Partisan politics in the United States are extremely hostile right now. My voice is very quiet, no doubt, but part of mass action includes small actors taking their small actions. I don’t particularly care for either of the two major US parties, as both are far too beholden to large corporations and the wealthy, in my opinion. But I want to talk about the question of divisive ideas in the context of political debate, and also, so as not to stray too far from the putative academic focus of this blog, on the question of divisive ideas in academic discourse.
Recently, I saw and was struck by an image that expresses the nature of the division in the US. The first version I saw was a map of the US with states colored red and blue according to their partisan voting. Beneath the map was a key that defined the red states as “United States of America” and the blue states as “Dumbfuckistan”. In this age of Trump, the GOP is responsible for far more divisive language than ever in my lifetime, and this image seemed part and parcel of that. But it didn’t take much looking to find that the earliest versions of the image have the opposite key; the blue states are labeled “United States of America” and the red states are labeled “Dumbfuckistan.”
That kind of idea—that American citizens are not really American—does no good for the body politic. How does one have a conversation with a “dumb fuck”?
As soon as you label the other side of a debate a “dumb fuck,” you vastly reduce any possibility for compromise, and you vastly increase the kind of emotional response that leads people away from the best modes of reasoning. It would, of course, be great if everyone used optimal logic and rationality in making decisions, but let’s not fool ourselves: people don’t. People tend to devalue ideas offered by people they dislike or distrust, even if they would accept the same idea when offered by someone they like or trust or identify with. This psychological phenomenon is known as ”reactive devaluation.” One might imagine that this effect is greater when the emotional connection is more powerful. Calling someone a “dumb fuck” is not going to reduce that emotional impact, and certainly will distract from considering value in the proposals.
Some theories of negotiation (Getting to Yes, Non-Violent Conversation[NVC]) place a strong emphasis on the idea of empathy—on understanding the person with whom one is negotiating/debating. On a practical level, these negotiating guides emphasize the importance of understanding the position of the person sitting across the table, with specific emphasis on being able to echo back the idea that the other has expressed. Such a practice could lead to two effects: (1) the speaker whose ideas are echoed back would feel understood, (2) the listener who echoes the ideas might better understand those ideas. Both of those effects, I imagine, would contribute to reducing the kind of reactive devaluation in the same way that thinking of the other as a “dumb fuck” might increase that reactive devaluation.
Recently I was reading an article about a ball-bearing company that was closing a U.S. factory in Indiana and moving a lot of the jobs to Mexico. In the article, a plant employee said that she what she wanted was a job and to be able to work, and she disliked the Democrats for talking about a social security net rather than talking about getting people jobs. If I recall correctly, she was a non-voter who leaned Trump. Whether her view of the Democrats is correct in terms of policies that Democrats would put in place is not so relevant as what this shows about how some people understand both Democrats and Republicans. To think of this woman as “dumb” for not supporting Democrats eliminates the chance of creating a positive dialogue that might reveal either that Democrats don’t worry about jobs enough, or that Republicans are doing a good job of setting the terms of the public discourse.
Speaking more generally—to bring this around to the academic realm—in debate, no matter the realm, if you assume that your interlocutor is “dumb,” you’re not likely to have much discursive success, unless you’re speaking to an audience that is already sympathetic. Dealing with a suggestion from a professor or an academic/bureaucratic requirement as “dumb,” will not make it easier to communicate with those who made the suggestion/requirement.
Looking to understand the other, and to find points of agreement with the other can bring people together, even if they disagree on some ideas. Looking to find fault in the other—to find that they are stupid or out of touch or some other judgement that suggests your own knowledge is superior—only creates division (it’s also arrogant). You may be smarter than the other, but you may just be fooling yourself: another psychological distortion that is common in humans is to believe that we are more powerful/smarter/better than the average. Regardless of whether you are smarter than the other or not, if you want to cooperate with the other, thinking that you’re smarter doesn’t help matters.
Working together requires respecting the other. You don't work well with someone if you think of them as a "dumb fuck." If a political party really wanted to bring people together, it should be very careful to respect the ideas of others. (This is not to suggest that one should accept the patently false just to acknowledge the ideas of others, but it does suggest trying to understand where those ideas came from, not just writing them off as the product of stupidity. Even a smart person can be given the wrong information which can lead to the wrong conclusions.)
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