Societal Differences in the Use of Honor as a Social Control

SOCIETAL DIFFERENCES IN THE USE OF HONOR AS A SOCIAL CONTROL MECHANISM

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.,    12-23-10

Western and Islamic societies are becoming aware of an important difference in worldview between them—the matter of “honor.”  Several years ago death threats were made by some Muslims against cartoonists who appeared to them to be “making fun” of the prophet Mohammed.  More recently some Muslim nations are advocating for United Nations adoption of a resolution outlawing any insult to any person’s religion.  In an African Muslim nation, a Western schoolteacher was given jail time (and mobs urged that she be killed) for using the name “Mohammed” in writing on a school poster.  In the news this week, a Shariah court in a Pakistani village is going to execute a woman for deriding Mohammed.  In many Muslim areas, families are required by public opinion to kill their own members who dishonor the family, the village, or Islam.  Some (many?) Muslims believe that any Muslim who leaves the faith must be killed.  These actions and attitudes seem strange to Westerners, pointing out the gulf between the societies in this matter of honor and insult.

To Westerners, it is highly desirable to be respected, but it is not a matter of life and death, and Westerners reserve a certain right for all citizens to express some degree of disrespect to others in public, without generating a violent reaction.  It is difficult for us to grasp the importance of dishonor in another culture.  We know that members of gangs in our society will kill others who “disrespect” them, but this is thought of as primitive and unacceptable. 

This raises an important question about members of different cultures living together in a society, since insults that are not perceived as significant by some can occur and become a problem in the eyes of those who feel them to be insulting.  We need to hear from those who know exactly how dishonor and disrespect can be so important.

A related issue is the differences between secular and theocratic societies.  In theocratic societies, it is assumed that religious principles and rules should determine all behavior (including forms of greeting, dietary rules, rules of economic interchange, etc.), while in secular societies it is assumed that religion concerns itself mainly with the relationship between the individual and his/her god, rather than with determining all aspects of overt behavior, so that religious beliefs may influence the rules adopted by a secular society, but the rules are determined by a secular government (and, in democracies, by the citizenry as a whole).  Those who believe in the theocratic model would be expected to think that God (Allah, etc.) is concerned with every aspect of one’s behavior, so that only the religious authority could prescribe what is acceptable and proscribe what is unacceptable. 

Many of those who live in secular societies are not involved in religion, and many view their relationship with God as a spiritual one separate from the rules of everyday interaction.  Others view their religion as one of belief and worship (“Sunday only”) more than of behavior.  Secular societies incorporate the free-thinking ideal of the Enlightenment, which allows (even values) the questioning of everything, even the Deity.

There is discussion in some European countries of allowing Muslim residents as a group to use Shariah law instead of the laws of the host country, but I think that ultimately this will prove unworkable.  Citizens of the host country are unlikely to stand by and watch Muslims execute people for crimes they do not view as crimes.

Societies need emotion-based mechanisms that individuals learn and then use to guide and control their behavior.  (Since human beings are so adept at cognitive distortions, cognitive mechanisms of control are probably always going to be inadequate by themselves.)  The Muslim notions of honor can clearly serve to guide and control individual behavior, but this is only one possible mechanism.  Guilt and shame can be manipulated or conditioned in various ways to help control behavior, and there are many variations of this in various societies.  (Honor-focused control mechanisms are probably shame-based, although I need to learn much more about Muslim cultures.)

In order to further explore this problem of inter-residency, it would be helpful for Westerners to have sensible answers from Muslims to a number of questions.  (1) If Mohammed was a man, rather than Allah himself, why are his name and image so protected by Muslims?  Why is this not idolatry?  (2) What is the definition of dishonor?  (3) If Allah is all powerful, why do believers feel compelled to protect him and do his work for him (punish “crimes” against Allah)?  (4) Can Muslims accept that some who may live among you (Westerners, e.g.) may have a quite different notion of morality, and would you allow them to be judged by their notion of morality rather than yours for actions in your country?  (5) Since almost all religious pronouncements are the product of a living person (via interpretation by the living person), how are you sure that current religious pronouncements by Islamic religious leaders should have the force of law?  (6) What is the basis in the Koran for current concepts of honor and dishonor and their required responses?  (7) Do all Muslims feel the same about honor and dishonor, or are there significant differences among Muslims?

