Month: March 2018

Persuasion happens

Recently, I heard a really good discussion by a couple of people who do and promote a lot of good research on how people think. And one of them said, “We used to believe that you could change peoples’ minds by presenting them with research, but research shows that isn’t the case, so I don’t believe that anymore.”

He didn’t appear to notice the irony.

A lot of research on persuasion isn’t very good, in that it shows something that Augustine talks about—people are not likely to believe completely different things from listening to one speech. And people in a study who are presented with new information don’t change their minds because they shouldn’t—for all they know, since they know it’s a study, the information is deliberately false. Even the better research on persuasion shows that a lot of people don’t change their minds on issues associated with in-group loyalty on the basis of one argument.   (The one exception is if they are presented with information that the in-group supports a particular position—then they are likely to get their position in line with the in-group.)

But, as in the case above, people do change their minds. Philip Tetlock shows that even authoritarians change their minds—they just deny they did. It’s hard for authoritarians and naïve realists to admit they’ve changed their minds because admitting that they were wrong means admitting that their whole model of judgment is wrong.

And research does have an impact on that process of changing our minds. The short essays in How I Changed My Mind About Evolution have a common theme: people realized that the anti-evolution rhetoric they’d been taught depended on a misrepresentation of evolution. The inoculation technique  —presenting people with a weak version of an argument they will later hear or read—backfired because the authors in that book realized it was a weaker version.

Inoculation is, it seems to me, a particularly unethical strategy when it comes to religious issues, since it’s a violation of Christ’s requirement that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And, unhappily, it often results in people rejecting religion rather than rejecting the narrow and bigoted religious ideology that can only survive by misrepresenting its opposition.

For inoculation to be effective, it has to be coupled with either demonization/pathologizing of out-groups (out-group views are so spiritually dangerous or intellectually infectious that you can’t even let yourself listen) or insistence on pure in-group loyalty. If inoculation is promoted in a culture that also emphasizes victimization—the in-group is in danger of being exterminated, and so listening to the out-group is treasonous—then people might not realize they’re being presented with a weak version of out-group arguments.

Inoculation (coupled with demonization/pathologizing of the out-group) isn’t specific to reactionary politics, although, because of “conservatives”’ privileging of in-group loyalty , it tends to work better with people who vote conservative, but one can see it everywhere on the spectrum of political arguments.

Non-conservatives unintentionally enhance the effectiveness of inoculation through various practices: 1) repeating misrepresentation of out-group belief systems (no, conservative Christians are not hypocritical because they cite Hebrew Bible rules about sex and yet reject the rules about shellfish)—just stop that); 2) not knowing the best arguments for the positions we oppose (for instance, not only are there instances of people stopping crimes by having a gun, but gun bans have a complicated consequence ; 3) treating all out-group members as identical; 4) relying on sources that misrepresent their own sources (Blue State, dailykos, and Mother Jones—I’m looking at you).

Projection is also important in persuasion, and one aspect of projection that works well for various in-group enclaves is to condemn others for being in an enclave. Really effective propaganda machines appear to offer both sides, by presenting the audience with the desired political outcome, and then a more extreme version (so segregationists like Boutwell could claim to be reasonable because he didn’t support violence — keep in mind that that stance worked, so that people presented Boutwell’s implacable opposition to integration was reasonable, and King’s position was unwise) All factional media insists that we are getting our information from objective sources; they only consume factional media. And, that we are consuming media that engages in inoculation means we don’t think we are in a bubble. We think we are listening to the other side.

People are persuaded by research. They are persuaded by research they consider valid and that they are persuaded represents the consensus of responsible experts on the subject.

All of those terms–research, validity, consensus, responsible experts–are vexed, and heavily influenced by in-group favoritism, but persuasion happens.

We are all persuaded. The worst thing about our current political situation is that there is so much discourse that says “I have become persuaded that persuasion is impossible, and so we must stop trying to persuade others.”

