Category: Society

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE JUSTICES?

Those who reacted with indignation to Sonia Sotomayor’s  comments on how her awareness of race inevitably influenced her judgment, may be hypocritical and they may be trying to manipulate public opinion — but it is even more important to grasp that they do not have reality on their side.  Senator Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee, opined that “The American ideal is that justice should be colorblind.”  Apart from the question of whether or not it has been our “ideal,” or even if it has ever been realized, is it even possible?

Adam Liptak makes a nice point in this Sunday’s New York Times, “The Waves Justices Make.” Supreme Court justices themselves have been deeply influenced by the racial identities of their fellow judges.  “Marshall could be a persuasive force just by sitting there,” Justice Antonin Scalia told Juan Williams in an interview for a biography of Justice Marshall, recalling the justices’ private conferences about cases. “He wouldn’t have to open his mouth to affect the nature of the conference and how seriously the conference would take matters of race.”

To some extent, we are all racists, as John Blow pointed out in his OpEd piece in Saturdays New York Times:  “On one end is the mere existence of racial bias. Harvard’s Project Implicit, an online laboratory, has demonstrated that most of us have this bias, whether we are conscious of it or not.  Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are the conscious expressions of that bias in the form of prejudices. On the other end, at the extreme, are deliberate acts of racial discrimination based on those prejudices. That’s where the racists dwell.”

The universality of this bias is rooted in the unconsciously determined categories that our minds create to make sense of our experience.  We lump things together.  And it is demonstrated in the tragic shooting of off-duty police officers by their white colleagues.  Those “accidents” were almost certainly not consciously intended, but in the heat of the moment, with little time to reflect, like the rest of us, they relied on those categories, with disastrous consequences.

That cannot be said of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo or the other Republicans who are clearly looking for an issue to block Obama’s nomination.  In terms of Blow’s categories of bias, that’s genuine “racism.”

Liberals vs. Conservatives

On the OpEd page in Thursday’s New York Times, Nicholas Kristof notes that liberals and conservatives have different emotional profiles, not just different ideas.  They face the world with different stances. (See “Would You Slap Your Father? If So You’re A Liberal”)

“For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty — and revulsion at disgust..”  This is a good beginning at delineating the unconsciously held attitudes that underly conflicts over policy and politics.  Essentially, the arguement goes, we start with an underlying predisposition to think a certain way, a “moral intuition,” and then our brains find the arguments to support that position.

But the interesting question he goes on to raise is, given this fact, how can each camp learn from the other?  He tells us that he started out with the old fashioned idea that debate – the clash of viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas – was the right approach.  But now, he cites the work of Professor Jonathan Haidt, Psychology Professor at Virginia:  “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

There are other factors as well that keep us from changing our minds.  We tend to fight to preserve our predispositions, seeing other points of view as antagonistic, threatening to the beliefs that makes us comfortable.  We also strive to protect our identities as members of different ideological camps. We endanger our affiliations and support systems if we are too willing to change.  It is a complex and thorny array of factors that keep us tenaciously holding to our beliefs.  But I think Kristof is right to ask: How can we open our minds – and hearts – to different points of view?

His suggestion is that we reach out to moderates on the other side in order to break down the “us vs. them” battle lines.  That’s a good beginning, but just a start. When we get back to our own communities it is hard to hold on to the new ideas we picked up at lunch.  Moderates can play a crucial role, but, clearly, they are not the root of the problem.

As a psychotherapist, I know how hard it is for people to change ingrained patterns of behavior and established assumptions — even when they want to.  So I think we need an array of strategies and a consistent emphasis on the existence of the problem to make any progress at all.  And we need leadership that constantly reminds us that there are better ways to listen to each other and to talk.

“I’m not a policy person. I’m a language person”

So says Frank Luntz in Sunday’s Times Magazine, interviewed about his role in crafting Republican opposition to Obama’s yet-to-be-revealed health plan.  This has to be a parody of the new consultants who specialize in manipulating unconscious opinion with words.

