Arguing about facts doesn’t work — why Politics should be like Couples Therapy
In the Show Time documentary series Couples Therapy, middle aged couple Elaine and Desean are at loggerheads. Elaine feels that her husband Desean doesn’t pay her any attention. Desean insists that he gives her everything he has and simply can’t offer more. Elaine is full of pain and rage that Desean seems totally uninterested in her. Desean feels he has a wife who is on him 24 hours a day and can never be pleased.
It’s an irreconcilable argument. Who’s right? Whose fault is it? How can it be fixed?
The patient and empathetic Dr Orna Guralnik cuts straight to the point. “I work with couples a lot, so let me see if I can save you the time of arguing about facts … it doesn’t work … Did it happen this way? Did it happen that way? … You’re not going to go anywhere with that kind of argument. Instead, let’s think about what’s really of importance to the two of you about this. What’s really at the heart of it.”
Through the therapy sessions we gradually piece together what’s really ‘at the heart of it’ for Desean and Elaine. Desean feels completely overwhelmed by Elaine’s constant demand for attention, and decides to pull away so as to not ‘reward’ her behaviour (his words). But in doing so, he inadvertently plays into Elaine’s core anxiety — being abandoned. This is a fear cultivated from a childhood characterised by abandonment, and something she carries with her, framing her view of the world. Her response to this perceived abandonment is to push harder, which overwhelms Desean even more. All Elaine’s fault then? Not so fast, because Desean’s core anxiety is conflict. As a black man living in America, being confrontational can be a death sentence. He has learned to avoid conflict like the plague, and instead of setting boundaries with Elaine, he distances himself. He abandons Elaine. A vicious cycle begins.
Dr Guralnik carefully manages to reframe their struggle, by uncovering these core fears. Elaine isn’t mad at Desean, she’s terrified. Desean isn’t abandoning Elaine because he doesn’t care, he’s overwhelmed. Now they can both see what’s ‘at the heart of it’ they can begin a constructive conversation. It doesn’t immediately solve the issue or heal the wounds, but it does mean that the vicious cycle is tamed. When Desean sees Elaine is getting upset, he can see that that pulling away (avoiding conflict) will only make things worse. When Elaine sees Desean is not responsive, she can see that pushing him harder will only make things worse. Both need to change their mindset, change their approach and reach out to each other.
This is a great insight into the therapeutic process, and how someone like Dr Guralnik can look underneath the rhetoric and provide clarity about what’s happening — like uncovering a long neglected path out of a knotted, overgrown wood, in which the couple have become hopelessly lost. In the end it seems so simple and clear, and yet the perspectives from each side had become too entrenched, too emotionally volatile. As Dr Guralnik says, “you’re characterising it in a very extreme way. You’re each getting polarised into your own extreme version.” And it’s with that word ‘polarised’ that I started thinking about politics, and how this scene really represents a microcosm of what doesn’t work about our current political set up — the discourse, the election process, the ideological platforms, all of it.
Much has been written about the polarisation of politics since at least 2016, with the advent of Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US. Worrisome rage, anger and actual violence seems to have taken over civilised political discourse. I’m sceptical about this narrative that politics was all gentle civility before 2016, but it’s undeniable that there is a feeling we’ve lost the ability to communicate. Like Desean and Elaine, we’re at loggerheads, our viewpoints are irreconcilable. Who’s right? Whose fault is it? How can it be fixed?
The great insight from Dr Guralnik is this: arguing about facts doesn’t work. Elaine and Desean found themselves stuck arguing about how many weekends they spend together. They called this their ‘routine’, and it went round and round endlessly, unable to be resolved. Politics is stuck in a similar routine. High taxes or low taxes? Borrowing or reducing the deficit? Open borders or closed borders? Big State or Small State? Regulation or de-regulation? On and on it goes, back and forth, round and round, no resolution in sight because their can’t be a resolution. Arguing about facts doesn’t work.
In his 2012 book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt provides key insights into the conflicting worlds of left-wing and right-wing groups, and why they find it so hard to see eye-to-eye. He explains how people experience automatic, gut, emotional reactions to moral judgements and how we are primarily guided by instinct (rather than reason). Haidt identifies six ‘Moral Foundations’, or building blocks of our perception of right and wrong, consistent throughout all human cultures. They are as follows:
Care/Harm
Whether or not an action results in the physical or psychological suffering of another person or animal
Fairness/Cheating
Whether an outcome is proportionate to the work put in
Liberty/Oppression
Whether group or leader’s actions cause unjust persecution
Authority/Subversion
How a situation impacts the power dynamics between leaders and followers
Loyalty/Betrayal
How a situation impacts the in-group
Sanctity/Degradation
Whether values, traditions and conventions are being followed or respected (closely aligned with moral ‘good and bad’ and cleanliness and impurity).
Discovering a co-worker is getting paid more for the same job, for example, would trigger the Fairness/Cheating foundation, and an intense emotional reaction. Witnessing someone kicking a dog would trigger the Care/Harm foundation. Having a glass of wine at a football match may trigger your group’s Sanctity/Degradation foundation. Hearing friends mocking a passer-by may trigger both your Care/Harm foundation and Loyalty/Betrayal foundation, creating internal conflict. Our morals are therefore an emotional response to specific social dynamics, but not everyone responds to same triggers in the same way.
Significantly, left-wing and right-wing groups (or Progressives and Conservatives) interpret and weigh these moral foundations differently. Progressives tend to favour the foundations of Care, Fairness and Liberty, whereas Conservatives favour all six, including Authority, Loyalty and Sanctity, but neglect Care when the other five are under threat. Therefore, Progressives are more willing to reject authority, social norms and traditions, to ensure the wellbeing of individuals and equality; whereas Conservatives are more willing to prioritise group integrity over the concern of the individual, and as such maintain the authority of the majority, favour loyalty over integrity and uphold customs and rituals. Conservatives may also have an in-built ‘advantage’ as they more successfully form cohesive groups rather than focusing on the needs of individuals.