It should not be presumed that this post is simply being critical of Muslims or asking them to justify themselves.  Al-Quaeda had and has clear reasons for attacking Western societies, and Western societies would do well to understand and respond to those reasons, rather than sweeping all Western provocation under the rug and justifying war in Iraq and Afghanistan as simply self-defense.  Western societies have for centuries manipulated and looked down on Muslim societies, and Western freedoms have led to greater immorality and a less spiritual societal focus.  These effects of freedom and capitalism should be acknowledged by Westerners before they decide to do nothing about them.  (For more on this issue, see next week’s posting.)

Westerners could help by providing thoughtful answers to some questions, too.  (1) Is God really tolerant of the rough treatment and mistreatment that we give each other in our society, and if so, why?  Does he not care?  Why aren’t his rules more strict about how we treat each other?  (2) What does God think of our ideal of free thought and opinion, when they question his existence and value?  (3) Can you accept that some who may live among you (Muslims, e.g.) may have a quite different notion of morality, and would you allow them to be judged by their notion of morality rather than yours?  (4) Are you aware of the historically “bad” treatment of Muslims by Western countries, both economically and geopolitically?  (5) Do you acknowledge that recent Western focus on money as all-important has led us to have more alienation and anxiety in our lives?  (6) Do you acknowledge that our sexual freedom in the West has led to more affairs, prostitution, and child sexual abuse than we would have if rules were more strict?  Is the positive value of freedom worth the prices that we pay?

We obviously need greater understanding between Westerners and Muslims in general and greater consensus on how to treat differences.  Calm discussions of the questions above could lead in this direction.  There have been a number of interfaith discussions of this nature in the last few years, which is encouraging, but religious leaders in this country can do much more to help their parishioners to understand matters of cultural conflict.

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Psychological Meanings in Consumerism

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANINGS IN CONSUMERISM

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    12-24-10

It has become common to question the commercialism that has overtaken and swamped the Christmas holiday, but it is still worthwhile to examine why this has occurred.  In most families in the U.S., the gift-giving and gift-exchanging are much more important than the celebration of the birth of Christ.  There are a number of reasons for this, besides the decline in religious belief.  Consumption as an almost exclusive gratification route and the equating of value in general with money value are the central underlying dynamics, and there is no doubt that for most families in this country, gifts and parties are the only important aspects of the season.

Starting with the symbolic gift that St. Nicholas delivered to children who were beset on Christmas Eve with mixed hope and fear, it gradually became common in wealthier families to give gifts that children wanted or could use (toys, clothes, etc.).  As wealth expanded, families expectably used more and more money on these gifts (just as they are now using more and more money on “designer” clothes for children). 

There is no mystery regarding children’s motives in this matter; they want as many toys as possible, and they usually want whatever is popular or faddish.  Parents’ motives are more complex.  Of course they want to do nice things for their children, but there is more to it than that.  Parents are driven not only by wishes to please their children but also by memories of their own Christmas gift experiences and by their own very human hopes and fears. 

(1) Parents want to give their children exactly what the children want for Christmas, hence the common practice of directly asking children what they want, instead of (as used to be commonplace) noticing what children want and providing it as a surprise, if possible.  (Personalized giving—i.e., choosing a gift that one thinks the recipient will enjoy based on one’s knowledge of the individual recipient—has almost disappeared, with most giving either based on directly asking what is wanted or the use of standard gifts (goodie baskets, alcoholic beverages, food, Christmas ornaments, plants, etc.).)  Most parents will go to extraordinary lengths to obtain exactly what their children want for Christmas.  The psychological meaning for parents in providing exactly what children want is “people, including myself, should be able to get exactly what they want in life.”  Giving exactly what is wanted attempts to demonstrate that this is possible.  Children absorb this hope from parents and pass it on as adults.  The fact that in the rest of the year one rarely gets exactly what one wants is interpreted negatively—i.e., that it is the ideal of Christmas that is appropriate and “normal” and the deprivations and disappointments of the rest of the year are abnormal.

(2) The practice of giving one or two gifts to each loved one has almost disappeared as well, with the number of gifts to any one person limited only by the total available to be spent on gifts.  The psychological meaning of this for parents (and for children) is “people should get from life just as much as they want.”  As noted above, we want to believe that the gratifications of Christmas are “normal,” and the evidence that this “reality” is actually “abnormal” is ignored. 

