You are no different than a Trump supporter and that’s a good thing

We all like to think that we make decisions based on a rational analysis of the facts. That’s a lovely story we tell ourselves but it’s not true. And this is especially evident in the exceptional vitriol around this 2016 US presidential race.

I like dramatic build up but I’ve accepted (grudgingly) that getting to the point quickly is important online so my four points are as follows (ie TL;DR because I’m hip like that):

1. We don’t actually use facts to make decisions, we use information
2. The full set of information we do have available is filtered by our biases
3. We don’t even actually use that limited, biased information to arrive at a decision. Instead we further cherry pick the information to justify, after the fact, a decision we already made with our instinct/ego/feelings
4. We all do this, so the way to build understanding and come to an agreement is not through shared information but through shared feelings

Filtered Information, not Facts

First of all, let’s stop using the word “facts”. What we deal with is data, and data is not facts. Data is not truth. Instead it is a sample of an aspect of a certain point of view of a fact. Furthermore, when it comes to things like politics, religion, race, crime, etc, we aren’t always dealing with completely quantifiable measures as is implied by a word like “data”.

The snapshot we get from a video, article, or a news report (let alone a tweet) can never convey all the nuances of a situation, nor can it give you the history and experiential context of the people involved. So instead let’s use the word “information”.

Secondly, which information are we basing our judgement on? Our inherent biases filter the information we are presented with in the first place and thus taint the objectivity of our analysis. Hardly anyone has the time or inclination to seek out sources of information that contradict what they already believe.

This has always been true but the internet has made it worse because it allows us to mistake comprehensiveness of sources for comprehensiveness of viewpoints: we now have 100 different sources telling us the same thing not 100 different things. It’s the illusion of information diversity.

Case in point, the facebook “echo chamber”: how often do we read people smugly congratulating themselves on how they get it and the other side doesn’t?

And if an alternative view sneaks in, once we get over our incredulity that we could be related to/friends with such a colossal ass, we can filter that out. Justifying our decision by piously congratulating ourselves for taking the high road.

This is at its core not an unreasonable approach, we can’t simply believe everything we’re told. We have to use our judgement both to draw conclusions from information as well as to judge whether that information is trustworthy or not in the first place. The problem arises because that judgement of trustworthiness is also subject to our biases and our feelings and emotions.

I support Clinton but I acknowledge that part of that comes from my own biases and background. So at the same time I don’t dismiss Trump supporters. That doesn’t mean that I think that their choice is valid, it means I am open to the possibility that mine is not.

I do not respect all viewpoints. That’s ridiculous. There are plenty of really stupid, really terrible views out there. Instead it’s a matter of acknowledging that you are going to be more skeptical of information contrary to what you already believe than of information aligned with what you believe.

You are not as objective as you think.

But even that’s not the full story. Not only are we not as well informed nor objective as we think, we also don’t actually use information to make our decisions. We use information to justify our decisions.

Justifications not Conclusions

A lot of people supporting Trump are not doing so because they think he’s going to solve their problems or because they necessarily even agree with his views. They are supporting him because they feel he is giving a voice to their fear and frustration.

Some of that comes from a perceived loss of status felt when other groups catch up with your dominant group, some of it is due to actually being worse off in absolute terms, some from intense dislike of something or someone but whatever the driver, the common denominator is feeling.

But that denominator is in common with humanity not just Trump supporters. It’s easy to dismiss them because of this. “They’re crazy” we say, how can they ignore the flaws, the blatant lies and personal insecurity of Donald Trump? We are unassailable in our smug self-satisfied superiority.

Think again.

You don’t make rational decisions. You make rational justifications.

The real truth is that we hardly ever truly have conclusions, ie decisions arrived after logical analysis. In reality we make the decision at an instinctual level, driven by feelings and ego, and then justify it after the fact with a rational structure. All of us. All of the time.

You may very well have come to the same conclusion were you to truly make an objective analysis of the information you have available but that doesn’t mean it’s what you are actually doing.

Your after-the-fact rational justification of your position may be logically complete and consistent but it’s not the way you’re actually making your decision on who to support.

Think about how difficult it is to change your mind. How angry you get when dealing with that “other”, the opinions of those chumps that just don’t get it. Their refusal to accept “facts”.

