Politics and Social Status

People’s politics are partly driven by a desire for status.

People tend to express political views that will win the approval of their peers. They tend to remain silent if they hold opinions that would be criticized by their peers.

These belief systems become self-reinforcing in each subgroup of society. Churchgoers tend to adopt the beliefs of their congregation. Hollywood actors tend to adopt the beliefs of Hollywood. Police tend to share political views with other police. And so on.

Many political issues end up being framed as “pro vs “anti”. Pro/anti immigration. Pro/anti drugs. Pro/anti choice. Pro/anti life.

But a pro/anti framing is almost always subtly dishonest. When you say you are pro-life, do you really believe people who disagree with you are against life!? When you say you are pro-choice, do you really believe people against you are against choice!?

Obviously not. You are pro/anti legalized abortion. But by calling yourself pro-life or pro-choice, you imply that the other side is anti-life or anti-choice, which sounds bad. It is a subtle, but effective, way of manipulating people’s opinions.

The other day a friend of mine watched an online documentary about the wet markets in Wuhan, and decided not to share it with others. She thought it might contribute to racism against Chinese people, because it suggested that their cultural practices were to blame for COVID-19. Although the documentary seemed objective, she said, why share something that can do no good but might cause harm?

Her attitude does not seem unreasonable to me. The problem is that it is very hard to see the subtle way that decisions like these add up, and lead not just to biased views of the world, but to polarization and division.

In public political debate today, there seems to be little capacity for nuance.

For example, many conservatives seem unable, or unwilling, to differentiate between marijuana and “drugs”. Or for example, many liberals seem unable, or unwilling, to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration.

I believe politicians and pundits often understand the nuance, but just pretend not to. If you act like your opponent made a statement about B when they actually made a statement about A, many people in your audience will believe it. You can them trick your audience into believing your opponent has a different opinion than they actually have – usually a more extreme and idiotic opinion.

Components of Belief

Instead we depend on other minds. We trust others to delve deeply into questions of science, politics, and religion, about which we may know little, and then we add our own reason and experience to form our own opinions.

Thus our belief is influenced by:

1. Our own experience
2. Our own reason
3. Our perception of the beliefs of others

Belief Networks

Beliefs propagate through society, following the rules of networks: weakening with distance, self-reinforce with proximity.