Saturday, August 16, 2003
I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about the UC Berkeley study purporting to give a psychological profile of conservative thinking. I’ve given it some thought, and I think I know how to explain these blatherings. In modern American politics (I’ll say over the last twenty to thirty years), conservatives have tended to be Aristotelians, while liberals have tended to be Platonists. The two schools of thought have tremendously different ways of evaluating the validity of things. Aristotelians believe that ideas should be derived from observation of the external world and are properly evaluated by determining how closely an idea comports with observation of the world. To an Aristotelian, saying something is true means saying it comports with the facts. Platonists, on the other hand, believe that the world about us is merely a pale reflection of higher truths (Plato's Analogy of the Cave is essentially getting at this.). To a Platonist, judging ideas by means of external observation is largely a futile exercise. The information you get from the outside world isn't truth, but merely facts. The higher truths lie in the world of ideas and surpass facts, which are largely inadequate, contaminated examples of the truths in the world of ideas, and the only way to get at the higher truths is through intuitive knowledge and study of the ideas in as purely abstract as possible.
To a Platonist, an Aristotelian undoubtedly seems to be mentally unbalanced. After all, he's looking at shadows on the wall of the cave and calling those shadows truth. Surely, he reasons, the Aristotelian's refusal to look truth straight on must be from some moral or intellectual failing.
Consider, if you will, some of the authors' claims about conservative thinking:
*Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity;
To the Aristotelian, there ultimately is one ultimate source for judging the validity of a claim: demonstrable, verifiable, reality. If something is not true in fact, Aristotelians conclude that it’s false. This constancy of standard undoubtedly baffles (and even offends) Platonists. Truth, they’ll say lies in many different sources (after all, each person’s connection to the higher truth is unknown and perhaps unknowable). Surely, no one source has a monopoly on it. Various truth-seekers have arrived at many different conclusions. Consequently, viewing this one source, the outside world, as the basis for judgement undoubtedly seems to strike Platonists as dogmatic.
*Need for cognitive closure;
To the Aristotelian, evidence from the outside world provides the basis for judging claims and ideas. The ideas and claims themselves are largely man-made constructs to provide a framework to make use of this evidence from the outside world. That is to say, the ideas and claims themselves are not things per se, but structures for analyzing evidence. To the Platonist, the claims and ideas are the actual things. This difference forms the basis for the differences between how Aristotelians and Platonists deal with contradiction. It is precisely in the realm of ideas and claims that contradictions exist. Facts don’t contradict one another, but the interpretations do. To the Platonist, these interpretations are the reflection of the truth. Where there are contradictions, the contradictions lie in the truth itself, a complex and multi-faceted thing. To the Aristotelian, however, the contradiction lies only in the process by which the evidence is organized and interpreted; it is, in short, merely evidence of sloppy thinking. Since the facts themselves are not in contradiction, the contradiction can only lie in improperly reflecting this reality.
* Fear and aggression / Terror management
It’s here that, to some extent, I’ve got to delve a little into the politics of both sides. Ultimately, these criticisms stem from a belief that Aristotelians overestimate the level of threat from outside sources. To understand this perspective, one needs to consider that there are three possible results of threat analysis on both sides of the fence: overestimation, underestimation, and correct estimation. For either side, disagreements will not arise in the case of correct estimation. Both sides recognize the threat as it is. For Aristotelians, overestimation or underestimation also aren’t problems. The misinterpretations can, by and large, be corrected by the presentation of additional evidence. But, when we move to the realm of the Platonists, things get a little more complex. Truth, after all, isn’t a function of evidence. It exists independently of it. Since, the case of the accurate estimator isn’t a problem, we can safely move on to the case of the over and underestimators. Those who consistently overestimate the level of threat that they encounter (especially when both divorced from evidence) are quite fairly judged paranoids in our society. Consequently, their views are quite properly dismissed. But, this situation leaves, on the Platonist side, only the consistent underestimators. Now, bear in mind to underestimators, their view isn’t opinion or interpretation, but truth. If that’s the case, it’s easy to see where, from their perspective, even accurate estimators are, in fact, overestimators. Think about it, a RINO on the staff of Berkeley would probably consider himself a conservative; politics does tend to be one of those things that are relative.
I could try going into the point about uncertainty avoidance, but ultimately, I’ve come to understand that it is a term-of-art in sociology and anthropology. Consequently, I prefer to avoid making any judgements based on my understanding of the layman’s terminology.
