Larry Gude
Strung Out
...Fundamental Attribution Error.
Reading a fun book by Malcolm Gladwell called "Tipping Point" and it's about how seemingly small things can make such an enormous impact that are actually the culmination of a whole bunch of things that needed just one more push; tipping points. Epidemics of disease. Sudden fashion trends. How a show catches on. Even why was Paul Revere so successful, one man, rousing the militia, while another guy whose name is pretty much lost to histories pages, who did the exact same thing Revere did, on the exact same night, was unable to rouse anywhere near as many people from just as patriotic villages while covering just as much time and space. To boil it all down, it is three things; how good the messenger is, how good the message is and the context. A few very small changes and the great plague of 1919 doesn't happen. Hush Puppies were never reborn (a common reference theme of the book).
One of the really interesting parts is about the development of Sesame street and how on earth do kids learn and develop, what interests them and why. An awful lot went into the show and it turned out to be an amazingly successful, good thing and it almost flopped before it every got on the air and was saved by some, at the time, very minor, seemingly, very minor changes, that were enormous in their impact. Tipping points.
Part of that lead to, of course, to the next step; how adults think and develop. One of the concepts is FAE; fundamental attribution error. Basically, it means anything anyone you don't know does that is dumb is because they are stupid and anything you do, or someone you like does that is dumb is understandable because of the particulars and is just, at worst, a mistake and not a character flaw. Context. They're dumb. We have a reason.
FAE is actually very practical in a human interaction sense because it allows us to understand things quickly in a fashion that is most helpful to us; it really isn't important, day to day, if 'those people' are idiots and morons. You don't live with them, do things with them, need them for anything. It IS important that folks that matter to you are NOT blithering idiots with huge character flaws. So, as a simple matter of simplicity and practical need, our brains boil things down sort of as a reflexive; this matters, good, this doesn't, bad, exercise.
Where it becomes a problem is if, for whatever reason, you need broader understanding be it as a salesperson, a politician, neighbors, a doctor who needs patients to readily have trust in them, etc. It's sort of a holy grail concept of relating and reaching people in a broader context.
Where I am going with this is politics because that is a topic of great interest to me. It's never been satisfying that 'our side is good because we are the 'right' ones and their side is bad because they are the 'wrong' ones.'
It worked when I was young; GOP good, D bad. We smart, they dumb. We care and get it and they don't.
However, over the years, because politics interests me, that stopped working because...it wasn't true. I proved this out by getting to know more and more 'liberals' who were very smart, sincere, good people and seeing that there are plenty of people on 'my side' that are dumb, are not very thoughtful and don't really mean well. However, they were on my side and, because of FAE, they were, at least nominally, for, in this example, limited government, family, and country and, thus good. This, of course, all seems obvious, light bulb moments, once I get them but, it's fun and interesting none the less and it explains a lot.
Why is so much political commentary black and white, our side good, your side bad? Because, to gain a larger audience, they're appealing to your natural inclination to Fundamental Attribution Error; D good, R bad. Or R good, D bad, as the case may be. The detail I crave makes most people glaze over. To keep life simple, if you are an R, your guy can be a big government, big debt socialist IF he is, nominally, an R because if your guy does stupid stuff, there's gotta be a good, understandable reason or excuse because, hey, he/she is an R! And, of course, if those D's want big government, big debt and socialism it's simply because they're wrong and don't get it because they're too stupid to get it. They are, after all, D's.
This has been fun for me to get into because it helps make the forums so much more understandable, our personal bias's, why we tend to think like we do, react like we do, comment like we do.
We all, intuitively, know most other people are smart, can walk and chew gum at the same time, are most likely decent parents, can drive, run a household and have fairly normal and similar lives to our own. We know, somehow, they HAVE to be or society, traffic, shopping together, getting on and off the bus, work, all our normal stuff, we ALL have to be pretty smart, pretty honest, pretty decent folks, in a general sense. Society simply could not work, at all, if ALL of those people were inclined to crime, stupidity, bad decision making, can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
So, we know it, in a general sense that we're all basically good and fairly smart but, add in faith, or politics or sex and KABOOM!!!! All of sudden, THOSE people are dimwitted rejects who are the root cause of all our problems because they're so dumb. We fundamentally attribute good based characteristics to our side and poor ones to theirs and to hell with context.
Again, it's shown to be normal human thought to do that to readily make sense, to create order, to keep us with our kind where it is most likely safe.
However, this ends up with the intellectual challenge of KNOWING, in a general sense, that THOSE people are probably an awful lot like you and your people in terms of basic character, integrity and intelligence and decency so, why the rancor? Why the animosity in a modern world where immediate group, tribe, isn't anywhere as near important as it used to be? Why do we HAVE to have crap politics?
