By Jonathan Haidt and Ravi Iyer
Friday, November 04, 2016
The most-watched made-for-TV movie in American history is
“The Day After,” a 1983 portrayal of life in Kansas and Missouri in the days
just before and after an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. If you’ve
had even fleeting thoughts that Tuesday’s election could bring about the end of
the world or the destruction of the country, you might want to find “The Day
After” on YouTube, scroll to minute 53 and watch the next six minutes. Now that’s an apocalypse.
It’s an absurd comparison, of course, but the absurdity
is helpful. It reminds us that no matter how bad things seem, we have a lot to
be grateful for. The Soviet Union is gone, and life in America has gotten much
better since the 1980s by most objective measures. Crime is way down,
prosperity and longevity are way up, and doors are open much more widely for
talented people from just about any demographic group. Yes, we have new
problems, and the benefits haven’t been spread evenly, but if you look at the
big picture, we are making astonishing progress.
Watching “The Day After” also might help Americans to
tone down the apocalyptic language that so many have used about the
presidential race. On the right, some speak of this as the “Flight 93
election,” meaning that America has been hijacked by treasonous leftists who
are trying to crash the plane, so electing Donald Trump to rush the cockpit is
the only sane choice. On the left, some think that a Trump victory would lead
to a constitutional crisis followed by a military coup, fascism and
dictatorship.
Nearly half the country will therefore wake up deeply
disappointed on the morning of Nov. 9, and many members of the losing side will
think that America is doomed. Those on the winning side will feel relieved, but
many will be shocked and disgusted that nearly half of their fellow citizens
voted for the moral equivalent of the devil. The disgust expressed by both
sides in this election is particularly worrisome because disgust dehumanizes
its targets. That is why it is usually fostered by the perpetrators of
genocide—disgust makes it easier for ordinary citizens to kill their neighbors.
In short, the day after this election is likely to be
darker and more foreboding than the day after just about any U.S. election
since 1860. Is it possible for Americans to forgive, accept and carry on
working and living together?
We think that it is. After all, civility doesn’t require
consensus or the suspension of criticism. It is simply the ability to disagree
productively with others while respecting their sincerity and decency. That can
be hard to do when emotions run so high. But if we understand better the
psychological causes of our current animosity, we can all take some simple
steps to turn it down, free ourselves from hatred and make the next four years
better for ourselves and the country. Three time-honored quotations can serve
as guides.
“Me against my
brother, my brothers and me against my cousins, then my cousins and me against
strangers.” —Bedouin saying
Human nature is tribal. We form teams easily, most likely
because we have evolved for violent intergroup conflict. Our minds take to it
so readily that we invent myths, games and sports—including war games like
paintball—that let us enjoy the pleasures of intergroup conflict without the
horrors of actual war.
The tribal mind is adept at changing alliances to face
shifting threats, as the Bedouin saying indicates. We see such shifts after
party primaries, when those who backed a losing candidate swing around to
support the nominee. And we saw it happen after the 9/11 attacks, when the
country came together to support the president and the military in the invasion
of Afghanistan.
But with the exception of the few months after 9/11,
cross-partisan animosity has been rising steadily since the late 1990s. This
year, for the first time since Pew Research began asking in 1994, majorities in
both parties expressed not just “unfavorable” views of the other party but
“very unfavorable” views. Those ratings were generally below 20% throughout the
1990s. And more than 40% in each party now see the policies of the other party
as being “so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.” Those
numbers are up by about 10% in both parties just since 2014.
So what will happen the next time there is a major
terrorist attack? Will we come together again? Or will the attack become a
partisan football within hours, as happened after the various lone-wolf attacks
of the past year? Something is broken in American tribalism. It is now “my
brothers and me against my cousins” all the time, even when we are threatened
by strangers and even when there is no threat at all.
Democracy requires trust and cooperation as well as
competition. A healthy democracy features flexible and shifting coalitions. We
must find a way to see citizens on the other side as cousins who are sometimes
opponents but who share most of our values and interests and are never our
mortal enemies.
“Why do you see
the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?…
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” —Jesus, in Matthew 7:3-5
Our tribal minds are equipped with a powerful tool:
shameless and clueless hypocrisy. It is a general rule of psychology that
“thinking is for doing”: We think with a particular purpose in mind, and often
that purpose isn’t to find the truth but to defend ourselves or attack our
opponents.
Psychologists call this process “motivated reasoning.” It
is found whenever self-interest is in play. When the interests of a group are
added to the mix, this sort of biased, god-awful reasoning becomes positively
virtuous—it signals your loyalty to the team. This is why partisans find it so
easy to dismiss scandalous revelations about their own candidate while focusing
so intently on scandalous revelations about the other candidate.
