Patterico's Pontifications

4/7/2011

Of Sheep & Men: Don’t Spin Yourself

Filed under: General — Stranahan @ 7:29 am



[Guest post by Lee Stranahan]

I was gratified to see a lot of excellent discussion on my recent piece about the lack of certain types of organizations on the right. I want to highlight a couple of examples of a fallacy I’ll call “But – we’re not the sheep!” I’m not trying to pick on any commenter individually; these are examples of what is a pretty common argument.

Here’s a commenter from the right….

A number of comments have touched on the notion that Lefties are different from conservatives. It’s true. Socialists need the group communication and interaction on a constant basis. It reinforces their belief system. Like a psychological fix. Conservatives tend to have stronger, more stable personalities.

And here’s one from the left….

The right can’t counter (Media Matter for America) for the same reason left can’t beat Fox: righties want easy answers on TV, left reads for nuance. Lefties can’t soundbite and righties have zero attention span. Whizzing graphics and loud noises vs thinking and shades of grey

Sheep_mouton.rebelle

Got that?

People on the right view people on the left as mindless sheep. And people on the left? They view people on the right as mindless sheep.

That’s because calling “the other side” – your adversaries in any endeavor – a bunch of mindless sheep is in itself a persuasion technique. It poisons the well against the opposition by denigrating them and it also has the psychological effect of making you feel that "our team" is the superior one.

This isn’t about ideology, really. Yes, ideas do have consequences but ideas aren’t things that act in the universe. Ideas get filtered through human beings. Neither the left nor the right views itself as mindless sheep. They both views themselves as holding philosophies that support people acting as individuals.

Here’s a cliché but an inescapable conclusion; were all human beings. As such, we have much more in common in our psychologies than most of us would like to admit. All of us have an inner drive towards the things that make us unique but also a pull towards community and a sense of commonality.

If you want a clear example of how holding an individualist philosophy does not equate in any way too individualistic behavior one need look no further than Ayn Rand’s objectivist movement. One would be hard-pressed to find an ideology that is more focused on the idea of individuality and a corollary philosophy of individual rights. One would also be hard-pressed to find a secular example of more cultlike behavior from a philosophy’s. I know people who were part of the objectivist movement in the 1960s and they described as a "herd of mavericks"; some literally using cigarette holders and wearing capes because that’s what Ayn Rand did.

Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer’s classic book The True Believer talked about the interchangeability of mass movements — that the pull of being part of such a movement is more important than the actual content of the movement. Hoffer’s book was written after the horrible mass movement that created the Holocaust but before the Madison Avenue techniques of advertising were perfected and before focus group research and other scientific methods were able to create ad hoc mass movements whose purposes were more commercial than ideological.

Modern political strategy owes as much to Madison Avenue is a does Machiavelli. The persuasive techniques are designed to push buttons in voters. Like advertising, sometimes this is done effectively and sometimes it isn’t. At the end of the day people do have free will. Because human beings have volition there is no technique that absolutely guarantees an outcome.

But as the amazing book Influence : The Psychology of Persuasion show, the most effective persuasion techniques don’t count on subverting free will explicitly; they actually play to it. If you can convince someone that they’ve come to a conclusion on their own, it’s the most powerful thing in the world because you’ve been able to influence someone and they will swear up and down that they have not been influenced by anyone. Meanwhile, the men in suits sitting behind a two-way mirror smile.

To pretend that persuasive techniques don’t apply to you and whatever group you identify with is a risky conceit for anyone knocking elbows in the marketplace of ideas. Smart people learn to be aware of the tricks of the persuasion trade. Wise people admit they can be tricked, as well.

(photo creidt : mouton.rebelle)

– Lee Stranahan

12 Responses to “Of Sheep & Men: Don’t Spin Yourself”

  1. The Sheep v. Sheep point is valid, but the assertion that the left and right congregate differently and have differing methods of formulating opinions is a defensible argument as well.

