My correspondent asked how come intelligent, suave and sophisticated gentlemen have different views? Why do smart and knowledgeable people draw radically different conclusions in matters political? It is a big topic. I used to explain Trump’s election by thinking there were 68 million idiots in the US, but I now believe this is too glib.
The question is not trivial. I think the reason must be due to a mix of: family background, genetics, life experience, exposure to books and thinkers, temperament, and personal idiosyncrasy. These factors determine our world view, what we value and what we see as right or wrong.
We all come from families and inevitably our views are influenced or even formed by those of our parents. We may later reject their views, but in any case our parents' ideas are likely to be the starting point for our own. Class, ethnic background, religion and nationality are obviously important factors. A villager in China is not likely to have views similar to an urban Australian.
I think the reasons for intelligent people inhabiting incompatible world views lie in our individual personal histories. Our parents and a succession of formative experiences lead us in certain directions while necessarily neglecting others. Our formative experiences include our friends at school and later, teachers, our studies, work, wealth or lack thereof, marriage and optionally, kids. All these play a role in shaping our thinking, even though they may seem tangential from a political point of view.
Over the years, some books, blogs, articles, speeches, courses, seminars are likely to help shape our views. However, it is important to note that we select these according to our existing interests and predilections, so that they reinforce our pre-existing views. We become entrenched in our positions.
Each of us has a different personality and this influences how we think, what we value, whose side we are drawn to, and who rubs us the wrong way. How fearful or insecure we are is an important factor.
Why do we believe what we do? Our beliefs about what matters are determined by our values rather than by facts. Our world view depends on what we regard as important. Eg some people develop a strong social conscience from their parents. It is also a matter of degree, of valuing one issue over another.
The world is complex, confusing and far bigger than we can handle mentally. So we cut it down to size by simplifying, by rejecting entire streams of thought and opinion, and by focussing on one or a few factors that seem the most important. This tendency to simplify narrows our viewpoint and deepens us in our beliefs.
The above rationale neglects to emphasise the most important factor determining our views, which are our emotions. Our emotions determine what we think is important and valuable, as well as what we fear or hate. This determines our positive or negative reaction to a politician or platform.
The most important areas where people's beliefs differ are politics, religion, the environment and sexuality (homosexuality, feminism, abortion, gay marriage and censorship).
I tried to discuss politics with an acquaintance who holds views very different from mine. Our attempt to understand each other's viewpoint foundered, which was what I predicted before we began. We all live in mutually exclusive bubbles and entering another person's bubble is extremely difficult. That is if the bubbles are too different, as in this case. By "bubble" I mean the entirety of a person's views on important matters. It is just a synonym for their world view. Each person is enclosed by their ideas and beliefs, which form their personal bubble. The wall of the bubble separates them from other peoples' bubbles.
My correspondent wrote that he prefers a fact-based bubble. I replied that he didn't quite grasp the concept of a bubble. Two quite contrary bubbles can both be fact-based. It is the interpretation of the facts that creates the bubble, and this we all do in our own way. Further, we select the facts that seem important and ignore or discount those that seem unimportant. We interpret the facts in different ways, sometimes drawing opposite conclusions from the same event or statistic. For instance, a conspiracy theorist might see facts that go counter to their belief as another example of the truth being falsified by those who run the conspiracy.
It is true that some of us are more cognisant of the facts than others, but knowing more facts rarely changes our bubble in any major sense. The other problem is so-called "fake news". There is no consensus, especially in the US, regarding which sources are trustworthy. Peoples' bubbles determine which sources of information they regard as reliable. There is also the situation in which an internet user encounters only information and opinions that conform to and reinforce their own beliefs, caused by algorithms that personalise an individual’s online experience. Personalisation of the web can gradually isolate individual users into their own bubbles. An essential condition for this to happen is to have a set of 'friends' on social media who mostly echo the individual's views and beliefs.
When a resident of one bubble looks at an incompatible bubble they feel superior. They think they know the facts and that they make rational assessments based on said facts. They think the occupant of the other bubble either doesn't know the facts, or that they make emotion-based judgements, which render their views irrational. Also, they may think that the other person is mistaken because of certain basic beliefs they hold, but which they themselves do not share. Examples are beliefs in communism, religion, a conspiracy theory or racist thinking. This can make them think the other's views are invalid. Of course, the person in the other bubble thinks the same about the first person.
I have never seen a productive dialogue between diametrically opposed individuals. An example is someone who believes Trump is great vs someone who thinks him an idiot. Or a communist vs an anti-communist, an atheist vs a believer, or a feminist vs a holder of traditional views. Arguments between such pairings lead nowhere. They may be respectful of each other's views, but neither person can make the other see their point of view as valid. At best, they can agree to disagree.
When one side advances evidence for its own views, the other denies it, undermines its validity, or dismisses it as inconsequential. The argument goes back and forth, with neither side conceding any major points. In the end, there is no agreement. This is because the two sides lack a common intellectual framework that could generate criteria acceptable to both.
The most basic difference is that the two people value different things. The foundation that determines our political beliefs is what we consider important and what we value. What we see as important depends on our personality, our beliefs and our values. If what is of great value to us is unimportant to the other person, then each argument advanced by one side will carry no weight with the other.
It reminds me of the time when I was driving a taxi and a gay man was trying to persuade me of the superiority of his own sexual preference, saying, "How can you love something that goes bad each month?" I answered with a repartee, but the point is that in this instance each of us had zero chance of persuading the other because we occupied radically different spaces. Perhaps political orientations are analogous to sexual orientations. If we feel strongly about a social or political issue, this attitude is unlikely to change as a result of talking to someone with contrary views. Our basic views are an integral part of our identity, much like our sexual orientation.