Motivated reasoning has interacted with tribalism and new
media technologies since the 1990s in unfortunate ways. Social media, hackers
and Google searches now help us to find hundreds of specks in our opponents’
eyes, but no technology can force us to acknowledge the logs in our own.
“Nature has so
formed us that a certain tie unites us all, but…this tie becomes stronger from
proximity.” —Cicero, “On Friendship”
Humans are tribal, but tribalism can be transcended. It
exists in tension with our extraordinary ability to develop bonds with other
human beings. Romeo and Juliet fell in love. French, British and German
soldiers came out of their trenches in World War I to exchange food, cigarettes
and Christmas greetings.
The key, as Cicero observed, is proximity, and a great
deal of modern research backs him up. Students are more likely to become
friends with the student whose dorm room is one door away than with the student
whose room is four doors away. People who have at least one friend from the
other political party are less likely to hate the supporters of that party.
But tragically, Americans are losing their proximity to
those on the other side and are spending more time in politically purified
settings. Since the 1980s, Democrats have been packing into the cities while
the rural areas and exurbs have been getting more Republican. Institutions that
used to bring people together—such as churches—are now splitting apart over
culture war issues such as gay marriage.
Ever more of our social life is spent online, in virtual
communities or networks that are politically homogeneous. When we do rub up
against the other side online, relative anonymity often leads to stunning
levels of incivility, including racist and sexist slurs and threats of
violence.
So are we doomed? Will the polarizing trends identified
by Pew just keep going until the country splits in two? Maybe John Adams was
right in 1814 when he wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes,
exhausts and murders itself.”
But we have lasted 240 years so far, and both sides agree
that America is worth fighting for. We just have to see that the fight isn’t
always against each other; it is also a struggle to adapt our democracy and our
habits for polarizing times and technologies.
Some of these adaptations will require changes to laws
and institutions. Some will come from improving technology as we fine-tune
social media to reward productive disagreement while filtering out trolling and
intimidation.
And many of the changes must come from each of us, as
individuals who have friends, co-workers and cousins who voted for the other
side. How will we treat them as customers, employees, students and neighbors?
What will we say to them at Thanksgiving dinner?
If you would like to let go of anger on Nov. 9 without
letting go of your moral and political principles, here is some advice, adapted
from ancient wisdom and modern research.
First, separate your feelings about Donald Trump and
Hillary Clinton from your feelings about their supporters. Political scientists
report that since the 1980s, Americans have increasingly voted against the
other side’s candidate, rather than voting enthusiastically for their own, and
that is especially true this time. So don’t assume that most people on the
other side like or even agree with their candidate on any particular issue.
They may be voting out of fears and frustrations that you don’t understand, but
if you knew their stories, you might well empathize with them.
Second, step back and think about your goals. In the long
run, would you rather change people or hate them? If you actually want to
persuade or otherwise influence people, you should know that it is nearly
impossible to change people’s minds by arguing with them. When there is mutual
antipathy, there is mutual motivated reasoning, defensiveness and hypocrisy.
But anything that opens the heart opens the mind as well,
so do what you can to cultivate personal relationships with those on the other
side. Spend time together, and let the proximity recommended by Cicero
strengthen ties. Familiarity does not breed contempt. Research shows that as
things or people become familiar, we like them more.
Emotions often drive reasoning, so as our hearts harden,
our thinking also calcifies, and we become dogmatic. We are less able to think
flexibly and address the social problems that we claim to care about. As John
Stuart Mill wrote in 1859, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows
little of that.” So cultivating a few cross-partisan friendships will make you
smarter as well as calmer, even if polarization grows worse.
And if you do find a way to have a real conversation with
someone on the other side, approach it skillfully. One powerful opener is to
point to a log in your own eye—to admit right up front that you or your side
were wrong about something. Doing this at the start of a conversation signals
that you aren’t in combat mode. If you are open, trusting and generous, your
partner is likely to reciprocate.
Another powerful depolarizing move is praise, as we saw
in the second Clinton-Trump debate. After more than 90 minutes of antagonism, a
member of the town-hall audience brought the evening to a close with this
question: “Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one
another?”
Mrs. Clinton began with weak praise by saying that she
respects Mr. Trump’s children. But then she made it strong and generous by
noting how “incredibly able” those children are and how devoted they are to
their father, adding, “I think that says a lot about Donald.” Mr. Trump
responded in kind: “I will say this about Hillary. She doesn’t quit, and she
doesn’t give up. I respect that.”
That brief exchange was emotionally powerful—the only
uplifting moment of the night for many viewers. Had it been the opening
exchange, might the debate have been more elevated, more constructive?
This has been a frightening year for many Americans.
Questions about the durability, legitimacy and wisdom of our democracy have
been raised, both here and abroad. But the true test of our democracy—and our
love of country—will come on the day after the election. Starting next
Wednesday, each of us must decide what kind of person we want to be and what
kind of relationship we want to have with our politically estranged cousins.
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