    The structures of the left work for them. The structures of the right might be lacking, but need not replicate the structures of the left.

    John Lynch (39a708)

  2. Smart people learn to be aware of the tricks of the persuasion trade

    Our schools, including universities, seem to be designed to produce consumers who respond to the informal fallacies of advertising, not free citizens who think for themselves.

    We have been systematically manufacturing sheep for generations. Sheep who, whether from the right or the left, Obama or Huckabee, have no idea how they got here or where they are going.

    Amphipolis (b120ce)

  3. “Neither the left nor the right views itself as mindless sheep. They both views themselves as holding philosophies that support people acting as individuals.”

    Lee – I ask you to consider how breaking political news is covered on the internet, admittedly based on anecdotal observation. Blogs on the left tend to coordinate their narratives or memes before publishing, creating less risk for the first one out of the box. Look at Memeorandum and it looks like a swarm effect. Blogs on the right, however, seem to publish independently, without coordination.

    To me it looks like the left is looking for group think, somebody to tell it what to say because it lacks the courage of any strong convictions, whereas the right has strong enough convictions or principles to be able to publish independently.

    Having principles gives you an ability to react to events, positive or negative. Having none causes you to lack the confidence to voice an opinion until you coordinate it and confirm it with others.

    daleyrocks (9b57b3)

  4. Someone needs a copy editor..

    carol (5a5d33)

  5. Carol — just tell me what needed to be corrected. I DO need a copy editor.

    Stranahan (708cc3)

  6. Modern political strategy owes as much to Madison Avenue is a does Machiavelli.

    Lead sentence in the third to last paragraph. That one I stumbled over.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  7. What we see with the ‘sheep vs. sheep’ interplay is an older form of thinking that is bound to a prior mode of operation. Marketing, via Freudian means, is part and parcel of this way of thinking and the marriage between Progressivist politics and Freudian concepts goes back far into the 20th century. The problem is that Freud is not the be-all, end-all of psychology and that there are other factors in play today that cannot be accounted for via older analysis systems. On the side of ideology what is happening isn’t a ‘sheep vs. sheep’, but a transition of culture that sees the old mass-media driven culture as obsolete and the new culture that runs via different methodologies gaining similar ends. This has been part of something I’ve been looking at for awhile trying to piece together just what it is that is going on, with an interim piece on Persuasion and Marketing doing a broad overview of that.

    By looking only at the Freudian based form of psychology, what is missed is that others in psychology and outside of it have presented other forms of how humans formulate not just conscious thoughts but personalities. These realms are not open to being marketed to as they are not bodily based, but are gained via cognition and integration (either conscious or unconscious). To access the rapidly changing understanding modes of the current era (starting circa 1996-98 in general) are not being widely adopted in all parts of political ideologies. If an ideology only sees the new means of communication as one that is bound by past perceptions, then it holds to an older perception/cognition cycle. If you are in the new cycle, then your perception/cognition rate changes, often drastically, to outpace the older-use cohorts.

    The Left, for all of their future sounding words, are not a forward looking set of individuals: they adhere to old dogma that is beginning to sound ancient to the modern ear. Their age is passing and they only adopt some forms of the new system, but not its comprehension bonuses as they would detract from their set-mode ideology.

    Those on the Right, very generally as this is a cross-ideology system, generally accept that humans can change and that new ways of approaching ideas can be done on eternal views of personal liberty, freedom and accountability. Thus a mode of operation that offers enhanced cognition and comprehension is embraced as it falls under eternal ideas of man’s liberty and freedom, not under governmental authority.

    Both sides accuse each other of similar things, but they have dissimilar basis for operation. One is retrograde, not wanting to change in live in a past that never was for a future that cannot be created. The other sticks with a ‘make it up as you go along, and adhere to the basics’ so that the future is never set, the past always open to new comprehension via new analytical tools. One rejects that government and society can be changed via personal freedom and liberty, the other embraces it. For those seeking the past the present and future must become moribund to adhere to ideology. For those seeking an ever widening expansion of human liberty and freedom to make a better society, then humans must be free of onerous government. One sees a reflection of the past, the other of itself. There is memory compression at play… and only one side embraces it.

    ajacksonian (87eccd)

  8. “Got that?”