This challenges the notion of a universal moral truth on which much politics is fought. It shows that both sides are fighting for fundamentally different moral values, and quite often talking at cross purposes. A passionate Progressive defence of, say, minority group rights (individualised Care/Harm foundation) may communicate exactly the threat Conservatives guard against (group Sanctity/Degradation foundation), and therefore have the opposite intended effect — inspire action against minorities (among Conservatives), not for them. Who is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in this scenario is moot, both are arguing for different outcomes. Haidt also explores how the political landscape is governed not by objective assessment of facts, but by emotion: knee jerk, unconscious and intuitive. He outlines how we respond to situations with our gut first and then use reason to justify our reaction second, convincing ourselves that our uncontrollable responses were the result of conscious and reasoned decision-making. In fact, ideological beliefs actually impact people’s ability to reason logically, with syllogisms more likely to be deemed logical if the assessor ideologically agrees with the conclusion (Gampa et al, 2019).
The purpose of our contrasting ideologies, Haidt posits, is to create a mechanism by which large groups can maintain stability and integrity (through the Conservative values of loyalty, sanctity, and authority) whilst simultaneously remaining adaptive and flexible to changing circumstance (through the Progressive values of Care, Fairness and Liberty). Far from either side being right or wrong, both evolved to work in tandem with each other for the longevity of the group. So the idea of winning a political debate is redundant, as no one group is right or wrong, both have a function and both must work together for the greater good. If applied to unhappy couples, traditional political debate mirrors Elaine and Desean’s destructive routine, unresolvable circular arguments that damage the relationship. Instead of breaking this dynamic and digging underneath the rhetoric with a view to salvaging the relationship, Dr Guralnik would instead simply choose a winner. The impact on Elaine and Desean would be catastrophic. And yet, this is the model on which we base our political system.
Politics is obviously not entirely ineffective at achieving consensus. Political victories are rarely if ever unanimous, with dissenters continuing to fight the case for the opposition. This is because when political groups form, there will be Conservative and Progressives within each side, moderating and adapting the extremes at either end. However, the recent political landscape has begun a descent into what Haidt identifies as Manichaeism, where compromise is a sin; fuelled by social media and algorithms that feed off our basest most reactionary impulses, we are moving both geographically and technologically into enclaves, no longer socialising or conversing with people with different views, and therefore our willingness to compromise is decreasing.
Elaine and Desean found themselves in a vicious cycle that was pushing them apart from each other. By raising their consciousness of what was driving this dynamic, both could understand how their reactions were working against their own interests. Elaine’s feelings of rejection were pushing Desean away. Desean’s conflict-aversion was antagonising Elaine. By working on their past and present traumas, and reframing how they saw each other’s actions, the cycle was ended. Desean could give Elaine the attention she craved, but in turn she would work on not viewing any boundary setting on his part as rejection. A new contract is formed. Both side’s demands are met and there is a way forward.
What would this look like in political terms? To begin, political debate should use Moral Foundations Theory as a framework for interrogating the emotional drivers of divisive and polarising rhetoric. The purpose of debate should be to raise everyone’s consciousness of these drivers and show how they are working against each side’s interests. We should move away from arguing about facts — which probably only serves to provide more ammunition for the other side’s values — and towards seeking empathy and understanding, from which to reframe the terms of the debate. For example, debates around abortion, immigration and gun control may be the political equivalent of arguments around sex, who does the dishes, or who is having an affair. The ‘facts’ of these arguments (when exactly a foetus should be considered alive, whether guns increase or decrease someone’s safety, who should be allowed in the country) are potentially irrelevant, it is Moral Foundations underneath (who is being harmed? What rituals, traditions or freedoms are being threatened? Who is benefiting — insiders or outsiders?) and the individual expression of those morals through emotion, that are key.
Couples Therapy is a tried-and-tested model that successfully de-escalates conflict, reduces polarisation and seeks to create unity. If we apply the principles behind Couples Therapy to political debate, using the empirical framework of Moral Foundations as the ‘deeper issues’ beneath the ‘trivial’ facts that must be explored, can we have similar success in finding consensus? Can we move beyond the simplistic questions of ‘who’s right?’ or ‘whose faults is it?’ and uncover the deeper dynamics that keep us trapped in a perennial stalemate? Can we turn toxic conflict into constructive conflict that inspires compassion and concern, not hurt and alienation? Can we put a stop to circular arguments and find a way forward together?
Find out more: https://www.politicsascouplestherapy.co.uk/
References
Gampa, A., Wojcik, S. P., Motyl, M., Nosek, B. A. & Ditto, P. H. (2019). (Ideo)Logical Reasoning: Ideology Impairs Sound Reasoning. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia.
Goldsworthy, A., Osborne, L., & Chesterfield A. (2021). Poles Apart. Penguin. 202–203, 208–213, 250–251.
Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P. & Ditto, P. H. (2013). Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism. In Patricia Devine, and Ashby Plant, editors: Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 47, Burlington: Academic Press, 55–130.
Greene, J. & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? ScienceDirect.
Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Penguin. 39–41, 41–60, 72–73, 61–64, 103–107, 129, 131–149, 150–179, 180–216, 365–366.
Haidt, J. (2022). Why The Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. The Atlantic.
Hugo, C., Parker, M., Maya S. (2019–2023). Couples Therapy. Edgeline Films.
Leslie, I. (2022) How to Disagree. Faber. 55, 247–248, 250–251.
