We are just tribal creatures.....

These sorts of articles just absolutely crush any optimism I have for a rational society.

The phenomenon is referred to as motivated skepticism. Ezra Klein pulls a lot of this stuff together, to start my day off badly. The reasons for this are obvious. It has recently been a topic of some conversation, the motivations of the Republican Party.

The money quote of the piece, for me would be:

Three scary sentences from the piece: "when reference group information was available, participants gave no weight to objective policy content, and instead assumed the position of their group as their own. This effect was as strong among people who were knowledgeable about welfare as it was among people who were not. Finally, participants persisted in the belief that they had formed their attitude autonomously even in the two group information conditions where they had not."

Rational analysis, is completely secondary to identifying with your group. Let that roll over in your mind for a bit. Presented with verifiable information, party id mattered more then objective policy content.

I really don't have a good retort for this right now. Normally I like to game out strategies and such to work around these sorts of obstacles, but with the high level of polarization in the country, I am not sure what the solution is.

Mr. Klein also reminds us of a quote by one of my favorite philosophers, Bertrand Russell:

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence."

That leads me to one question. We all agree that the economy is bad, and on shaky ground. The President has proposed multiple "moderate" (read as warmed over and retreaded Republican plans from the past, from the health care reform bill, to the Stimulus) policies to help ameliorate some of the massive problems we have been through the past couple of years and that is characterized as socialist. So one has to wonder if presented with a choice of taking steps to fix the economy that yield politically positive benefits for President Obama or stymieing that effort, what would be the Republican answer for that?

Thus far, the answer is "No".

You should be very concerned. One party is concerned about governing during a severe economic recession and the other is concerned with returning to power.

The president and the democrats seem unwilling to accept that.

If the president is having a hard time understanding why his base is demoralized, he need look no farther then his decision on the federal pay freeze or the Bush Tax Cuts. An inability to make your opposition pay for their intransigence and an unwillingness to fight for your ostensible beliefs.....

Yeah I am not happy this morning.

-Cheers