It may be the case that the reasons for why we should support Clinton over Trump outweigh the reasons for supporting Trump over Clinton but the fact that the position contrary to your own causes such anger is the indication that what drives your choice is not an objective argument but an instinctual feeling.

If it truly was a conclusion then we would welcome new data in the form of different opinions because it would help us refine our thinking. Being wrong in that case is wonderful because it means that our knowledge base is growing. That’s exciting, not angering.

But when we just can’t understand why the opposition thinks the way they do, why they ignore “facts” and go with feeling, that is telling. We criticize without recognition of the same impulse within ourselves.

This is true of everyone. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, man or woman, parent or child. It’s the human condition.

We are all afraid…

So if we cannot rely on facts because they don’t exist, we cannot rely on objectivity because we aren’t, and we cannot rely on logic because we’re not, then what?

Well, what is our goal?

It’s not objective truth, there is no right answer and the effective answer changes according to circumstance. Our goal is actually less to be correct, then it is to convince someone else of our correctness or, less self-centeredly: we want agreement, shared clarity.

But though we may hold different opinions we are more alike in the way we are wired than we are different. And the fact that you may be strongly driven by feeling, just like those who disagree with you, actually points the way to how we deal with them.

The degree to which we’re open to a conflicting opinion is inversely proportional to the depth of feeling behind our belief, not in the validity of the data. The more strongly we feel, the more strongly we hold that belief. It has nothing to do with logic.

So by trying to change people’s minds via an argument or rational structure you are targeting the wrong thing. Making a rational argument to an emotional decision is like taking a knife to a gun fight. But if you start from the realization that you yourself are making a feeling decision as well, then that points the way out.

The approach of making a rational argument has the goal of recreating that same rational structure in the other person’s mind with the assumption being that once they have that same structure they will arrive at the same conclusion.

That approach is right but the goal is wrong.

You are trying to create a similar state in both you and your opponents mind. However instead of trying to recreate your rational structure in them, you need to recreate their emotional context in yourself.

Since feelings drive decisions, you need to feel what they feel in order to understand why they make the decisions they are making. We understand other people, we connect with them, not through facts and figures but by feeling the same thing they do.

In particular, the feeling that leads to connection is fear.

We are all driven by fear more than we are driven by desire. Since our fear instinct evolved in order to ensure our survival, it trumps everything else. It’s hard to follow your passion if you’re dead. Your fears and insecurities are how you really make decisions. It is how we all make decisions.

Fear is a group response, desire is self-centered. You don’t connect with other people by focusing on what you want. The fact that we worry and are afraid about different things doesn’t matter as much as the fact that we all worry and fear. That’s how we connect.

Some of us fear being accepted
Some of us fear being safe
Some of us fear for our kids future
Some of us fear for our own future

The particularities don’t matter.

…so we are not alone

The caveman in the dark is our common human heritage and is the route to connection. We didn’t band together to kill the lion because we wanted to kill the lion. We did so because we didn’t want it to kill any of us. Hope, desire, optimism doesn’t bring people together. Fear does.

By admitting that we fear and, more importantly, accepting that our fear drives us individually we can understand how fear drives us all.

You are not that special. You are not that different from anyone else. So if you understand the real reasons why you do the things you do, you can more easily put yourself in the shoes of other people.

When you recognize to what degree and how your decisions are driven by insecurities and emotions you can be open to how the other person can be driven in the same way.

Note I’m not saying you “give in to fear”. Accepting your fear, accepting that it is both driving you and your opponent doesn’t mean we run around in a panic.

While you don’t necessarily need to dive into and wallow in your fear, when you acknowledge it you open yourself up to acknowledging the commonality between us all.

Understanding a subject occurs at the level of facts and figures. Understanding people occurs at the level of feelings and ego.

Only once we understand each other with our hearts (not in some hippy dippy “love one another” way but meaning using feeling rather than information) can we then work on understanding with our brains.

So when some stupid comment incenses you, imagine being afraid. Imagine the other person is afraid. And that moment of shared humanity will deflate your anger and allow you to see the your fellow caveman so we can all battle the lions together.

Also, I like lemon squares.

edit: After reading responses I received, I wrote a follow up piece about empathy