BELIEF AND CERTAINTY

Imagine for a second, that you are at a grocery store shopping. The store is busy as always, and you begin making your way down the aisles looking for various things to get you through the rest of the week. You’re tired from a long day’s work and are irritated by the congested and bustling nature of everything going on. All of a sudden, as you turn a corner to proceed down the next aisle, a person comes out of nowhere and shoves you to the ground in an apparent hurry. As you begin collecting yourself from the floor, you notice the same person ransacking the shelves of every last painkiller they can find. The person stuffs them all in their pockets and sprints out the front of the store without paying for any of it.

 

Now arguably, different people in this same situation would think different things and act in different ways. Perhaps you might think the person is some kind of deranged sociopath. Perhaps you would think they are a drug addict unable to escape their demons. Or maybe you would get up and start yelling in the pure madness of the moment. At any rate, regardless of what these exact thoughts are, I would argue there are three immediate inclinations that most any of us would have: The first inclination being that we would immediately feel some kind of emotional response, the second inclination being that we judge the situation on our own moral basis, and the third being an inclination to fill in the “facts” of the situation based on our own perceptions. In making these observations, I would also argue that these beliefs are all somewhat self-serving as they justify otherwise predetermined ideologies.

 

However, how does this situation change if you were to place yourself in a completely different position? Take a second and imagine yourself as the person running through the store – the person that initially ran you over. Imagine that as you are walking into the store, no less tired or irritated than anyone else there at the time, you see a man to your immediate right collapse. You run over to his aid and call 911. From everything they tell you, it would appear he has had a heart attack and is in urgent need of aspirin. In an effort to help the man before paramedics arrive, you sprint into the store shoving people aside as needed. You raid the shelves in a frantic search for aspirin grabbing everything and anything in sight. Upon finding exactly what you need, you run back outside without ever thinking twice about whether or not you should pay for it.

 

In this case, we have two totally different perceptions of the exact same scenario. Yet the outcomes are more or less the same. In one instance – as the person getting tossed to the ground – you see what is an ethically unacceptable action on a basis of your own moral judgments. As the person grabbing the aspirin for the man with the heart attack, you realize you are ethically wrong for having stolen from the store (and ethically wrong for having shoved people in the process) but did so all on a morally sound basis.

 

Seeing something that triggers immediate perceptions of certain situations or people is not all that uncommon. We are evolutionarily predisposed to use heuristics as a means of acquiring information that we do not necessarily have experience with. It can be seen in our analysis of circumstantial evidence, in our interactions with other people we don’t know, and in argument.  And it is incredibly useful to use heuristics in all these cases – we wouldn’t be able to engage in any of these things otherwise. However, this can be a dangerous default setting to have. In settings where we lack information vital to the circumstance itself, it becomes increasingly difficult to resolve a faithful account of the situation with only our perceptions. Arguably, we can only have complete understanding in situations where we have complete empathy, seeing as we are only able to experience our world through our own perceptions.  

 

I would like to argue that this is what political discourse lacks – a sense of complete understanding. Perhaps this is an unrealistic thought to have, considering that the purpose of politics is to institute sweeping policies for a large number of people. And sure, in the process of doing this, we can’t possibly have a comprehensive plan that benefits everyone; however, it just seems like we have become incapable of even addressing ideas that don’t align with ours. Isn’t there is something fundamentally flawed in that? Now I’m not saying that we should be required to like, or even listen to, politically opposing ideas. What I am suggesting is that we should be able to entertain the idea of our political ideas not being a universal truth. Politics exists for issues that do not have an obvious solution – that is the point in deliberating over them.  When many different people have varying opinions on how a situation could be handled, I think it is a mistake to immediately discount these views. The reason why different perspectives exist in the first place is because there isn’t only one right way of going about it.

 

As I sit at a restaurant watching FOX News, I find this problem as evident as ever. Bill O’Reilly has just come on and has opened up with a piece on universal healthcare. He claims that such an implementation by our government is socialist and completely oversteps governmental duty in society. Now when I listen to Bill O’Reilly or whomever it may be broadcasting the news, it doesn’t feel like I’m watching an update on current events – it feels like I’m watching a personal political agenda. And it feels like he holds his opinions in a light that are far superior to mine or anyone else’s. Perhaps this is only a failure on the basis of my own personal expectations, but something about the way he approaches politics feels fundamentally flawed. And in truth, it’s no different than when I’m at home watching MSNBC. When “Morning Joe” comes on at 8:00 AM sharp, the news anchors revel in the great liberal social advancements that universal health care offers. In truth, I have a hard time seeing how this is any different than FOX News – I still feel like I’m watching the news anchor’s personal political agenda. And it feels like they have discounted all Republican views, to the point that Bill O’Reilly is made out to be a heretic. I find this maddeningly frustrating because on some level, all politics comes down to some level of opinion. And there is no such thing as a universally correct opinion. Just because people have a soapbox to shout their opinions from does not mean their opinions are always right.