    Yeah, I got it.

    The right wing comment makes sense (obviously, socialists have to work in a group). The left wing comment is just fatuous nonsense.

    As usual.

    Dave Surls (f1caa8)

  9. I find the current continuing resolution and budget situation an excellent test case for styles of persuasion.

    The liberal politicians and media start with tactics that place the conservative politicians on the defensive before they can even begin talking about their ideas.

    Liberals: “Those evil corporate shills paid by the Koch brothers want to shutdown government and take away Grandma’s food and healthcare and close all the schools and fire all the policemen and brave firefighters…and they are at the last minute making unholy demands on us and the President. They did this back in ’95 and we’re not gonna let these Tea Baggers get away with it again!”

    False positioning of your opponent
    Empathy for the downtrodden
    Negative halo effect (Koch brothers)
    Association with the courageous
    Sneaky tactics of your opponent
    Association with a political icon who has strong personal likability ratings
    No facts or details to support any contention
    Revisionist history claims
    A populist call to action – join the cause! The middle class must unite to defeat the heartless Tea Baggers
    Defamatory descriptions of the opponent
    Rinse and repeat

    So, the media gives us Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Hoyer, Obama all reciting the same lines time after time. And only then they may sneak in a facet of what the conservatives are saying.

    The liberals do this because it works in an age where the ability to reason is a lost art and positions are taken based on 10 second sound bites.

    I bought Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” a year ago just to be able to map out what was happening. It is a playbook for the left that every conservative should own.

    This is not rocket science. There are ways to drive public opinion and to counter the opposition that the conservatives must learn. There is also the need to recognize the science of “nudging” that Cass Sunstein is embedding across the Obama administration in actions and rule making processes.

    in_awe (44fed5)

  10. Another good piece of writing that both elaborates and reinforces some of the points in this post, is Daniel Boorstin’s “The Image: a guide to Pseudo-Events in America” It was written in 1962, was reissued on its 25th anniversary with an afterword by George Will, and is as relevant and provocative today as it ever was. Boorstin was way ahead of his peers in seeing the effects of the rise of celebrity in politics and the use of pseudo events to push people’s buttons–events manufactured solely for the purpose of having somebody photograph and report them.

    Probably a lot of you have already read this book, but it’s well worth a re-read because it’s a good reminder that all our buttons are being pushed all the time whether we realize it or not.

    elissa (b2da86)

  11. > some literally using cigarette holders and wearing capes because that’s what Ayn Rand did.

    Makes me think of that scene in the life of bryan when he tells the crow they are all individuals. and they chant, in unison, “we are all individuals.”

    and then one dissenter says something like, “no, i’m not.”

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  12. Sheep vs sheep is quite right, but not looking deep enough, because there are only X number of ways to be human and politically visible.

    Tea Party is a good example. Most have never been involved in politics, rallies, or demonstrations before 2009. Most emerged from whatever else they were doing because they felt threatened AND without any effective way of influencing the political environment.

    What does the contrast between Tea Party rabble and leftist demonstrations of bused-in people with scripts and printed signs reveal? You could say people on the left are ‘better team players, better organized, more focused on a goal’ or you could use less flattering terms, such as ‘socially oriented, easily led’.

    Conservatives are more like a herd of cats. More motivated by self-interest, willing to act in concert only for demonstrable probability of benefit? Having been behind the Tea Party stage a little, I can say that is true, however you choose to frame it. Can we state it more nicely, to appeal to sensibilities? I doubt conservatives will care much. They see nothing wrong with self-interest, when it also benefits society, i.e. capitalism.

    jodetoad (7720fb)


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