APORIA AND THE LIBERAL MIND
I first learned about “aporia” in my ‘Hermeneutics and Deconstruction’ class. It is a Greek terminology denoting an impasse or a state of doubt, but it was resurrected by the late Jacques Derrida and left an impression on me since it came up at a time when Democratic candidate John Kerry was running against George Bush in 2004. Many people praised Bush for his decisiveness and John Kerry’s critics used this to their advantage by dubbing Kerry the wishy-washy candidate.
In the context of what I was learning about aporia in my philosophy class, as well as my other critical thinking and logic classes, I was perplexed how having skepticism about such a complex issue as declaring war was seen as a weakness. Even the scientific method praised the search for disconfirming evidence.
The reason I find aporia to be so important is that I believe it to be a staple of a thoughtful mind. The youtube clip below illustrates my point:
“In Plato’s Meno (84), Socrates describes the purgative effect of reducing someone to aporia: it shows someone who merely thought he knew something that he does not in fact know it and instills in him a desire to investigate it.”
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia
This is not to say that Bill O’Reilly will go and investigate this matter further; the aporia is exhibited only by Dave Letterman of the two debaters. This brings me to my next point.
The reason that doubting oneself is important, as I mentioned earlier, is that it is a crucial part of the critical thinking process. If you are open minded to the possibility of contrary evidence to your present schemas, then you will thoroughly examine this evidence and give it the weight it deserves. This further allows a person to actually modify their set beliefs in order to accept the incoming contrary evidence. Jean Piaget called this accommodation, which combined with assimilation to form the adaptation process (in other words – learning).
However, it sure seems some people are better at this than others. I consider the political equivalent of this to be liberalism. The word has become somewhat perverted in our time due to constant political propaganda of equating this viewpoint with big government, loose morals, and the recent weakness of the Democratic party. It is no such thing.
Interestingly enough, Nature Neuroscience just came out with an article which correlates liberalism and conservatism with neuronal activity in the brain. An area called the anterior cingulate shows differences in liberals vs conservatives.
“Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.”
source: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn1979.html
In other words, liberals are better at the accommodation part of learning than conservatives. When faced with evidence that is contrary to their established beliefs they are more likely, due to genetic differences, to modify their representations of reality in order to accept the new data.
It is no wonder why conservatives, more than liberals, represent the religious viewpoint. It seems to me that religion relies on adherence to dogma, sometimes contrary to new information which disproves the very principles on which these beliefs are based. It is also no wonder that liberals are known for their social perspective of egalitarianism (gay, minority, and women’s rights movements) despite a history which is dominated by suppression of these ideas.
I should add that I am not trying to disparage the conservative political viewpoint. I have made it known in my previous posts that I ardently support Ron Paul for presidency, who considers himself a libertarian conservative. I understand people’s qualms with abortion (although I do not agree with them pushing this opinion to be expressed in legislation); I also think some other conservative perspectives, like on immigration and welfare, warrant consideration.
I am simply denouncing “the conservative mind”, which does not allow itself to adapt.
Tags: aporia, conservatism, derrida, liberalism, neuroscience
September 24th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I found this article very interesting from a philosophical perspective. It was a very good read and made me think. Although I respectively disagree with portions of it.
It seemed to rely on inference on inference to reach a general conclusion. There are presumptions that I would like to address:
One would have to assume that fundamentals have sunsets and have no place as civilizations advance.
One would have to presume that if your ideology changed from liberal vis a vis conservative, it would have to be due to a rearrangement of the wiring in your head.
One would have to assume that your brain rewires itself as you age.
One would have to assume that a change of profession could cause your brain to rewire.
I do believe in the thought processes of liberals and conservative are separated by a vast gulf. As to the function of the brain, I don’t agree although it did make me think about the chicken and the egg. If you have a certain ideological bend, does that cause certain parts of your brain to light up as opposed to your proposal of it starting in the brain?
When there is a quick conversion from liberalism to conservatism, or vice versa, it would require rewiring of the brain to do this. Maybe a trauma with head injury? No. Generally speaking populations grow more conservative as they age. Is this a function of the brain rewiring? No. Just a more mature and experienced view of the world. Being a working class individual yet overcoming that life and starting a business that becomes a huge success can cause your brain to rewire? No ( as you reach the upper tax brackets as an individual and as an enterprise and pay those levels of taxes your view usually changes to conservative if it was liberal.)