No. When people are persuaded that persuasion is impossible, they are preparing themselves for violence.

[The image is of Nazis enjoying humiliating Jews on Austria abandoning democracy and joining Germany.]

Gun nuts and sloppy rhetoric

 

There’s a blog post that’s been going around Facebook that cites a bunch of studies in order to come to the conclusion that

These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend to be less educated. For the most part, they don’t appear to be religious—and, suggests one study, faith seems to reduce their attachment to guns. In fact, stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes.

I’m not claiming that the article is entirely wrong, nor that every claim it makes is invalidated by the “notallgunowners” objection (although I’ll make that objection below). But it really is a deeply problematic article.

Some of the studies aren’t very good (really? 20 men?), but some seem to me perfectly valid. Except for one thing—the tendency in social science research to conclude X group does Y because the studies show that 60-70% of X group does Y. That kind of conclusion assumes that the 30-40% are outliers who can be ignored, as opposed to their being a different kind of person, who should be separated out because they show that there is a significantly different causal relationship (this is one of my objections to a lot of the research on persuasion).

So, for instance, the SSQ study (linked above) that looks really good to me doesn’t show a perfect correlation between voting Republican and gun ownership (let alone gun culture). It shows that a lot of people who own guns don’t vote GOP.

That’s interesting. It seems to me that a really good study (and article) would pose the question: why don’t they?

Another of the studies linked is also really good, and it shows how symbolic racism is coded into much pro-gun rhetoric. But even that study doesn’t support the argument of the SciAm blo post. The conclusion of the study is “that racial prejudice influences white opinion regarding gun regulation in the contemporary United States” (emphasis added, 271). And they persuasively conclude:

We believe that racial prejudice colors all aspects of the debate regarding gun policy, including crime and its representations, and the role of government in society. Reshaping the gun regulation debate requires a deeper understanding of the relationships among racial prejudice, partisan politics, and the foundational but unconscious emotional role that guns play for a significant portion of the white population in America. (272)

So, racism colors the gun debate, and the study is persuasive on that point, but it doesn’t show that concern about gun control necessarily correlates to being racist. Not all gun owners, in other words. And, while that “not all” move can be irritating, sometimes it’s valid.

One of my pet peeves is when a study clearly says, “Many people in X category do Y,” and people attack the argument as though it said, “All people in X category do Y.” But, really, I think the SciAm article did move from most to all.

And here I should engage in full disclosure. Because of Texas common property laws, I’m a gun owner (I own quite a few, actually.) My father owned guns, and I’ve shot them from time to time. My son and husband shoot with some frequency, and my husband has spent a fair amount of time hunting. (Full disclosure on full disclosure: my father also hunted, but he was pretty bad at it.)

But there are reasonable arguments for gun ownership. And all of the research shows that there are different kind of gun owners. (I found that article because it was a suggested article from a study the SciAm article cited, but not mentioned in the blog post). Just as the research on persuasion shows that people react to different kinds of arguments differently–which is never represented in pop articles about “no one is persuaded by evidence” or “no one can think straight when mortality is mentioned”– so the research being cited for showing that gun owners are toothless racist rednecks who buy guns to manage the precarity of their masculinity ignores that a lot of gun owners aren’t like that at all. And here’s why that matters. For far too long, I have been really irritated by the large amount of lefty rhetoric that engages in us v. them binaries, often blazingly in opposition to actual research. We are supposed to be the people committed to evidence, to inclusion, to nuance. What the research cited in the SciAm article actually shows is that a lot of gun owners vote Dem (or can be persuaded to do so). Rural gun owners are different from urban ones.

And, really, it’s once I was spending a lot of time in a rural area that I realized why rural people carry guns. If you’ve got an active cattle ranch, you’ve got rattlesnakes and feral hogs. I don’t carry a gun when I wander around the ranch, mainly because I’m a bad shot, and I don’t take the dogs with me when I hike, but I get it. I’m not sure anyone needs an assault rifle (except to resolve the precarity of toxic masculinity), but there are lots of things people have that they don’t need. I’ve several times seen people shoot some pretty powerful guns, that weren’t even remotely necessary, and their attitude was that it was really fun.

