Julian Sanchez writes:
I’ve written a bit lately about what I see as a systematic trend toward “epistemic closure” in the modern conservative movement. As commenters have been quick to point out, of course, groupthink and confirmation bias are cognitive failings that we’re all susceptible to as human beings, and scarcely the exclusive province of the right …Yet I can’t pretend that, on net, I really see an equivalence at present: As of 2010, the right really does seem to be substantially further down the rabbit hole.
Andrew Sullivan offers up some related links and commentary. I tend to agree with Sanchez and Sullivan, but I thought you all would be a good group to poll. Please offer up your opinion in the comments.
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That’s funny, because I caught a segment on Olbermann last night that struck me as total nonsense and left me thinking, “So, that’s what the left’s echo chamber sounds like.” I don’t know that the left is more open-minded. I’d argue that it’s benefiting from some good timing and perception. Yglesias really seems to nail it.
There also seems to be a group of so-called conservatives who are on a contrarian ego trip (Sullivan, Bartlett, et al).
This seems strange to me perhaps as a result of my cultural background. Doesn’t everyone receive an education in liberalism, and whig history. Conservatives are almost uniformly painted as low status in the media. What kid grows up thinking Rush Limbaugh or High Church Episcopalism is cool? Even kids from conservative households stand a decent chance of becoming liberal. It seems in order to become familiar with actual good conservative arguments, one has to actively seek them out, which means most people end up believing Limbaugh is the pinnacle of right-wing thought.
Even then, I can attest that the when someone raised liberal first reads Steve Sailer, it feels wrong. Most people probably don’t get any further than this, they would just file him in the “evil” file along with anyone who would argue against feminism. Engaging with arguments that are universally vilified seems like a sign of open-mindedness.
Here’s my bottom line theory; the most open-minded are people who have abandoned their faith at some point. Because the social costs in status and even the opportunity to switch from liberal to conservative are far less than vice versa, most conservatives are those raised conservative, thus they are less open-minded and the theory holds. However, those who switch from liberal to conservative may be the most open-minded of all, so the general result should not be used to demonstrate the superiority of liberalism.
Kind of a pointless question. Who would willingly describe themselves or their chosen cohort as “closed minded”? Who can resist the temptation to assume that those one dislikes are either less informed or less intelligent that those we like? Just because someone is not persuaded to your point of view does not mean that person is unpersuadable in principle.
I think anyone that can honestly say they believe their opinion is “right” and that others are “wrong” and others should be forced to live, act, and think as they do is close minded and pretty ignorant. This is what both the far left and right say and they are both closed minded. The truly open minded and enlightened people are the ones that do not profess to know and have enough sense to not tell others that they know the “right” way for others to live.
I don’t think the conservative mind is more closed. I don’t subscribe to neoclassical economics, I loathe Ayn Rand, and think the FairTax is a cult, not an intellectual movement. But let’s not forget that the equivalent in the progressive movement are stuck at the level of folk economics.
>traditional people in this country don’t eat arugula
Actually a lot of the older ones have, they just knew it under the English name rocket. A lot of the older generation of small farmers and other rural people I knew as a kid grew it (it’s a good warm climate substitute for lettuce).
Most of the “liberal” causes today are status quo items. Preserving social security as is, union power, importing socialized medicine, increased taxes, 1930′s style financial legislation, etc. None of these ideas seem very bold to me. The conservative / libertarian thinkers are offering something different, at least.
People who rely on talk radio or newsie political rant shows for very much of their information tend to be more closed minded than those who don’t. This is true for both conservatives and liberals, but at the moment conservatives have a longer entrenched base of such shows. But to locate that as a feature of conservatives or conservatism would be a dangerous mistake. There are many on the left who seem to wish that they had more powerful Olbermanns in the world, rather than the much better wish that fewer people on both sides listened to such people.
Reading Sanchez’s bio, he seems to have spent most his adult life in academia/D.C. Maybe this shows my bias, but that causes me to discount his view somewhat.
josh said: “those who switch from liberal to conservative may be the most open-minded of all”
Perhaps, but my experience is that most self-described liberals who “switch” do so for self-interested reasons; if you delve deeply, you find they are often not arguing in good faith.