Each side will fail to convince the other. Not only that, but each person only attains a shallow understanding of the other's position. It is shallow because they are unable to mentally step into the other's framework.
To get around the problem of incompatible political positions, organisations such as Getup seek to find a common ground by exploring shared values. This seems a good idea, as the vast majority of people share values such as honesty, fairness, democracy and equality. However, these basic values are interpreted differently by each person and give rise to entirely different political and social views. Connecting basic values to political platforms is more involved than it sounds.
Observing political arguments reinforces my belief that our political views, once formed, are not going to be much influenced by factual evidence, or any kind of persuasion. We think that we really "know" what we know, and we direct our energies to demolishing opposing views. The other person does the same. Only rarely, if ever, do we allow ourselves to question our own convictions, except in minor matters.
It seems to me that we all live in bubbles. Moreover, as Michael Moore pointed out, bubbles with echo chambers. He said this in the context of intelligent Americans telling each other Trump could not win before the 2016 election. Our friends mostly echo our own views and tend to validate what we say. We find further confirmation in what we read and whom we choose to listen to. Our beliefs also act as a filter that cuts out or downplays contrary views. We dismiss sources that we deem to be biased, or that reek of extremism, conspiracy or pseudo-science.
The people who thought Trump could not win because he was an idiot were out of touch with the masses of people who supported him. They did not know what drove these people away from Clinton towards Trump. Being in a bubble means that we lack empathy and understanding for people outside it. We don't know their feelings and thoughts. We simply think they are wrong-headed or misinformed. I am in this position vis-a-vis my correspondent. It is a mystery to me why he is attracted to the thoughts of people like Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux.
I am guilty of living in a bubble with an echo chamber, like the one Moore describes. Nearly all of my friends have political, environmental and feminist views similar to my own. My correspondent is a glaring exception.
The problem with discussing politics, or any other topic, when there is little or no common ground, is that each party sees the other as fundamentally misguided. It's like meeting someone who believes the earth is flat, or that germs don't cause disease. Is it possible to convince them they are wrong - and is it even worth the effort? I'm not saying that people on the far right or far left are flat-earthers. Only that if the views of the two parties are radically different then each will see the other as a flat-earther, making reasoned debate very difficult. Where do we start when - as it seems to us - the other person does not understand the very fundamentals of the topic under discussion?
This applies particularly to conflicts of faith vs rationality. There is no common ground that both parties recognise as valid. Instead, each side will advance arguments that seem invalid to the other. It is not possible to change the opinion of someone who thinks males are superior to females, or to persuade a feminist to forswear equality. The current controversy over abortion in the US is a prime example. There seems to be no way for the two sides to reconcile.
A person's social, political, religious and environmental views form an ensemble, their world view. For instance, a person who holds fundamentalist Christian beliefs will certainly be a social conservative and almost certainly be very conservative or right-wing politically. It is unlikely that they would be an environmentalist, let alone a feminist. A person with very right-wing views is unlikely to be strongly concerned about the rights of minorities, poverty, racism or the environment, though no doubt there are exceptions. Similarly, a far-left person is not likely to see erosion of family values and high taxes as primary issues.
Why should our political, religious and other beliefs form a continuum? Essentially, the division is between those who look to the past vs the future, ie conservatives vs progressives. Being one or the other predisposes us to a whole range of views on politics, religion and sexuality.
I had never understood why Catholics embraced fascism so readily, as they did in Spain under Franco (and since), as well as in other countries. Pierce's book, Ordinary Insanity, provides some clues: "I firmly believed that authority, lawful authority must be upheld at all times, even when in the wrong. There was a greater consideration; the consideration that law and order must prevail and a bad law is better than no law at all. A father, as designated by the Bible, had lawful authority over his children." She wrote this to justify the fact that she did not protest when her husband began to habitually beat their children on the slightest provocation. "He was their father, and if I gave them support against him, then anarchy would rule." We could extrapolate this to politics, that one authoritarian system - Catholicism - makes people susceptible to another - fascism.
Politically, the difference is between the right and the left. Fascist and communist regimes are both totalitarian and there is little to distinguish them, apart from the rhetoric. However, I think that the tired old distinction between left and right is still valid. People on the left worry about poverty and human rights. People on the right are mainly concerned with the health of the economy and family values. The situation is more complex on the right because there are two divergent streams: the conservatives and the libertarians. The latter seek to maximise autonomy and political freedom, and minimise the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties.
I tried to draw my correspondent on QAnon. He wrote, "Your comments reek of arrogance and intolerance. Possibly without you being aware. This is because you suffer from an unfounded sense of moral superiority, in part due to mass media and your immediate circle feeding back on your (mis) perceptions and ideological world view." He took offence at my barbs at Trump and was very rude. So I terminated our interchange.
How can intelligent people, like my correspondent, admire Trump? They have selective vision. Likewise, they pick and choose what they want QAnon to stand for, such as against big business and big government, ignoring the crazy ideas that QAnon is mainly known for.
Conclusion
Many people appear to be both rational and knowledgeable, yet they hold widely divergent views on important topics. Even with good will on both sides, there seems to be no way for two people with opposed views to reconcile their differences. The underlying reason seems to be that, due to their differing life experiences, they have come to value different things. This, in turn, has shaped their beliefs.