people’s attitudes.
This belief superiority can lead politically extreme people (on both the Right and Left) to be more intolerant, prejudiced and inflexible towards those who disagree with them.
There is evidence that demonstrates that “ideological extremism is associated with low cognitive flexibility, meaning the ability to adapt to new, shifting or unexpected events and perspectives.”
Another theory, known as the rigidity-of-the-Right hypothesis, suggests that those among us who view the world as uncontrollable and difficult to understand adopt ideologies that reinforce a sense of order and predictability.
When Costello and Bowes assessed such possibilities against their data. They found their data was consistent with the rigidity-of-the-Right hypothesis.
One plausible interpretation of our findings is that extremely Left-wing and Right-wing people are similarly dogmatic about their political beliefs, specifically, but that extreme conservatives are uniquely dogmatic about certain ‘big’ topics such as religion. We took this to mean that both hypotheses – the rigidity-of-the-Right and ideological extremism hypotheses – are partially correct.
When Costello and Bowes separately broke out their study participants’ Left and Right views on social issues and economics, it produced some interesting results.
Consistent with this line of thinking, in our work on absolute certainty and dogmatism, individuals who were far-Left only in their economic views were higher on the measure of dogmatism than those with far-Left social (but not economic) views, whereas those with far-Right economic views were lower on dogmatism than those with far-Right social views (this pattern was mirrored, in a less pronounced manner, for absolute certainty). The dynamic posited by the ideological extremism model (ie, extremists in general are more certain and dogmatic) was approximated in the economic domain – such that people with far-Left economic views were no more dogmatic than people with far-Right economic views. Yet, in the social domain, the Right extreme was clearly more dogmatic than the Left – thereby supporting the rigidity-of-the-Right model. Indeed, social conservatism was especially associated with dogmatism, suggesting that something about social conservatism, specifically, may be congenial to unjustified certainty and intolerance.
Does your head hurt yet? This is a lot of nuanced information in a realm that contemporary politics likes to often divide cleanly into two separate Left/Right camps when it’s rather clear how people actually feel about political issues is far more complex.
Ultimately, Costello and Bowes conclude with this, something I think we all need to take to heart.
Absolute certainty is something to avoid.
This is why we all have to keep talking to each other. Your grumpy conservative uncle who voted for Trump might be entirely fine with LGBTQ people and admire the likes of Pete Buttigieg in positions of power. Your cantankerous liberal brother who voted for Biden might also support a strong military and the high spending it entails. None of us have pure political worldviews that can be easily described using a single Left, Right, or Centrist label.
This is also why I believe increasingly we need to encourage people to vote on specific, demarcated issues and the people who do or don’t support them rather than rely on the arbitrary and flawed political spectrum as guidance.
Please note that I do not consider this to be a call for a voting free-for-all because I think a party’s allegiance, platforms, and legislative histories matter. Sometimes we can’t separate out a candidate from their party, sadly. Sure, there’s some wiggle room there, but lately the party differences are stark, and our democratic roots mean we need to err on the side of voting for those who believe in that democracy, our civil rights, and a country configured to benefit everyone and not just an ideological extreme few.
You can use this link to access all my writings and social media and ways to support my work.