Neither of these statements (“people should be able to get exactly what they want in life” and “people should get from life just as much as they want”) is true or even reasonable, but these are the primary motive statements that we teach children in this society, and the result is that people spend most of their energies in life trying to get exactly what they want and to get as much as they want.  A corollary statement that is implied by the above two statements is “getting everything you want will make you happy and satisfied,” which is also a false statement.  The consumer and production economies work hard to keep this “abnormal” hope alive all year—that if we keep on consuming, we can achieve unblemished happiness.

The alternative to the above implied and unconscious messages is a more “realistic,” less “idealistic” view of life, one version of which might be that human beings are marvelously adapted to life on this Earth and manage, in general, to survive and even prosper, that the overall gratification level that we have is sufficient, even if part of the time we do not get what we want or as much as we want, and that it is less frustrating to accept the gratification level that we can reasonably achieve than it is to be always hoping for more and frustrated when we do not get it.  While this attitude may result in somewhat less gratification in life, since there will be somewhat less motive power behind the push for gratification, it will also result in a more contented and satisfied life than a life that is always wanting more.

Our society teaches us to value the drive for maximum gratification, partly because most of our immigrants (most of us) came here to get more, but the result is that we live relatively discontented lives and rarely feel satisfied.  The satisfaction of first having the BMW fades pretty quickly, and we have forgotten to be glad that we have cars at all.  It would be healthy for us all to think seriously about what is really important in life and to orient our energies in those directions.  It is hard to help children grasp that being satisfied, even with fewer gifts than their friends received, is an important part of a healthier kind of life—healthier for ourselves, for those around us, and for the environment.  (Questioning the ultimate value of maximum gratification will also lead most people to question the “status hierarchy” assignment of value to people—the other significant, natural but unquestioned determinant, besides gratification level, of the self-esteem of most people in our society.)

  

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Truth and Lying

TRUTH AND LYING

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.   12-10-10

Abstract:  Truth is defined operationally; the degree of distortion and lying that human beings do is described; motives for distorting and lying are outlined; and attitudes and processes for learning more about the truth are listed.

Keywords:  truth, knowledge, distortion

Today’s post describes the greatest and most difficult problem that human beings deal with.  We tell our children to tell the truth (at least to tell the truth when parents want to know it), but in general human beings distort the truth many times a day and usually prefer it this way.  If we truly believe that having accurate information leads us to make better decisions and choices, as well as improving our relationships with others, then we must reduce our distortions.  Many interactional and relationship problems are based in these distortions and in the lies that result, so tremendous improvement in our relationships is possible if we could “tell the truth” (refrain from distorting for personal advantage) more with others.

“The truth” about something is the statement that most accurately and completely describes reality regarding whatever the topic is.  Other statements may be possible, but they are less accurate and less complete and therefore are not as “true.”  We distort the truth when we choose to believe or state something that is not the most accurate and complete description of reality.  We lie when we claim or state that a distortion of the truth is the truth, when we know or could readily know better.  (Many times people convince themselves that they are sincere in their distortions, but if they are asked to carefully reconsider, they can often admit that what they are asserting may not be true at all.)

Much of what we say to each other and to ourselves is distorted.  We lie to ourselves and each other in this way in order to feel better or to preserve relationships that could be threatened by differences of understanding.  To a great extent, we choose our beliefs, and we choose beliefs that we like, that feel better to us, or that support or justify our behavior (as long as the beliefs are not contrary to reality evidence that we cannot ignore or deny).  Our societal life depends on a certain amount of uniform beliefs among all members, about reality and how to organize ourselves (about the form of government, about how people should treat each other, etc.), and a considerable amount of our energy goes into trying to get others to believe as we do about these matters.

We are good at distorting both our beliefs and our emotions.  We can pick and choose which “facts” to take into account in constructing a belief (the existence of God; the “wonderfulness” of our mate or child; which candidate we vote for), and we learn in early childhood to distort our emotions in order not to be punished by our parents and in order not to feel so much pain (from rejection, fear, loneliness, etc.).  Most of us are quite unaware of our distorting, but if we establish an independent “observer” within us that can take an honest look at what we are doing, we can usually perceive both belief distortions and emotional distortions.

