poor georgie’s almanack10.30.2016 … feel free to share
HOW SCIENCE HELPS EXPLAIN YOUR VOTE
by George Kroloff
Science can explain why a Trump supporter has a different version of reality than a Clinton supporter.
That’s because there is no single reality.
Reality is now, but it lasts for less than an instant. Then it is a memory. The past is gone. The future is not here yet.
Each of us processes information that goes into our memory bank differently. But, there is one constant that comes to my mind and it is from, of all things, Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity.
Einstein said … to make sense of any thing it can only be described by how that thing is relative to something else. In politics, that helps explain different points of view.
Your eyes see any object or activity differently than I do, even if we are next to each other. You see it through a lens that is at a different angle than mine. Your lens might be panoramic, mine might be tightly focused.
Meanwhile, you and I may hear the same things during a political debate or a radio advertisement, but we process them differently. That’s because whatever enters our brains through our eyes and ears passes through a screen of past memories and beliefs. That is our intellectual baggage, which comes from what we assume we have seen, heard, read, and felt.
Much of the politics and ideologies we process, feeds into a collective consciousness, which is the set of shared ideas and attitudes that are a unifying force within society. It is, in large part, influenced by our tribes. I process Republicans and Democrats as two ancient tribes and Independents are like a leaderless, disorganized, chaotic wandering lost tribe.
One of the most accepted theories in Science is the Chaos Theory. It says that even when everything around us appears to be in chaos, our pocket of turmoil actually is a small section of a bigger pattern. It is a pattern that only makes sense when seen from afar. Just like an isolated windstorm or a rain shower is part of a massive weather pattern.
In the big picture, chaotic issues that seem to be isolated in the US, such as the heightened fear of “the others,” also are thriving around the world. Fear still drives old bug-a-boos like anti-Semitism and anti-immigration, rich vs. poor, and one color vs. another.
Weirdly enough, we also are affected by brain-like decisions made by things we do not think of as brains. Mammals, fish and birds react to those they feel close to. They especially react to their fears.
One evidence of that is how humans swarm, just like fish and birds swarm. Media swarm, or circle, around the surrogates for presidential candidates after a debate in the “spin room.”
Species often swarm to protect the strong in the middle and to sacrifice the weak on the fringe. Think of a school of mackerel, with no apparent leader, forming an almost solid mass when one fish spies a shark and gets agitated. Or think of a political platform that protects one section of society against another.
The internet is a perfect example of a leaderless, but brain-like thing, that motivates humans to react collectively. Remember the huge Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funds for ALS research? There was no leader, it just happened.
So, Science can give us insight into why we think like we think, or do what we do. But it still can’t sort out all our biases based on what we each think we have experienced … our individual realities.
That’s one reason why your well reasoned argument, backed up by what you believe to be the facts, is less likely to change the mind of someone’s equally well reasoned argument, backed up with a different version of the same facts.
Thus, if you thought a candidate was not trustworthy or just made you uncomfortable you probably are reflecting the fears and reactions of those you trust.
You are like the the middle bird in a flock of starlings swirling through the air.
Yep, Science says “birds of a feather do flock together.”
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George Kroloff was head of public relations for The Washington Post during the Pentagon Papers through Watergate period, held senior staff positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in the office of the Postmaster General and later became counselor to science, business, nonprofit and government organizations. Some of his work is in the Newseum and Smithsonian collections.
