Oct 30·edited Oct 30Liked by Brendan Graham Dempsey
I agree with your main points- we have to revamp education to meet the complexity of the moment. I wrote a summary of a book making the same general point- our interior complexity must match the exterior one, else things fall apart- https://adamkaraoguz.substack.com/p/book-summary-the-watchmans-rattle. There is much more than "education" or "knowledge of the constitution" going on with voting preferences, though. It's not that simple, which I assume you will go into in your next piece.
Informed Democratization generally cuts against the grain of the basic energetic optimization requirements of nature, and particular to this article's topic, of consciousness. The Conscious apparatus converges on and favors automaticity. "Critical thinking" in the pure sense of the term is something our brains are designed to minimize. In many ways the "smartest" among us are those cognitively equipped to afford suboptimal expenditures of energy to critically think. So when it comes to politics, we're likewise working against our apparatus, which ones to converge on The path of lease action (to borrow a phrase from physics). Of course the simplest way to economize critical thinking around politics is to simply have a strong man. It's no wonder then that those less equipped for critical thinking (low iq, to be terse/brash), tend to favor Trump.
(I'm sure you've looked at the cognitive data / fmri differences between conservative and liberal brains). To this end, I wouldn't shy too far away from the social ramifications of good science on the issue. For instance, the dicey issue of the fMRI brain studies could Actually show liberals a better path to both empathizing with and advancing our conservative counterparts. I wrote a piece on this called "build the wall and other progressive ideas" on my Substack somewhere. Cheers
I've been off the democracy bandwagon for a while now. While the angle is slightly different, nothing written is surprising. It's a good statement of the perennial problem with democracy. Do you want to fix it or circumvent it?
My sense is that many people are in on the joke and are quietly leveraging the weaknesses of the system to run a shadow corporate oligarchy. I'm sort of on board with this, but curious if you care either way.
Thank you, Brendan. I was hoping someone like you would outline this problem of complexity with accuracy and compassion. Looking forward to the next installment!
I agree with your main points- we have to revamp education to meet the complexity of the moment. I wrote a summary of a book making the same general point- our interior complexity must match the exterior one, else things fall apart- https://adamkaraoguz.substack.com/p/book-summary-the-watchmans-rattle. There is much more than "education" or "knowledge of the constitution" going on with voting preferences, though. It's not that simple, which I assume you will go into in your next piece.
Indeed. Will get into the other factors in the post tomorrow.
Informed Democratization generally cuts against the grain of the basic energetic optimization requirements of nature, and particular to this article's topic, of consciousness. The Conscious apparatus converges on and favors automaticity. "Critical thinking" in the pure sense of the term is something our brains are designed to minimize. In many ways the "smartest" among us are those cognitively equipped to afford suboptimal expenditures of energy to critically think. So when it comes to politics, we're likewise working against our apparatus, which ones to converge on The path of lease action (to borrow a phrase from physics). Of course the simplest way to economize critical thinking around politics is to simply have a strong man. It's no wonder then that those less equipped for critical thinking (low iq, to be terse/brash), tend to favor Trump.
(I'm sure you've looked at the cognitive data / fmri differences between conservative and liberal brains). To this end, I wouldn't shy too far away from the social ramifications of good science on the issue. For instance, the dicey issue of the fMRI brain studies could Actually show liberals a better path to both empathizing with and advancing our conservative counterparts. I wrote a piece on this called "build the wall and other progressive ideas" on my Substack somewhere. Cheers
Very sobering stuff!
Please find two 1980 references which are very much about this situation.
http://beezone.com/current/stresschemistry.html
http://beezone.com/current/frustrationuniverdisease.html
I've been off the democracy bandwagon for a while now. While the angle is slightly different, nothing written is surprising. It's a good statement of the perennial problem with democracy. Do you want to fix it or circumvent it?
My sense is that many people are in on the joke and are quietly leveraging the weaknesses of the system to run a shadow corporate oligarchy. I'm sort of on board with this, but curious if you care either way.
Thank you, Brendan. I was hoping someone like you would outline this problem of complexity with accuracy and compassion. Looking forward to the next installment!
Finally, someone references Achen and Bartels Democracy for Realists!
Wonderful write-up. Eager for your next installment!