And if you’re identifying with labels like “liberal” or “conservative” in the first place, chances are you are not among the *most* open-minded. =)
Yes, the right is currently further down the rabbit hole.
Olberman is a demagogue at his worst (about 1/4 of the time), and Maddow is biased and not very fair-minded. But neither is (a) as biased and fact-resistant nor (b) as popular and important to their side of the debate as are Rush, Hannity, Beck, and O’Reilly at his worst (a demagogue about 2/3 of the time).
The NY Times editorial page is liberal-biased and elite-biased, though it does have regular columns by conservatives of the “let us engage in a calm but spirited exchange of ideas” orientation (Brooks and Douthat). Frank Rich is a partisan firebrand, and Krugman is a demagogue on politics but is not a liar and actually engages in ideas on policy. Compare that to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which still regularly flogs supply side economics (the dumb kind where it is claimed that lowering rates will result in more revenue) and publishes regular columns by Karl Rove and Betsey McCaughey (most famous for being blatantly dishonest about health policy).
Both sides have their idiots, but at the moment the right’s popular commentators are more idiotic, and their most idiotic commentators are more popular.
I agree that conservatives who live in areas where most everyone is conservative are likely to be close-minded. But liberals who live in areas where most everyone is liberal are also equally close-minded in my experience. I’ve met far more liberals who just assume that conservatives and libertarians both are just evil and motivated by evil than I have conservatives, but I’m sure that comes at least in part from living in liberal areas.
As far as people toeing the line, I just can’t take David Frum seriously, considering that he was one of the very few to directly call opponents of the war “unpatriotic.” I give him credit for at least standing by the same Bush policies of spending and bipartisanship, though, even as the GOP is rejecting George W. Bush’s policies.
WRT the prom example. Whether you think that the lesbian or the other students are the less open-minded will likely depend on your priors.
If there is epistemic closure on the right, someone ought to have the common courtesy to call David Boaz and Phyllis Schlafley to tell them who won.
Collectivist of both stripes are close minded. Self described conservatives AND liberals are close minded in my experience.
The more open minded think the WWF style charade between so called “conservatives” and “liberals” is sad joke that liberals and conservatives believe in fully because they are so brainwashed and closeminded. Both are warmongerers when it is their turn in power and both are for big government when it is led by their closeminded team.
It isn’t left vs right…it’s the oligarchy vs individuals.
Is it a real stated requirement that to work for the NYT you must continually try to bring up false distinctions between the two mainstream statist political parties?
Astonishing. A writer who says he mostly agrees not with Democrats but with Progressives feels that the right is further down the rabbit hole. Simply shocking, I tell you.
“Both sides have their idiots, but at the moment the right’s popular commentators are more idiotic, and their most idiotic commentators are more popular.”
No, they are far from “more idiotic.” KO is not less of an idiot now than he was during the years of his bizarrely over-the-top writings under Bush (which would have been labeled today by the left as fomenting violence and hysteria). Mouthpieces on the right are popular, perhaps, but then the right’s media outlets are far less numerous, and are thus more concentrated, and thus more individually popular, than that of the left.
Conservatives certainly SEEM to be further out in la-la land, because they are commonly portrayed as such. Because the only focus on them continually falls on Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, and now the Tea Party. The left is typically portrayed as some nebulous group of people, with little focus on those further to the left. By contrast, the far right is almost universally identified as “conservativism.” There is a vast ground between a true “leftie” and the right-wing. Those people are numerous, and are ignored, pigeonholed and denigrated (even by someone like Sanchez, who is somehow blind to the nature of what he’s saying). I suspect after the next elections they will receive some attention as a “mystery factor” that changed things. Conservatives who aren’t Bible-thumping anti-abortionists with cassette tapes of Rush Limbaugh strewn around their trailers? And there are a LOT of them? Who knew?
A conservative person is generally more appreciative of the current state of things, and wise/experienced enough to be skeptical of change. To a liberal, who’d like to the conservative to pay for his plans, that must seem very close minded.
What is open-mindedness? Doing what your opponent wants you to do? At some point, it becomes no-mindedness.