Here’s the analogy I think fits. Think about car ownership. There are people who are opposed to governmental controls about gas consumption of vehicles because they want a Humvee, and they want that vehicle because they fantasize about end-of-world scenarios in which they’re Mad Max. There are people who are outraged about possibly not being able to buy Humvees because they have precarious masculinity, and owning a Humvee makes their tiny hands seem bigger. There are people who might need a Humvee because they have a shooting ranch, and that’s what people want to ride in, and there are people who might actually need something pretty close to a Humvee for their needs. And there are people who love cars, including ’69 Camaros, Humvees, Pintos, and Vegas. As someone who sometimes drove a Jaguar XKE and a Mustang Mach 1, I understand that impulse. I’m sure it’s fun to drive a Humvee. I’m sure it’s fun to shoot an AK-47.

Here’s the important point: the last three sorts of gun nuts (they actually need guns, they recognize that their desire to own certain guns is the collectors’ impulse, they think it’s fun to shoot) are open to reasonable restrictions about gun ownership.  

So, articles like the SciAm one are rhetorically unwise. It’s a sloppy article, in that there is an argument that would involve useful distinctions—one that would, simultaneously, point out how irrational one position is, while building bridges with reasonable people. We can and should be better in our rhetoric.

I sincerely believe that our current gun policies are irrational, and that we need ones that are more rational. And rational public policies take into consideration the needs and pleasures that citizens have, such as collecting guns in the same spirit in which one might collect first editions, cars, or dogs (all of which can be regulated). And having various guns for various purposes (perhaps even enjoyment) can be fully rational. But, just as we don’t let everyone drive any vehicle they want, we shouldn’t let everyone use any weapon they want. That’s just sensible. And the SciAm article doesn’t help us have that sensible argument.

American Christianity, tribalism, and refusing to “do unto others…”

It’s really troubling to me the extent to which American Christianity is now a kind of tribalism that argues for special treatment of their kind of Christian. People who want businesses to be able to opt out of offering birth control don’t want businesses to be able to opt out of paying for war–even though being pacifist is just as much a “sincere religious belief” as being opposed to birth control. Businesses owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses have health plans that allow blood transfusions. If we’re going to allow a doctor to refuse to perform life-saving abortion, are we going to allow a Jehovah’s Witness doctor to refuse to perform a blood transfusion?

What are “sincere” religious beliefs? Current political discourse (and media coverage) suggests that only right-wing, pro-war, anti-abortion people are sincerely religious. Supporting a particular political agenda makes you a real Christian, as far as they’re concerned. When pro-war Christians talk about Christian arguments for pacifism, suddenly it isn’t whether a belief is sincerely held, but whether they think pacifism is really authorized by Scripture.  James Dobson argues that  sharia law requires terrorism, yet he doesn’t argue that their terrorism should be permitted, even though he thinks Muslims have sincerely held religious beliefs requiring them to be violent, and he argues that the law should not require that people violate sincerely held religious beliefs.

It would be interesting to know what kind of crossover there is among people who insist that people should be allowed to exempt themselves from laws on the basis of “sincerely held religious beliefs” AND who are engaged in fear-mongering about Muslims and sharia law. I suspect it’s pretty large.

My point is simply that this isn’t an argument for allowing exceptions for sincerely held religious beliefs–it’s an argument for treating members of some religious groups better than others. So, this is an argument that “we” are entitled to better treatment by the government than “they” are.