One could argue that as long as distorting makes us or others feel better, it’s OK to distort the truth, but since these distortions cause us to make at least some serious errors in life, it’s worth considering whether we would be better off sticking more to the truth and trying our best to find the truth.  Errors that can arise from distortions are, for example, choosing the wrong career because we lie to ourselves in order to justify choosing the one that will please our parents; choosing the wrong mate by rationalizing all of the faults of a potential mate, in order to avoid the anxieties of continuing to look for one who fits us better; and choosing the wrong job by picking one with a boss who has the same serious faults as our parents, because we have lied to ourselves about those faults in our parents for so long that we no longer actually see them.  Harm that arises from our lying occurs from misleading others into doing things that are not in their best interest (buying what we are selling, agreeing to do something that they could readily know they will not enjoy, etc.) and from the damage we do to our relationships, since people usually figure out over time that we tend to lie and that what follows will not work out well for them.

Seeing reality clearly requires, then, that we tolerate and become relatively comfortable with even those truths that are unpleasant—seeing our parents’ faults (but coming to understand them and not allow them to harm us further); getting tested for cancer even though we are deathly afraid of what we might find out; and living a moral life even though we might like to do some immoral things (not necessarily because living a moral life is the “right” thing to do but to avoid the harm to ourselves and others of our immoral acts).

The key to choosing to seek and live with the truth is to believe that our lives will be better if we do than they will be if we continue to distort and lie to ourselves and others.  If we really believe that we can get more in life by lying, then we will continue to lie, regardless of how we evaluate this behavior.  Many people grow up in families that lie (distort for personal advantage) constantly to each other, either directly or in terms of assumed and unquestionable beliefs, and they may not realize that there is any other way to live.

To reduce distorting, see reality more clearly, and find how to live comfortably with the truth, there are several simple, daily actions that will eventually achieve those goals, if practiced with reasonable diligence:

(1) examine everything with your “independent observer”;

(2) question everything, even your own most cherished beliefs; 

     recognize that what you have been taught is not necessarily true or right

     (and that each individual and each group has its own version of "truth");

(3) seek more accurate knowledge about yourself, others, and the

     world;

(4) leave open the questions that you cannot settle without

     making unwarranted assumptions or distorting;

(5) work on accepting the truths that you do not like and

     finding ways to live comfortably with those truths;

(6) get used to being different from your neighbors, because

     most other people don’t want to have their distortions

     questioned;

(7) find at least one other person who also wants to seek the

     truth, for support and mutual help in the quest;

(8) realize that just because you know more of the truth than

     your neighbors, you don’t have to tell them how they are

     distorting (or ignorant); seek the right moments if you want

     to share what you have figured out;

(9) be open to continued discovery; what you think is the truth

     may be only another step in the process of discovery!

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Citizen Responsibility for Government Spending

CITIZEN RESPONSIBILITY FOR GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    12-10-10

Abstract:  If democracy is to work in the modern world, citizens must have a greater sense of ownership of government and better tools to influence government than they do now.

Keywords:  responsibility, government, citizen, democracy

As governments struggle to rein in spending and balance budgets in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis of the last few years, we see citizen demonstrations (or even riots) in the streets, protesting cutbacks in government spending on various programs.  Yesterday, cars of the British government were damaged by students protesting higher university tuition, and the demonstrations in France have always been legendary.

These demonstrators are saying to government “You aren’t taking care of me as well as you used to” and “I can’t trust you to take care of me.”  The need for government to “take care of” citizens is based on the fact that as we make life more complex, we need joint action (government) more and more (post-secondary training and education, food safety monitoring, oil drilling safety rules, investment rules, etc.).  (Conservative wishes to turn back the clock and have smaller government can never be fulfilled unless life is made less complex, including the financial “vehicles” of Wall Street.)  Understandably but unfortunately, we then respond to government as if it were a parent, and we lose sight of our responsibility as citizens for our democratic government.  If government is spending less on us, it is really us who are spending less, because we elect representatives and officials to make these spending decisions.  If they are not carrying out our wishes regarding spending, then we should elect other people.

We also lose sight of the fact that we provide all of the money for government’s spending, and if we want them to spend more on us (or not to cut back) then we must provide more money to the government, in the form of taxes.  Too many citizens view taxes as having money taken from them, rather than putting in their share of what will become government’s spending, and too many have the vague notion that “they” will come up with money to do whatever “they” want, regardless so our job is to make enough noise to get “them” to come up with the money to do what we want.

Since we are a profligate nation (we spend everything we possibly can get our hands on), in a time of economic retrenchment, reductions in government spending are bound to hurt many citizens, who have become dependent on the previous level of spending and are loathe to give up the benefits they have been receiving.  Those citizens don’t grasp that if they don’t provide adequate money for government to spend, then there will be limits on what government can spend for them.