The “left” is full of people whose ideas haven’t budged for a generation. Try having a conversation with them about vegetarianism, climate change, feminism, rent control, or the minimum wage. It rapidly becomes a monologue, interspersed with tears and anger. Same goes for the “right” — especially gay rights or the drug war.
People have convictions. Sometimes they change, and sometimes they don’t.
Of course, trying to gauge the state of this balance from Fox News and MSNBC is ridiculous. And yet that is what so many pundits are doing.
PS Andrew Sullivan is RIDICULOUS on this topic. He calls himself a Thatcherite, but I don’t think you can find a more bullish, confrontational, conviction politician than Thatcher. She took on a variety of hidebound institutions and could have been condemned with much the same reasoning Sullivan now uses against the “right”. Today, David Frum is the noble exile speaking truth to power, much in the same way Geoffrey Howe or Nigel Lawson did… except that Thatcher would have called them “wets” and disparaged everything they stood for.
For me, conservatism is this:
1.) Change, when it happens, should happen slowly, as dramatic changes create huge increases in the probability of systemic system failure.
2.) To avoid “overfitting” by applying currently popular beliefs to every issue, we should use place a value on the opinion of people in the past. While their opinions were arguably more ignorant of some basic facts, they contain information about conditions not like our own, and this enable us to develop policy solutions that are more robust to unforeseeable changes in the basic structure of society.
3.) The status quo is not that bad (for many of us)…If we are going to make changes, make them only in areas where the probability of success is higher and the payoff is lower. Naturally there are exceptions, e.g. slavery, where the status quo is so bad that there are many states of the world where change would represent an improvement, so the probability of improvement in the event of rapid change is high. This is rare.
I think you see more “group think/rabbithole” amongst the leadership. Your average conservative voter (not the wingnuts on teevee) is not necessarily as susceptible to party talking points. The leadership definitely is not even trying to think outside the box or otherwise looking at their ideas and ideology in an honest way, trying to find where it’s working and where it’s failing. Voters know that worrying about inflation is relatively minor compared with unemployment. Voters want health care (whether or not they want the legislation is another matter). Voters want financial reform, regulation (again, the legislation is another matter). The leadership is simply not offering the ideas which their constituency desperately crave.
I wish people would stop talking about TV so much. Who gives a fuck about those yapping dogs?
People that are willing to cast aside their day to day experiences, interactions and beliefs in favor of some meta-discussion measuring TV commentators are the most close-minded.
If your most salient views on conservatism revolve around whether Olbermann or Limbaugh is more ridiculous, your mind is already closed to substance… regardless of professed idiology
Everyone should just read what Ta-Nehisi Coats said today:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/hair-tonic-and-alchemy/38646/
He settles the matter as to which movement is currently too much under the influence of its fringe.
Ano:
“In this specific case, the trouble is that the right’s quackery is not merely peddled by it’s fringe, but by some of its most prominent members. During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush didn’t dispatch a couple of junior functionaries to Bob Jones University, where interracial dating was literally banned at the time, he dispatched himself.”
Seriously, you don’t get the irony?
Let’s say the lesbian wanted to wear a tuxedo made of beef to protest vegetarianism? How open-minded would people think she is while insisting to ruin the prom for everyone else?
Is it just me, or is a liberal more likely to answer that conservatives are more closed-minded, and vice-versa?
Using pundits as exemplars seems to be a particularly unenlightening exercise, as is using the followers of pundits. Even measuring this more “scientifically” seems likely to lead the losers in that measurement to claim bias. So, perhaps this is a very interesting question without hope for an accurate answer? (Cerainly, I’d say it is without hope for a consensus answer.)
Shouldn’t an economist just argue that the more closed-minded will eventually lose out, as their ideas fail to keep up with the needs of a changing world? (That’s a long-run argument, not an argument about the 2010 mid-term elections, btw.) I’m sure a real economist* could clarify that better than I have stated it.
