A book to read before you vote this November
Years ago, one of my favorite quotations was from “The Book of Merlin,” by TH White. (Google now has the entire book online here.) I’m lazy, so this is abridged from a large paragraph:
We find that at present the human race is divided poltically into one wise man, nine knaves and ninety fools out of every hundred. . . the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare.
Which brings me to another book. I’m not sure where I found the link, but I’ve been reading a book called ‘The Authoritarians‘ by academic Bob Altemeyer. It’s a free download in PDF format and represents an entire careers’ worth of research on authoritarians. Outlook, motivation, transmission of ideas, and a great deal more. He does a nice job of balancing opinion with solid data and surveys, so no matter your leanings its a fascinating and worthwhile read.
For example, I’ve been puzzled why candidate A keeps repeating statements provably false. Altemayer’s work explains that the target subgroup wants to believe and has no problems accepting conflicting statements from authority. So, basically, the Big Lie works due to mental shortcomings of the target audience.
Read it. Along with, perhaps, Cialdini’s “Persuasion.” Then join me in fearing for the future of our country.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
This week on on the media (http://www.onthemedia.org/) they talk with a guy who also does research about the whole
people who are already predisposed to believing something will often believe it even more when presented with evidence that it is false
..thing.