The politician feeds off of this. The commentator, too. We've discussed so many issues that end up right at FAE; Is a given commentator really as stupid and oblivious as the comment they just made? If you're a Rush Limbaugh fan, chances are that what Andrea Mitchell just said IS because she is a blithering idiot and, if Rush just said something really stupid, then, you whip out the excuses-o-meter and struggle to look at the context he said it in. Same thing is true in reverse.
To someone who doesn't care about Rush's or Andrea's politics, they are both, obviously, very intelligent people who've done well for themselves and have good basic character. If you're an R, she's as vapid as they come. If you're a D, he's a racist, bigot, homophobe.
George Bush is a classic. He doubled the national debt, expanded government massively and couldn't lead an army out of a wet paper bag. Those are the basic results of his presidency. BUT, if you're an R, he had 9/11 to deal with, the media, Nancy Pelosi, a huge storm that happens rarely, wars are hard, the weather was bad. If you're a D, his tax cuts caused the debt and he is a lying, war mongering conservative. With a weather machine. Who hates black people.
And now, Obama; if you're an R, even though he hasn't (yet) doubled the debt, as Bush did, hasn't expanded government as much as Bush did and wasn't the one who started Bail Out Nation, Obama is WORSE because he's a commie pinko, socialist, big government maniac.
We fundamentally attribute good characteristics to George Bush he, clearly, does not have BECAUSE he's our guy, and excuse the bad things, from an R view point, that he did do, and attribute the worst to Obama for things we excused Bush for and give no credit for anything good he may have done. Not our guy.
We're doing it now with Phil Robertson; we apply context to him if we like him and everyone else is a godawful sinner of the worst kind.
For me, the practical application of this is to dispel Pete and Vrai's 7/10 rule whereby they, and one more person, are smart and good and well meaning (and they are) and the other 7 are window licking, mouth breathing idiots AND anything anyone of the 3 does that is dumb has context, a perfectly good excuse while anything good the 7 does is simply an accident because they are all mouth breathing, window licking idiots. I know, in a general sense, lots of people are dumb but, there is context. I know I do dumb stuff that is simply...dumb. Even in context.
It's just been unacceptable to me that society, in general, DOES function fairly well and that can't be if 70% of us are functionally retarded.
Context.
So, the 3 suffer from Fundamental Attribution Error. Same as the 7. Now, I have a formed intellectual argument from people far smarter than me to back up my instinct. Ha.
In any event, my interest in politics comes from what is possible; we COULD do so much good, as a nation, as a people but, we just muddle along and, it seems, a huge hurdle to doing better, really doing better, is our tendency to attribute the worst to one another WHILE handing out passes to our own.
That is a real fundamental problem.
Reading a fun book by Malcolm Gladwell called "Tipping Point" and it's about how seemingly small things can make such an enormous impact that are actually the culmination of a whole bunch of things that needed just one more push; tipping points. Epidemics of disease. Sudden fashion trends. How a show catches on. Even why was Paul Revere so successful, one man, rousing the militia, while another guy whose name is pretty much lost to histories pages, who did the exact same thing Revere did, on the exact same night, was unable to rouse anywhere near as many people from just as patriotic villages while covering just as much time and space. To boil it all down, it is three things; how good the messenger is, how good the message is and the context. A few very small changes and the great plague of 1919 doesn't happen. Hush Puppies were never reborn (a common reference theme of the book).
One of the really interesting parts is about the development of Sesame street and how on earth do kids learn and develop, what interests them and why. An awful lot went into the show and it turned out to be an amazingly successful, good thing and it almost flopped before it every got on the air and was saved by some, at the time, very minor, seemingly, very minor changes, that were enormous in their impact. Tipping points.
Part of that lead to, of course, to the next step; how adults think and develop. One of the concepts is FAE; fundamental attribution error. Basically, it means anything anyone you don't know does that is dumb is because they are stupid and anything you do, or someone you like does that is dumb is understandable because of the particulars and is just, at worst, a mistake and not a character flaw. Context. They're dumb. We have a reason.
FAE is actually very practical in a human interaction sense because it allows us to understand things quickly in a fashion that is most helpful to us; it really isn't important, day to day, if 'those people' are idiots and morons. You don't live with them, do things with them, need them for anything. It IS important that folks that matter to you are NOT blithering idiots with huge character flaws. So, as a simple matter of simplicity and practical need, our brains boil things down sort of as a reflexive; this matters, good, this doesn't, bad, exercise.
Where it becomes a problem is if, for whatever reason, you need broader understanding be it as a salesperson, a politician, neighbors, a doctor who needs patients to readily have trust in them, etc. It's sort of a holy grail concept of relating and reaching people in a broader context.
Where I am going with this is politics because that is a topic of great interest to me. It's never been satisfying that 'our side is good because we are the 'right' ones and their side is bad because they are the 'wrong' ones.'
It worked when I was young; GOP good, D bad. We smart, they dumb. We care and get it and they don't.