Responding to the point that no plan has been proposed yet, he explained “We want to avoid a Washington takeover.”   This must be a demonstration of his skill with all-purpose scary words, designed to drive innocent voters back into the arms of conservative defenders of “freedom,” “liberty,” and “family values.”

There is a long tradition of such word mongers who effectively molded public opinion against “liberal” and “progressive” policies.  George Lakoff joined the fray on the other side during the presidential campaigns in 2004, with his more sophisticated parsing of the metaphors that shape voter opinion. He pointed out that democrats tend to respond to the concept of the nurturant and protective family, appealing to the tender hearted as well as the down and out, while republicans favor the strict family model designed to prepare its members to survive in a hostile world.  That helped to make sense of the improbable republican coalition of the religious right, those favoring a strong defense, the right to guns, deregulation, and the dismantling of social safety nets.

In the last election, Drew Weston helped make democratic politicians and their advisors even more aware of the unconscious factors driving voter opinion, this time using brain imaging techniques to track voter responses.  Awareness of the unconscious aspects of electoral politics is becoming more and more complex and pricey.

And now comes Frank Luntz.  According to the Times, his new 28 page memo, “The Language of Health Care,” has been distributed to republicans in congress.  But who is behind this initiative?  Who does he work for?  Clearly, he is not a policy person, but what are the policies he favors?  Sounds like words without meaning.

He has a self-deprecating manner, but even his humor lacks a certain precision and grace.  Asked if he was married, he replied: “No. I may have perfected the language that gets people to vote certain ways, and buy certain products, but I haven’t perfected the language to get some woman to buy me.”

It is true that wordsmithing influences unconscious perception, but it requires a bit more talent than these examples suggests to have an impact.

But We Can Be Happy

Dan Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist, points out on today’s OpEd page of the New York Times that if we know what we have to adapt to, we can be happy.  It is uncertainty that is the true source of our misery.  In “What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous” he describes research that reveals how even grim and painful certainties are easier to cope with than variable hopes.

This might suggest to some that we are more in control of our fates than we usually think.  If we can adjust our expectations, accept what we don’t have, we can live with it better.  Money will not buy happiness, but knowing how much money you have — or don’t have — gives you a shot at it.

But we can’t just decide not to worry.  We really have to know what is in store for us.  As he points out, those who have undergone painful and irreversible colostomies know what they have to live with, and, knowing that, they can accept it and become happy.  But those of us who face losing our jobs or our homes  — or our vacations or retirement savings or health insurance — cannot adjust to what has not yet happened but  might easily still be in store for us tomorrow.

There is superficial cheer in the thought that our minds have so much power to make us happy.  But a moment’s reflction reveals that the underlying implication of this is highly disturbing.   Those  living in an economy of constantly shifting highs and lows and a society of unreliable benefits and uncertain safety nets, are not only doomed to unhappiness but  anxiety as well.

Our right to the pursuit of happiness may, in fact, ensure that we cannot end up happy after all.

What To Do?

Jason Zweig noted in the WSJ a few weeks back that groups can make very good and very bad decisions: How Group Decisions End Wrong Footed (April 27).  He cites Robert Sutton, an organizational psychologist at Stanford University: “The best groups will be better than their best individual members, and the worst groups will be worse than the worst individual.”

That is very true. Often preoccupied with their own relationships and emotional needs, groups can contaminate their thinking and go off track.  (Those interested in some further examples of this might want to check out my paper, “Corrupt Groups,” which you can get to by clicking the menu on the right.)

But instead of dealing with the real reasons why this happens, Zweig offers a recipe of “proven approaches” to improve decisions.  But that is not likely to work for a group that is really caught up in a destructive process.  They will all too easily convince themselves that they are following the rules and doing it right — until they discover that they got it wrong again.

There is no alternative for a little self-reflection:  Are members really speaking  their minds?  Are unpopular ideas being voiced?  Is everyone participating?  What is not being said?  The Yale sociologist Irving Janis noted the power of Groupthink over 35 years ago, and that is the approach he recommended to counter its effects.

More work, yes, and greater anxiety, as well.  But better outcomes.