Best regards,
Jim
* but, I play one online!
i think right-leaning people are more closed-minded at the moment. i don’t necessarily think it has to do with right or left. i think it has more to do with education; the more educated people are, the more that they are less closed-minded (b/c they are able to see more gray areas, more willing to accept societal change, more confident in having their assumptions/theories challenged). i’m also not necessarily saying that right-leaning people are less educated. i think that since the right is out of power, right-leaning people are witnessing changes that are fundamentally against their ideology, and given the availability of new media forms and the prominence of various very conservative entertainment types in the media, right-leaning people are going to places for their information from people who are even more conservative then they are, which makes average right-leaning people even more conservative and makes them feel that they are absolutely right… therefore no need to compromise or listen to the other side (turns into an “echo chamber”).
Absolutely meaningless issue. What’s “conservative”, what’s “liberal”, what’s “open-minded”, what’s “closed-minded”? What issues are we talking about? And what difference does it make, anyway? A closed-minded person can be right simply like a stopped clock, or right on principle. Sometimes we want a closed-minded person, sometimes we don’t. And both conservatives and liberals are humans, and so can be surprising. As when Barry Goldwater was and Dick Cheney is open minded on homosexuality. Or when Glenn Beck, who should win an Emmy for playing an idiot on TV, actually reads Feiler’s book.
As a Catholic libertarian, I find both conservatives and progressives closed-minded.
I think there is basically a net balance in closed worldviews from the two political wings, but they are certainly closed in different ways, which different people are likely to recognize to varying degrees.
kebko’s comment illuminates some of what I see. D.F. Linton and Doc Mertin also make a good point that I wrap implicitly in my initial comment.
When I find people who are truly willing to discuss ideas openly and with restrained bias I hold them precious and dear.
zp : “I think anyone that can honestly say they believe their opinion is “right” and that others are “wrong” and others should be forced to live, act, and think as they do is close minded and pretty ignorant. This is what both the far left and right say and they are both closed minded. The truly open minded and enlightened people are the ones that do not profess to know and have enough sense to not tell others that they know the “right” way for others to live.”
Just right. The ability to understand that diversity is a fact of life as opposed to a ‘policy goal’ would make people truly tolerant of others, not the pseudo-tolerance of ‘tolerating’ actions or thoughts only if they are of the ‘approved type’.
I think it’s nonsense, maybe just because it’s too difficult to know what’s closed-minded and how closed-minded it is.
Terminological point: “epistemic closure” is already a heavily used term in epistemology itself. So may be Sanchez should just use the old standby “close-minded” and tell us what he think that is besides someone disagreeing what what he holds to be true.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/closure-epistemic/
I believe in (1) market-based economics; (2) private property; (3) the rule of law; (4) individual responsibility for one’s actions and (5) minimization of governmental meddling in the minute details of our daily lives.
In America this makes m a “conservative”, whereas in the rest of the world it makes me a “liberal”. Pace Hayek, I see my belief set as liberal, and disdain conservatism. So I’m a bit annoyed when one group lumps me in with the leftist nanny-staters when I call myself a liberal, and the other group assumes me to be a Republican (ugh) when I expose my philosophical underpinnings to them.
Maybe a better way of looking at this question is this: of that (tiny) subset of humans who are “open-minded” (i.e., willing to question their own assumptions, biases and prejudices), are they more likely to be “conservatives” or “liberals”?
I’m close minded in thinking that stealing/taxes are wrong. But maybe I can change if this theft is done for my own selfish personal agendas. Maybe we can steal more from the plebs if we agree with my agendas this time and I’ll agree with yours next time.
“As a libertarian, I find both conservatives and progressives closed-minded in particular domains, but at this point, the conservatives seem to be making at least slow movements in the right direction and the progressives in the wrong one–conservatives are getting better on social issues, progressives are getting worse on statist economics.
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 9, 2010 2:42:11 PM”
Amen!
My belief is that both conservatives and liberals are equally open minded, but a conservative wants a little proof before he bets the farm on an idea.
It is amazing to see people on either side shout past each other, even in this comments dialog. Sadly missing, new ideas.
It’s not right vs left particularly, it’s just that at this time the right is the most authoritarian. Give this a shot: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Liberal and conservative are two artificially created contrasts of the same deception that are particularly clear-cut in the USA (imho, the rest of the world puts far less focus on this discernment). But, considering both, one surely has to come to the conclusion that conservative people are more “close-minded”. The word itself indicates it. It would be wrong though to assume that liberals are superior in that aspect, since they tend to be so “open-minded” that they are blinded by their pursuit of equality and such that they end up having just as much false opinions than conservatives.