And that argument usually comes down to a no-true Scotsman argument. All real Christians have this political agenda (which is, I think, how they think they’re avoiding the antinomianism problem).  If you don’t have that agenda, you aren’t a real Christian. Suddenly, sincerity isn’t a measure–anyone who disagrees with them isn’t sincere. And, so, since they read the Hebrew Bible as advocating all political power being invested in people of the correct religion, they think that the Christian way to behave politically is to ensure that people with their religious beliefs (the in-group) should be held to different standards, given more power, and have their religious beliefs preferred, even centralized. They advocate a system in which people like them are treated differently from others. They think the laws should favor them.

Jesus also faced an issue of laws. He was in a tradition with an emphasis on certain behaviors, and he said he wasn’t saying those laws should be rejected (although he also said certain ones should) but/and he said that intention mattered. Breaking the rule about the Sabbath was fine if you were part of doing something good, for instance. Breaking laws about touching blood was possibly good. Appearing to follow the law could be bad if your heart was in the wrong place.

Paul, similarly, advocated breaking various laws, and insisted on abiding by others that fundagelicals don’t follow (assuming you read Timothy as a genuinely Pauline text), such as women teaching in church. Very few Christian churches follow what Paul said about sex.  He advocated celibacy as the best practice, after all.  And he doesn’t advocate non-procreative sex, so were all Christians to follow all of Paul’s rules on sexual behavior, they would try to be celibate, and, if that wasn’t possible marry, and not engage in any birth control. And, really, even the Catholic church has given up on that–they allow birth control, just not effective birth control–which they call “artificial contraception.” 

Everyone agrees that you need to take the major messages of Scripture, and stick with passages that reinforce those, and reject the ones that are just “cultural.” You would be hard-pressed to find a Christian, even one citing Leviticus on men lying with men, who doesn’t have a garden with mixed seeds. And let’s talk about cattle breeds.

So, how do we choose what laws to follow?

You could do it numerically, by what themes are most common. Bible verses that insist you honor God are pretty common, perhaps dominant; ones that ask you have a personal relationship (whatever that means) with Jesus are a much rarer than current Christian discourse might lead you to think. (Ones about Hell as a place of eternal punishment are up there with fig trees being bad, by the way.) Verses that ask that God smite your enemies are pretty common (along with killing babies, usually of the enemy), but I’d like to emphasize the large number that have to do with God asking that we take care of the marginalized—the poor, the widows, and orphans (who would have had no method of support in that economy). So, it seems to me, there are an awful lot of verses asking that we take care of those whom the market would ignore. The Hebrew Bible demands ethical treatment regardless of economic situation, and insists that the rich care for the poor.

The Hebrew Bible could be read (if you turn your head this way and kind of look at it that way) as only insisting on ethical treatment of in-group members. That’s how various Christian thinkers justified slavery—some argued that the rules regarding slavery only applied to fellow Hebrews, so enslaving Christians was wrong. Then, when one argument for slavery was that it made heathens in Christians, the argument shifted to those rules meaning that … argle bargle…they don’t apply to US slavery. Jesus explicitly (and, probably, deliberately) rejected that interpretation. Jesus said, quite clearly, ethics means treating all people the same, regardless of group membership. That’s the whole point of the good Samaritan story—you care for the people not of your religion, just as you would people of your religion.

And that was, and is, radical.[1]

When Jesus said “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” he didn’t say, “unless they’re out-group.” He didn’t say, “Look out for your tribe first.” He didn’t say, “Do unto others, except like really really others…” He said ethical behavior transcends group membership. Jesus calls us to treat Muslims as we would want to be treated. And, certainly, people who can call themselves Christian can find things in the Hebrew Bible to justify treating Muslims badly, and I could dispute those readings, but I don’t need to, because they can’t find any way to get past what Jesus said: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

People who want their kind of Christianity to get special treatment can find texts in the Hebrew Bible that they can work to support their claim (I’d say they’re misreading, but that’s a different point), but they can’t get past what Jesus said.

[1] But it wasn’t necessarily new, and Christ was not establishing the only tradition to follow the rule that an ethical behavior means treating in- and out-groups the same way—look at the long tradition of Jewish activism on behalf of other groups.