Something I have been trying to keep in mind lately is that our internal beliefs are not as consistent as we might imagine. This is important right now because our recent presidential election has highlighted the divide between many Americans. In most of the circles I am a part of, people cannot imagine how anyone could vote for Donald Trump. Since they see President Trump as contemptible, it is hard for them to separate his negative qualities from the people who may vote for him. All negative aspects of Trump and of the ideas that people see him as representing are heaped onto his voters. The problem however, is that none of us have as much internal consistency between our thoughts, ideas, opinions, and beliefs for any of us to justify characterizing as much as half the country as bigoted, uncaring, selfish, or really any other adjective (except maybe self-interested).
I have written a lot recently about the narratives we tell ourselves. It is problematic that the more simplistic a narrative, the more believable and accurate it feels to us. The world is incredibly complicated, and a simplistic story that seems to make sense of it all is almost certainly wrong. Given this, it is worth looking at our ideas and views and trying to identify areas where we have inconsistencies in our thoughts. This helps us tease apart our narratives and recognize where simplistic thinking is leading us to unfound conclusions.
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman shows us how this inconsistency between our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors can arise, using moral ambiguity as an example. He writes, “the beliefs that you endorse when you reflect about morality do not necessarily govern your emotional reactions, and the moral intuitions that come to your mind in different situations are not internally consistent.”
It is easy to adopt a moral position against some immoral behavior or attitude, but when we find ourselves in a situation where we are violating that moral position, we find ways to explain our internal inconsistency without directly violating our initial moral stance. We rationalize why our moral beliefs don’t apply to us in a given situation, and we create a story in our minds where there is no inconsistency at all.
Once we know that we do this with our own beliefs toward moral behavior, we should recognize that we do this with every area of life. It is completely possible for us to think entirely contradictory things, but to explain away those contradictions in ways that make sense to us, even if it leaves us with incoherent beliefs. And if we do this ourselves, then we should recognize that other people do this as well. So when we see people voting for a candidate and can’t imagine how they could vote for such a candidate, we should assume that they are making internally inconsistent justifications for voting for that candidate. They are creating a narrative in their head where they are making the best possible decision. They may have truly detestable thoughts and opinions, but we should remember that in their minds they are justified and making rational choices.
Rather than simply hating people and heaping every negative quality we can onto them. We should pause and ask what factors might be leading them to justify contemptible behavior. We should look for internal inconsistencies and try to help people recognize these areas and move forward more comprehensively. We should see in the negativity in others something we have the same capacity for, and we should try to find more constructive ways to engage with them and help them shift the narrative that justifies their inconsistent thinking.
Novel Learning 