If you want to know what i think (if not, stop reading), you are wrong in your philosophy if you call yourself either conservative or liberal. If you are unable to rach that conclusion over the course of your life, you will end up with a lot of false POVs (and, i apologize for expressing it, never took a serious effort to find truth or the best way of life). i am continually amazed about how little people seem to care about their own personal integrity, truthfulness and humility.
There are some that do not fit that description and actually build on good values, but those are no driving force in either movement, and, as such, not important.
Fortunately, there is a golden middle way. Usually, people just like to avoid the middle since it is the hardest place to be, getting attacked from both sides. But it’s the best place to be, and the only one that makes sense. Love is liberal, Faith is conservative, and hope is supposed to hold the two together.
Liberals have a point, conservatives have a point, and each of their own fallacies hinder them from seeing the truth in the other’s words. i think the greatest leson both have to learn is unconditional fairness (especially in discussion) that even dictates one’s thoughts.
Prov. 18:17 The first to present his case seems right,till another comes forward and questions him.
I agree that conservatives who live in areas where most everyone is conservative are likely to be close-minded. But liberals who live in areas where most everyone is liberal are also equally close-minded in my experience.
This has been my experience, more or less. I was born in Texas and grew up mostly in California. The experience of growing up in California has left me with a feeling of contempt for liberal culture, with its small-mindedness, hypocrisy, and stupidity. I suspect I would have had the same attitude towards conservatism had I grown up in Texas.
That’s not to say I would feel comfortable in American conservative communities — I’m an idolatrous heathen atheist with Confucian leanings, after all. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable living in Saudi Arabia or Tamil Nadu or wherever either. Like the culture of rural America, those cultures are “Other” to me, and I can appreciate all of them as part of the diversity and variety of human civilisation. I don’t feel a burning need to oppress and humiliate them just because they don’t have the same cultural inclinations as I have. I may think my own way of thinking and doing is the better way of structuring a society (follow the example of the former kings! haha) but who really knows? That’s the point of allowing cultural diversity to flourish — that we don’t really know what organisation of society will be best fitted for the future to come.
The example Sanchez brings up makes pretty clear that an awful lot of liberals simply cannot accept that.
Conservatives don’t really want anyone to be in power, so broadening the tent (being open-minded) only becomes important when liberals are making “progress.” For 15 years conservatives have had enough power to block encroachments on freedom, so there was no need to be open-minded. Now that liberals are enacting their agenda, broadening the tent will be important again. Talk of legalizing pot came up this week, no doubt as a way to pull more freedom-lovers into the fold. I expect to see more of this, with economic freedom being the main torch to be carried and less focus on other issues.
Conservatives rely on experience and critical thinking. Liberals rely on ideology and myth… Who is down the rabbit hole??
He should try reading “My Grandfather’s Son” by Clarence Thomas. Good explanation of a conservative mind vs. a liberal. Experience trumps ideology every time.
The only reason people on here can say a liberal is more closed-minded is because they’ve spent too much time in academia, which is dominated by liberals. In “Real America,” conservatives are the ones who believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and liberals are the ones who believe it might not be.
Intellectual libertarians need to get over their hang-ups about conservatism and religion. Jeesh, for an open-minded group you guys are pretty quick to label them as bogeymen.
My experience is that there is no correlation between personality, religion, and political identity.
Is this guy kidding? Try going to to any “liberal” bastion and proposing that marriage is a defined as a (lifelong, just for a little accelerant) union between a man and a woman. Propose that abortion is the end of a human life.
The left likes to promote itself as “open-minded” but its an echo-chamber of emotionally driven reactions that never stops to consider the consequences of sating its visceral desire.
The modern left is fascist.
Being open minded isn’t a trait that can be selective, so, answer this:
Which conservatives have an open mind on the success or failure of the war on drugs?
Provide specific examples of their cost benefit analysis of the war on drugs, the fiscal cost, the taxes they have increased to fund the war on drugs, the role of the drug war in funding terrorism in Afghanistan, Latin America, et al.