It should be clear from this that the basic problem is not economic but is a loss by citizens of a sense of ownership of government and responsibility for government.  Our challenge is how to recreate that sense of ownership and responsibility.  (1) Our election system does not elect the best qualified candidates, because we allow candidates to avoid the issues or over-simplify them and instead to appeal to our baser motives (fear, greed, hatred) in order to get elected.  Then, when in office, we get little or no information about what they individually are doing to work on the nation’s problems.  If candidates were expected to explain how exactly they intend to approach the nation’s problems, and if citizens received frequent notice of officials’ voting records and their reasons for those votes, citizens could make better voting decisions, could see what the candidate actually does, and would feel once again as in charge as citizens can be in a representative democracy.

(2) Another useful idea is to have citizens do a straw vote by computer on how government’s budget should look, as a guide to representatives for how to proceed.  Several website programs are available now that allow one to rearrange spending in various areas and see what the total budget would be.  Citizens could also indicate their priorities for spending through a computer poll.

(3) Psychologically, in order for citizens to have ownership of government in a complex world, citizens have to accept that many issues are very complex and do not permit clear or perfect solutions.  Citizens would have to live with the ambiguity of always trying to do our best but never being sure what the outcomes will be.  Many are tempted by this circumstance to simply throw up their hands, divorce themselves from responsibility, and join the protests as their only input regarding government.  Democratic citizenship requires intelligence, patience, and tolerance.

The fact that many citizens feel as if government is a parent

may be telling us that many citizens do not have the skills to participate meaningfully in modern democracy.  That anyone can be president (or senator or representative or mayor) may now be just a myth, since the majority of people do not have the intelligence, patience, and tolerance to perform the duties of government leadership positions.  We still want to believe the myth (and Sarah Palin’s popularity is a testament to our wish to believe the myth), but it is simply no longer true.  The implications are troubling, since they point toward a more paternalistic form of government as necessary in the modern world.  Only if we work hard to regain citizen ownership of government can we combat this trend.  Most citizens have the good sense to take some ownership responsibly, even if they themselves could not carry out the duties of elected office, but more and better information for them is the only weapon we have.  If those in power seek to restrict this information, so they can get elected and do what “they” want to do instead of what is good for the country, then the battle may be lost already.

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Better Solutions Through Looking At All of Reality

BETTER SOLUTIONS THROUGH LOOKING AT ALL OF REALITY

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    12-7-10

It has long been an honored part of our culture’s traditions to contest issues through debate and rhetorical struggle.  Each side presents its point of view, hoping to convince the other side or to convince some other audience.  We see this in our courtroom procedure, where the prosecution and defense seek not to find the truth but to prevail, and in formal debating, which works the same way.  It’s well to note that this approach may result in worse outcomes for society than outcomes generated by all parties trying to find the truth.

The abortion debate gives us a good example to consider.  Pro-choice arguments promote a woman’s right to choose when to be pregnant and when to have a child, but they never publicly address the issue of abortion terminating the existence (“killing”?) of a life form that resembles a baby at some point and resembles a baby more and more as gestation proceeds.  The anti-abortion side deplores this “killing” but never publicly addresses the agony of parents who have children but don’t want to be parents or cannot appropriately raise children and the abuse and suffering that those children experience (besides claiming, with no evidence, that there are plenty of good homes wanting to adopt).  This failure to deal with the negative results of what they advocate suggests that neither side should be trusted in what it says.

The debate over welfare offers us a similar example.  One side wants to assuage the difficulties of those who don’t have jobs by giving them money but apparently believes that this kindly act does not encourage people to stay off work.  The other side emphasizes that welfare encourages people not to work but does not acknowledge that there is a problem in our economy about people qualifying for, finding, and keeping jobs.  (The use of “sound bites,” beloved of politicians and required by our media, appears to make it “normal” to express only one side of things, and then only briefly.)

Animal rights provides another relevant example.  Those advocating for better treatment of animals do not discuss how much more giving animals these rights would cost everyone in society, while those on the other side pretty much ignore the gratuitous violence and suffering through poor care that animals suffer currently.

Finally, consider the environmental debate.  Those who favor conservation and a “sustainable” economy never discuss how much this will cost the rest of us or the lifestyle changes that would be required (less air conditioning, less travel, etc.).  Those who oppose conservation never own up to what they would do if they are wrong and our lack of conservation results in a barren world that is unable to support their children, as well as the rest of our burgeoning population.  Would they “compensate” the rest of us for their mistake?

