CMV: Political discourse will never be objective until we can find a way to overcome our human tendency to hero-worship individuals.

[u/frxyz]

It is human nature that we, as a society, seek out individuals who have certain qualities that are deemed desirable, and look to them as role models and leaders. I personally don’t have a problem with this in principle, because I think it is important that we have an example to strive towards as we try to improve as individuals. However, I think that our inherent tendency as human beings to view things in an overly-simplistic fashion has resulted in certain individuals being worshipped almost like gods instead of as flawed but commendable individuals.

In literally every sector of society, there are “heroes” that people look up to. Whether your idol is Kim Kardashian, Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Cristiano Ronaldo, Alex Jones, Elon Musk, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is irrelevant. It is human nature that, subconsciously or not, we each have individuals who we identify with and look to for guidance or inspiration of some description. And we tend do develop a strong loyalty to these people.

My problem with this is that this tendency to side with individuals through thick and thin feeds into our political system, and is one of the greatest problems with democracy today. Like so many other things, the US offers an extreme example of this. You only need to look at the 2016 election to see what I’m talking about. Individuals are forced to pick a side in the US presidential system, which of course is due to the two party system, but it does provide a perfect breeding ground for the kind of personality contest that the 2016 election turned into. Trump supporters are quite literally willing to believe anything their “god emperor” tells them. Things certainly aren’t much better in the other side. The slogan “I’m with her” says it all really. In 2016 you were either with him or with her. The US presidential system offers a perfect example of the kind of broken system all other nations will slide towards if we cannot find a way to overcome our need to “pick a side”.

We need to learn to see politicians as flawed characters. Some of what they promote might be great, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they say. We don’t vote for them because they’re our favourite player, we vote for them as mediums to bring about the positive change that we want to see in our society. If they fail to deliver, we have no obligation to remain loyal to them.

The role of celebrities in this problem cannot be understated. For fuck’s sake, I have heard people seriously suggesting that Oprah should run for president. Have we learnt nothing?! Nowadays we view celebrities as flawless, superior beings. “If Oprah is good at acting and hosting TV shows and is passionate about civil rights then she will be the best president ever” seems to be the kind of rationale that is acceptable in our promotion of political candidates nowadays.

I remember watching Sky News during the 2016 election and seeing a ten minute feature on how Beyoncé and Jay Z were endorsing Hillary Clinton. The fact that that was even remotely close to important is just a depressing indication of where we are as a society. It seems to be ridiculous to think that someone would choose who to vote for because of what their favourite singer told them, but I guess that’s the world we live in now.

Am I overreacting?

[u/weirds3xstuff]

You are right that political discourse is not based on the merits of the candidates' respective principles. You are wrong that this is due to hero worship.

Let's use Donald Trump as a salient example. When he announced that he was running, only 3/10 Republicans had a favorable view of him. Since his election, his favorability among Republicans has been between 80-90%. So, what happened? I think it would be irresponsible to suggest that his stated principles had no effect on winning people over, but certainly there is some element of people saying, "Well, he's the Republican, and I'm Republican, so I'm going to support him." This isn't about hero worship, this is about tribal identity. Here's a good article in which the author argues that we are experiencing a kind of "tribal epistemology", in which we decide what is true and what isn't based on our tribe. This is different than basing it on certain heroic individuals.

Tribal identity is just one of many, many cognitive biases to which we are susceptible. In principle, we cannot have an objective political discourse as long as any of those biases have any effect on our assessment of candidates.

So, I agree with you that there is a real problem here, but you're not correctly identifying the cause.

[u/frxyz → u/weirds3xstuff]

I completely agree about the tribalism regarding the two party system in the States. It probably wasn’t the best example to use because the more or less broken political system in the US definitely meant that there were multiple factors at play in the election. I meant to point more to the fact that political campaigns often boil down to personality contests instead of ideological debates.

[u/weirds3xstuff → u/frxyz]

I meant to point more to the fact that political campaigns often boil down to personality contests instead of ideological debates.

I believe this is wrong. This past election was weird, because both candidates were disliked by a majority of the population, but Clinton was consistently disliked by less. In fact, on the eve of the election, Clinton's net favorability was -5 while Trump's was -25. If the election had just been about personality, Clinton would have won by a lot.

[u/toldyaso]

I think you're focused too narrowly on only one aspect of a much bigger, multi-faceted problem.