 

Again, while there certainly are some people who are willing to change their political views when presented with convincing evidence, I would like to argue that this is more the exception than the rule in political discourse. In political argumentation, both sides can reasonably back their moral positioning with whatever contingent evidence it sees fit, regardless of the other side’s reasoning or argument. And since neither side is necessarily wrong in their justification of evidence and morality, it becomes hard to find middle ground. So in all actuality, when Fox News and MSNBC go back and forth on who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s not just because they observe different moral values: it’s because they aren’t identifying with evidence that would otherwise indicate they are morally wrong. Yes, there are notable exceptions to this. But since political conversation often centers around issues that don’t have a singular correct answer, using evidence as a way to influence moral perception is often problematic. In turn, this makes it incredibly difficult to resolve any differences in opinion, seeing as our interpretation of circumstantial evidence is very much dependent on our moral positioning.

 

 But this is exactly the problem at hand when it comes to stark disagreement in political rhetoric: when we fail to account for possibilities outside our immediate perceptions, and when we immediately discredit perspectives that aren’t our own, we generate a skewed (and often incomprehensive) moral outlook of the world. As a product of this outlook, we begin to analyze evidence in an ever dwindling scope of perspective and possibility.

 

Now there is nothing wrong with the premise behind Fox News and MSNBC – people should be allowed to have the grounds to air their political opinions – but doesn’t such personal expression of politics water down the problem at hand? If you refuse to even acknowledge that you could maybe – just maybe – be wrong in your political beliefs, how could you ever possibly hope to fully understand the full scope of the issue at hand? And if this is the case, shouldn’t we be a little more apprehensive about taking these opinions at face value? Listening to O’Reilly jab the left and listening to MSNBC jab the right is like being shoved over in the grocery store and refusing to believe there could be any other reason for it happening other than what you believe. Just because you have initial perceptions of an issue doesn’t make you wrong – it makes you human. What makes you wrong is the obstinate refusal to acknowledge that anything outside your realm of belief is possible.

 

This is an underlying problem in politics: our moral judgments can’t always agree with others’ moral judgments if we don’t fully understand the ethics of how they are used. And a rather profound dilemma is created at the hands of this problem. Political argument leaves no room for grey area because each party holds their own viewpoints in a superior light. Though arguably, politics could use a little grey area. When decision making is driven by complete black and white ideology, certain decisions will be flawed in one way or another, simply by virtue of not being representative of everyone implicated. For issues such as abortion, gun control, and universal health care, political opinion tends to, more often than not, fall on the far ends of the spectrum. Why is this? What if you’re a “pro-life” soon-to-be mother without a reliable income and need to make decisions on a basis of economic necessity? Or what if you’re a mother in support of women having the right to choose abortion, even though she knows she would never get one herself? Unfortunately enough, these people and ideas have no room in contemporary politics.

 

Yet this isn’t even the biggest issue in political discourse. The biggest issue is that Congressmen and political activists alike argue over policy decisions without even acknowledging the fact that they could possibly be overstated in their opinions. By and large, their opinions are often projected as fact. Now yes, uncertain politicians make for bad policy makers and uncertain debaters make for bad arguers. However, I would argue that overly-certain people make for irrational thinkers.

 

Again yes, most will say that what I am proposing is fine in theory, but completely impractical. And sure, things don’t necessarily work this way in reality…but what exactly is keeping us from at least attempting to think through some of these problems?  What is keeping us from acknowledging there are fundamental flaws in the ways we go about political discourse? Just because a perfect solution is not easily implemented doesn’t mean we should leave the problem untouched. Small, incremental improvements can still go a long way in fixing an otherwise ongoing problem.

 

I believe many things about politics – many of which some people will disagree with – but above all, I believe that it is all too easy to be certain in our political positioning. We all have a default setting that tells us the “exact” reasons for why we got pushed over in the grocery store, but in all actuality, it is not always that simple. It is easy to assume that our own political perceptions are the best way to address any situation, but this style of thinking severely neglects a larger part of the argument. You see, the idea that our political ideologies are self-serving is not wrong: it’s just simply lacking. While we can never completely remove our own perceptions from our beliefs, it is highly consequential if we fail to acknowledge the bigger picture and evidence that might suggest our perceptions are wrong. Despite even our strongest convictions, there will always be exceptions to the belief at hand.