All in all, though, I see a consistent pattern in the Berkeley study: left-wing Platonists evaluating differing viewpoints based on their own standards. For surely, their standards need no defending nor evidence. Their views are revealed truth coming from, well, the enlightened. That said, I’m not really a complete opponent of Platonic thinking. There are plenty of areas where the Platonic approach is not only valuable, but vital. Religion, philosophy, aesthetics, and morality are just a glimpse of the areas where the Aristotelian paradigm is of extremely limited use. But, as even Machiavelli recognized, politics is a field that passes in this world. As a result, the professors’ Platonic paradigm amounts to much the same as counting angels on the head of a pin.
To a Platonist, an Aristotelian undoubtedly seems to be mentally unbalanced. After all, he's looking at shadows on the wall of the cave and calling those shadows truth. Surely, he reasons, the Aristotelian's refusal to look truth straight on must be from some moral or intellectual failing.
Consider, if you will, some of the authors' claims about conservative thinking:
*Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity;
To the Aristotelian, there ultimately is one ultimate source for judging the validity of a claim: demonstrable, verifiable, reality. If something is not true in fact, Aristotelians conclude that it’s false. This constancy of standard undoubtedly baffles (and even offends) Platonists. Truth, they’ll say lies in many different sources (after all, each person’s connection to the higher truth is unknown and perhaps unknowable). Surely, no one source has a monopoly on it. Various truth-seekers have arrived at many different conclusions. Consequently, viewing this one source, the outside world, as the basis for judgement undoubtedly seems to strike Platonists as dogmatic.
*Need for cognitive closure;
To the Aristotelian, evidence from the outside world provides the basis for judging claims and ideas. The ideas and claims themselves are largely man-made constructs to provide a framework to make use of this evidence from the outside world. That is to say, the ideas and claims themselves are not things per se, but structures for analyzing evidence. To the Platonist, the claims and ideas are the actual things. This difference forms the basis for the differences between how Aristotelians and Platonists deal with contradiction. It is precisely in the realm of ideas and claims that contradictions exist. Facts don’t contradict one another, but the interpretations do. To the Platonist, these interpretations are the reflection of the truth. Where there are contradictions, the contradictions lie in the truth itself, a complex and multi-faceted thing. To the Aristotelian, however, the contradiction lies only in the process by which the evidence is organized and interpreted; it is, in short, merely evidence of sloppy thinking. Since the facts themselves are not in contradiction, the contradiction can only lie in improperly reflecting this reality.
* Fear and aggression / Terror management
It’s here that, to some extent, I’ve got to delve a little into the politics of both sides. Ultimately, these criticisms stem from a belief that Aristotelians overestimate the level of threat from outside sources. To understand this perspective, one needs to consider that there are three possible results of threat analysis on both sides of the fence: overestimation, underestimation, and correct estimation. For either side, disagreements will not arise in the case of correct estimation. Both sides recognize the threat as it is. For Aristotelians, overestimation or underestimation also aren’t problems. The misinterpretations can, by and large, be corrected by the presentation of additional evidence. But, when we move to the realm of the Platonists, things get a little more complex. Truth, after all, isn’t a function of evidence. It exists independently of it. Since, the case of the accurate estimator isn’t a problem, we can safely move on to the case of the over and underestimators. Those who consistently overestimate the level of threat that they encounter (especially when both divorced from evidence) are quite fairly judged paranoids in our society. Consequently, their views are quite properly dismissed. But, this situation leaves, on the Platonist side, only the consistent underestimators. Now, bear in mind to underestimators, their view isn’t opinion or interpretation, but truth. If that’s the case, it’s easy to see where, from their perspective, even accurate estimators are, in fact, overestimators. Think about it, a RINO on the staff of Berkeley would probably consider himself a conservative; politics does tend to be one of those things that are relative.
I could try going into the point about uncertainty avoidance, but ultimately, I’ve come to understand that it is a term-of-art in sociology and anthropology. Consequently, I prefer to avoid making any judgements based on my understanding of the layman’s terminology.
All in all, though, I see a consistent pattern in the Berkeley study: left-wing Platonists evaluating differing viewpoints based on their own standards. For surely, their standards need no defending nor evidence. Their views are revealed truth coming from, well, the enlightened. That said, I’m not really a complete opponent of Platonic thinking. There are plenty of areas where the Platonic approach is not only valuable, but vital. Religion, philosophy, aesthetics, and morality are just a glimpse of the areas where the Aristotelian paradigm is of extremely limited use. But, as even Machiavelli recognized, politics is a field that passes in this world. As a result, the professors’ Platonic paradigm amounts to much the same as counting angels on the head of a pin.