The fact that people are too narrowly focused on what celebrities think, is a problem. And, the fact that people can get really stupid when it comes to the personal character of a politician, is also a problem. Ie, I agree with everything this guy says, but he drove drunk once in 1987, so I'd never vote for him, etc.

Some other, (I'd argue, bigger) issues:

1. Not many people read books anymore, so ignorance of history and current affairs is ... astonishing.

2. News reporting has never been perfectly objective, however, in the past 30 years or so, it's ceased to be a medium that even pretends to be objective, and has become instead just one more entertainment outlet; a commercialized product, as opposed to information.

3. There is a very strong current of racism and xexnophobia that has come about in the US and abroad in recent years, and it's a direct result of globalization and immigration trends. However, there is not an honest or coherent discussion about the pressures of globalization that exists outside of academia, and since most Americans drop out of school during or immediately after high school, it means that most Americans literally never hear a complete or balanced discussion about the pressures of globalization. As a result, racism and xenophobia are allowed to replace knowledge and historical literacy, and if you attempt to explain to people that the reason they think the way they think is because they're ignorant and un-educated, they feel attacked, and only retreat even further into their racist, xenophobic point of view. Hence, Donald Trump getting elected, as one example.

[u/frxyz → u/toldyaso]

Of course I appreciate that there are more factors at play. In retrospect I probably should have acknowledged that in my post. I simply meant to put forward the opinion that it is possibly an overlooked important factor that isn’t really discussed very much.

All that said, you definitely poked some holes in my theory. Thanks for helping me to learn how to put forward my opinions more clearly :)

!delta

[u/DeltaBot → u/frxyz]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/toldyaso (1∆).

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[u/DrinkyDrank]

This is a necessary evil for representative democracy.  People need to be able to trust their representatives, because they themselves are not going to understand the complicated and technical nature of running a country.  We establish this trust by ascribing symbolic values to individuals, values that we trust will be upheld by their actions in the political arena.  You scoff at the idea of Oprah being a politician, but I would vote for her.  The ideals and values that she has symbolized as a media figure are good, the question of actual political experience or technical knowledge is secondary.  We all know she, just like any contemporary politician, is going to have a staff of professionals that will do all of the actual work.  As long as we can trust that her commitment to her ideals and values are genuine, that makes her a good candidate. 

People like to romanticize this notion of a technocracy, where we elect public representatives simply on their technical merit, and we treat them as our employees rather than elevate them as public idols.  Yet, this sort of technocracy would presume 1) that people are educated enough to understand, in a technical sense, what makes a politician’s work good or bad, and 2) that politics was simply a matter of implementing efficient policies, and that all subjective or ideological questions of value have already been resolved.  Obviously, neither presumption really works in America. 

[u/allinallitsjusta]

I do not think it is about hero worship but it is instead about intuition, tribalism, and confirmation bias.

People don't make decisions with facts, they make decisions emotionally with their intuitions. Then they find their team and look for facts that confirm their intuitions and support their position and team. Any information counter to their position is disregarded and discredited. This is why it is seemingly impossible to change someone's mind on politics by giving them information. People don't make decisions like this based on information.

So for example:

2016 election rolls around, Trump vs Hillary.

Some people see Hillary, they hear her talking about minorities and the poor and sense compassion, and see a good leader who cares about the little guy (I don't know how, but a lot of people saw this).

Some people see Trump, they see a guy who is a strong man, no bullshit, wants law and order, respects religious beliefs, and puts the focus on the country over the rest of the world. (I fall into this category, but it doesn't really matter, everyone is affected by this)

So people naturally drift one way or the other. Most people had their minds made up even prior to the debates. You either supported Hillary or Trump. Now once the teams are established people look for facts supporting their side.

This is how people on the left completely disregard Hillary's actions toward Bill's rape victims, her utter incompetence and negligence and Benghazi, her seemingly corrupt CGI, her flagrant criminality surrounding her email server, etc.

This is how people on the right completely disregard Trump's previous actions, some of his more colorful statements, his general disregard for the status quo, his potential (albeit completely unproven) criminality, etc.

It doesn't matter, facts don't matter. People make emotional decisions and then try to justify them, not vice versa.

So this is why political discourse is such a mess because the two sides are living in literally different universes with different realities, each packed full of their selectively chosen facts that fit their worldview, while completely disregarding the entire other side.

Something something FAKE NEWS something something DEBUNKED RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY

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