I, a liberal, may be dogmatic on this topic, having become convinced in the 70s by a Consumer Reports initiated report that resulted in the book, Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher. But I defy any conservative to lay out the rationale for the “war on drugs” that addresses all the issues raised by that book in 1972. I will concede the book is not completely correct given the four decades of research into drugs abuse and addiction since it was written, but the fundamental issues raised for policy makers in that book have not been resolved by four decades of policy making.
One can fault liberals on drug policy, but the question is about conservatives: can conservatives have open minds on the war on drugs and not viciously attack anyone with political influence merely for questioning the war on drugs.
Great post!The Conservative mind always assumes that the design of the world is not by accident but by transcendental purpose and they could legislate happiness and freedom but who created industrial slums and domineering central government.
Let’s see:
Conservatives are more likely to oppose abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, women’s rights such as equal pay for equal work.
And more likely to oppose the separation of church and state and even lobby for prayer in public schools, ignoring the fact that not everyone shares their beliefs.
Red States are regularly in the news for things like the lesbian high school student who was taunted and ridiculed in real life and on Facebook because she wanted to bring a girl as a date to her prom. Her schoolmates (with the support of their parents, who taught them so well) then held a secret prom and sent her to a fake prom with all the special ed kids, who presumably weren’t invited to the real prom either. Because everyone knows lesbians at the prom = the end of the world. Think of the children! Rep. Nancy Elliott (R-New Hampshire) is. She’s worried children are being taught about homosexuality, which she equates to :”"We’re talking about taking the penis of one man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. ” Rep. Elliott said. “And you have to think, I’m not sure, would I allow that to be done to me?”. That’s pretty closed minded, not to mention ignorant. And yet, thousands of Conservatives voted her into Congress…
And they’re not just opposed to homosexual sex. Straight sex doesn’t get a pass either. Conservatives are more likely to support teaching abstinence-only sex ed in schools, disregarding reality and the fact that it only leads to more teen pregnancies and irresponsible sexual behaviour and ignorance on behalf of teenagers, not actual abstinence. Oh, and they want public schools to teach creationism in science class, even though it’s based on the Bible and not, you know, actual science…
In short, conservatives are the ones trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of society and to shape it as they see fit. Whereas most ‘liberals’ (the term only really applies to the US and its weird left-right definitions – in Europe Obama would be considered centre-right or even right wing) don’t really care what you do in private as long as you respect everyone’s equal rights.
So yeah, I think it’s fair to say conservatives are more closed minded, if you define closed minded as being opposed to change and progress within a society, and wary of diversity.
Or am I being closed minded because I’m intolerant of conservatives’ intolerance of gays, of women who demand equality, of evolution, of freedom of speech, of people who don’t fit follow their narrow Christian beliefs, the list goes on†¦
To me, open-minded vs. closed-minded is mostly a matter of how you filter your information sources. Do you restrict your reading and viewing to sources that basically agree with you? Closed-minded. Do you actively seek out commentators who se the world very differently from you? Open-minded.
While I don’t think any party has a monopoly on closed-mindedness, I do think there is an important factor. That has to do with the degree to which people are willing to allow evidence, vs. faith, to alter their views. Many conservatives are locked into religious beliefs (eg Creationism) that require a reliance on faith vs. evidence.
Which conservatives have an open mind on the success or failure of the war on drugs?
National Review. Fourteen years ago they declared the war on drugs lost. Google it, the top hit is the 1996 National Review article itself. And even in the decade before that 1996 article, at the time I was reading the magazine and there was quite a bit in the magazine about the failure of the war on drugs – 1996 is merely the year they made it the official editorial position of the magazine.
Yet they still support Republicans?
Or are you arguing no one reading the NR is a member of the Republican Party? Or that Republicans reading the NR are really close minded liberals who reject the fact, reason, and logic of NR on the war on drugs?
Or are you saying, “yeh, we agree the war on drugs is a failure, but that doesn’t mean we should end the war on drugs.”
Anyone writing for the NR or any Republican accepting the position of the NR should oppose the Republican party position on the war on drugs. But they don’t because they are close minded to any change of policy.
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