However, over the years, because politics interests me, that stopped working because...it wasn't true. I proved this out by getting to know more and more 'liberals' who were very smart, sincere, good people and seeing that there are plenty of people on 'my side' that are dumb, are not very thoughtful and don't really mean well. However, they were on my side and, because of FAE, they were, at least nominally, for, in this example, limited government, family, and country and, thus good. This, of course, all seems obvious, light bulb moments, once I get them but, it's fun and interesting none the less and it explains a lot.
Why is so much political commentary black and white, our side good, your side bad? Because, to gain a larger audience, they're appealing to your natural inclination to Fundamental Attribution Error; D good, R bad. Or R good, D bad, as the case may be. The detail I crave makes most people glaze over. To keep life simple, if you are an R, your guy can be a big government, big debt socialist IF he is, nominally, an R because if your guy does stupid stuff, there's gotta be a good, understandable reason or excuse because, hey, he/she is an R! And, of course, if those D's want big government, big debt and socialism it's simply because they're wrong and don't get it because they're too stupid to get it. They are, after all, D's.
This has been fun for me to get into because it helps make the forums so much more understandable, our personal bias's, why we tend to think like we do, react like we do, comment like we do.
We all, intuitively, know most other people are smart, can walk and chew gum at the same time, are most likely decent parents, can drive, run a household and have fairly normal and similar lives to our own. We know, somehow, they HAVE to be or society, traffic, shopping together, getting on and off the bus, work, all our normal stuff, we ALL have to be pretty smart, pretty honest, pretty decent folks, in a general sense. Society simply could not work, at all, if ALL of those people were inclined to crime, stupidity, bad decision making, can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
So, we know it, in a general sense that we're all basically good and fairly smart but, add in faith, or politics or sex and KABOOM!!!! All of sudden, THOSE people are dimwitted rejects who are the root cause of all our problems because they're so dumb. We fundamentally attribute good based characteristics to our side and poor ones to theirs and to hell with context.
Again, it's shown to be normal human thought to do that to readily make sense, to create order, to keep us with our kind where it is most likely safe.
However, this ends up with the intellectual challenge of KNOWING, in a general sense, that THOSE people are probably an awful lot like you and your people in terms of basic character, integrity and intelligence and decency so, why the rancor? Why the animosity in a modern world where immediate group, tribe, isn't anywhere as near important as it used to be? Why do we HAVE to have crap politics?
The politician feeds off of this. The commentator, too. We've discussed so many issues that end up right at FAE; Is a given commentator really as stupid and oblivious as the comment they just made? If you're a Rush Limbaugh fan, chances are that what Andrea Mitchell just said IS because she is a blithering idiot and, if Rush just said something really stupid, then, you whip out the excuses-o-meter and struggle to look at the context he said it in. Same thing is true in reverse.
To someone who doesn't care about Rush's or Andrea's politics, they are both, obviously, very intelligent people who've done well for themselves and have good basic character. If you're an R, she's as vapid as they come. If you're a D, he's a racist, bigot, homophobe.
George Bush is a classic. He doubled the national debt, expanded government massively and couldn't lead an army out of a wet paper bag. Those are the basic results of his presidency. BUT, if you're an R, he had 9/11 to deal with, the media, Nancy Pelosi, a huge storm that happens rarely, wars are hard, the weather was bad. If you're a D, his tax cuts caused the debt and he is a lying, war mongering conservative. With a weather machine. Who hates black people.
And now, Obama; if you're an R, even though he hasn't (yet) doubled the debt, as Bush did, hasn't expanded government as much as Bush did and wasn't the one who started Bail Out Nation, Obama is WORSE because he's a commie pinko, socialist, big government maniac.
We fundamentally attribute good characteristics to George Bush he, clearly, does not have BECAUSE he's our guy, and excuse the bad things, from an R view point, that he did do, and attribute the worst to Obama for things we excused Bush for and give no credit for anything good he may have done. Not our guy.
We're doing it now with Phil Robertson; we apply context to him if we like him and everyone else is a godawful sinner of the worst kind.
For me, the practical application of this is to dispel Pete and Vrai's 7/10 rule whereby they, and one more person, are smart and good and well meaning (and they are) and the other 7 are window licking, mouth breathing idiots AND anything anyone of the 3 does that is dumb has context, a perfectly good excuse while anything good the 7 does is simply an accident because they are all mouth breathing, window licking idiots. I know, in a general sense, lots of people are dumb but, there is context. I know I do dumb stuff that is simply...dumb. Even in context.
It's just been unacceptable to me that society, in general, DOES function fairly well and that can't be if 70% of us are functionally retarded. Context.
So, the 3 suffer from Fundamental Attribution Error. Same as the 7. Now, I have a formed intellectual argument from people far smarter than me to back up my instinct. Ha.
In any event, my interest in politics comes from what is possible; we COULD do so much good, as a nation, as a people but, we just muddle along and, it seems, a huge hurdle to doing better, really doing better, is our tendency to attribute the worst to one another WHILE handing out passes to our own.
That is a real fundamental problem.
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