You would have to presume that all adaption is positive progression. It is not. To state that a conservative mind does not allow itself to adapt is intellectually dishonest. The difference is, as you stated, the “…liberal mind is better a accepting all information coming in and accommodating it.” This would be the cause and the effect would be liberals being labeled as morally loose, big government, weakness, etc. I believe a conservative mind is much more discerning and does not accept or utilize all new information as opposed to a liberal’s accepting and accommodating mind. Conservatives do adjust and accept, just not on the wholesale level that liberals do.
Progressiveness is not always a good thing. There are progressive movements in the conservative arena and progressive movements in the liberal arena. The issues are the results from the movement and the content of the movement and its applied progressiveness.
To state that conservatives are more likely to accept religious dogma would be considered a misleading statement by the many millions of church goers that consider themselves liberals, but not the liberalism we are exposed to in the main stream media. This is an area where, not being progressive is a positive fundamental experience. There is nothing positive about eroding or redefining every fundamental principle available in the name of progressiveness. Yet some fundamentals do benefit from change and staying actively progressive (medicine, pharmacology, etc.)
Religion relies on adherence to dogma, sometimes contrary to new information which disproves the very principles on which these beliefs are bases. I am not sure “what new information” has arose that would disprove these principles. There are so many religions available today; I am not sure which one in particle you are referring to. Not be contrary on this point, you legitimately have my interest.
I will address the abortion issue from a personal perspective. I believe Roe v Wade should be overturned at the Supreme Court. Some people want it overturned, but for other reason than mine. It will never be overturned for their reasons, and would be a travesty if it was. My reason is it is not a federal and it is sure not a constitutional issue. It is a states issue. To have it overturned at the Supreme Court level on purely moral grounds is perverse at best.
You stated Immigration and I assume you meant illegal immigration since there is no controversy with legal immigration at the moment. The conservative mindset is a pretty straight forward issue concerning this subject. Conservatives tend to have more respect for the rule of law and the consequences if not adhered to-especially in a democracy than liberals. There is also the reality of economics in relation to illegal immigration. Yet there are numerous caveats to this debate also: this statement is referencing individual conservatives and not corporations. Almost anyone who benefits from cheap labor, whether liberal or conservative, is going to want to keep the status quo on immigration.
I hope this wasn’t too long, but you do offer up thought provoking ideas.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Oh where do I begin! I don’t promise that I will be able to address all of these points in one reply, but perhaps over time in my posts…
For now…yes certain fundamentals had sunsets (such as the world being flat) and the sun set because there was new data. Some fundamentals did not fall prey to new data and therefore reign supreme. A conservative mind just has a harder time accepting this new data and is surely the skeptic. Not to say that being discerning with new data is not healthy, but to simply ignore it because it challenges the status quo is dangerous. A liberal mind is more likely to give this new data a fair chance.
As for religion, the example I was thinking of when I wrote the post was the process of growing up and questioning the ideas that were passed down to you through your parents and society. Many of us grew up with parents that supported certain causes and societies which were predominantly one religion or another. There comes a time when we reach an age that we can actually reason for ourselves. The new data is what we learn everyday and it should, in my opinion, make us question religion the same way we question Santa Clause. I was about to write a disclaimer for that last sentence but then gave up on it. I might get attacked for it, who knows.
Your view on abortion is similar to that of Ron Paul in terms of overturning Roe vs Wade. I udnerstand the logic behind that and am very big on small government. However, I have not come to terms with the consequences that returning this power to the states may bring. Roe vs Wade has done a lot of good for our society (the book “Freakonomics” explains this really well) and my general belief is that states should not have the power to control what a woman does with her body any more than the Federal government should.
Need to know more about the whole illegal immigration issue before going too much into it, but I would probably take a pragmatic approach to this and go with what is best for the economy.
Always love hearing your thoughts.
Thank you for your thoughtful input, Jim.
March 8th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
[...] example, as written in a previous post (Aporia and the Liberal Mind), research has shown that liberals tend to be better than conservatives at accepting new [...]