The key point in this criticism is that neither the “pro” nor the “opposed” side gives us a firm basis for making decisions, since they are giving us incomplete information.   As decisions regarding how our society works become more far-reaching in their impact, it is very important to have full information, and our style of debate between opposing sides and beliefs denies us this information.  The fact that each side works to “win” also means that they will be prone, consciously or unconsciously, to ignore reality when possible and slant their views to favor their assigned or favored position.  It would be much better for us all if everyone trying to sway our opinions were required also to answer the other side’s most meaningful criticisms.  It would be even better, in my opinion, if all sides were doing their best to find the truth, regardless of whether they liked the implications of their findings.  The crux of this entire argument is that the benefits of dealing with the truth, even when we don’t like it, justify dealing with all of reality and will result in a better life for us than blinding ourselves to parts of reality.  If you don’t believe this, you won’t buy the arguments presented here.

Speakers and advocates should be required to take responsibility for all of the consequences of their positions.  If a sustainable economy requires going back to 1960’s style houses, then say so.  Even more timely is the debate over whether torture of terrorist detainees should be permitted.  Anyone advocating for permitting torture should be required to say out loud before an audience “In order to gain the possible life-saving benefits of information gained from detainees, I am willing to cause them to undergo inhumane and even life-threatening torture, and I am willing to assist with these procedures if needed.”  And every advocate against torture should be required to say out loud before an audience “In order to maintain our society’s sense of humaneness and morality, I am willing to forego the possible life-saving benefits of information obtained by torture, and even if that information were relevant to finding a bomb that was expected to explode soon in the area close to my family, I would still not sanction torture to get that information.”

There are several psychological reasons for this one-sidedness of our thinking and our attempts to influence others.  (1) As human beings we want things to be simple and certain, rather than complicated and doubtful, and we are usually willing to ignore the problems that might result from implementing our beliefs, in order to have this illusion of simplicity and certainty.  Having things appear to be simple and certain removes our doubt about decisions we need to make and actions we need to take and allows us to feel moral and justified.  We see this desire for certainty in the attitudes of those who believe that being convicted of a crime proves that you committed the crime, rather than that it is just our best guess at whether you did (according to a legal standard of proof).  (2) We very humanly want what we want when we want it, and these desires motivate us to suppress information that might force us to restrain consumption or give up what we want to do.  (3) It is challenging for the human brain to look at positives and negatives at the same time.  We see this in the tendency to alternate between idolizing and demonizing individuals we know rather than to see simultaneously the strengths and weaknesses of our loved ones and our heroes.

In addition to these more important processes, in some cases people are simply ignorant of the negative consequences of their beliefs and actions, and in others they simply don’t care, as long as their lives are not going to be directly affected.

Before concluding, a word should be said about the positive value of the advocacy approach that is being questioned here, since the competition it depends on does motivate people on both sides to strive to find effective reasons and arguments.  Unfortunately, though, the goal of this is simply to bring others to their view, rather than to find the understanding that is closest to the truth, and I believe that finding the truth gives us better bases for decisions than two-sided advocacy.  There could be some concern that if everyone were just looking for the truth (and not competing to “win”), it might result in collusion by both sides, settling on a convenient conclusion instead of doing the work to find what is closest to the truth and tolerating the uncertainties of not really knowing the truth (which may be the final result of many of our efforts, given the state of our human knowledge and our limitations in understanding complex situations).

What can be done to improve this situation?  (1) We ourselves can begin to look carefully at all sides of an issue, rather than simply taking the side that we intuitively “like” the most.  This requires seeing the weaknesses of our favored positions and evaluating honestly how effectively we can defend or mitigate those weaknesses.  Since we would need information that we cannot get in order to be sure of our choices with respect to most issues, we would have to accept that in most cases we are guessing or making assumptions when we support our favored position, rather than presenting facts. 

Give yourself the time and space to look at all sides of an issue before you decide, and be sure that you are committed to finding the truth rather than simply finding things that support your favored side. 

(2) Every time someone tries to influence your opinion (advertising, politics, ethics/morals, etc.), think to yourself about what the opposing side would be saying about it, and see if you think that the questions they raise should be answered in order for you to decide one way or the other. 

(3) Require every speaker and candidate to deal honestly with the issue by addressing both the pros and the cons of her position. 

(4) Require every advocate to take responsibility for his position, by saying what he would give up or sacrifice as a consequence of maintaining his position.

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