[lbo-talk] Query on popular badasses

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Oct 19 08:14:14 PDT 2004


Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
> I don't know why the causal path from political views to cognitive
> styles is so implausible. People who are socialized into certain
> political beliefs will gravitate to cognitive styles that allow
> them to justify and strengthen their political beliefs. That
> said, I agree that cognitive style could also push people
> towards different political perspectives.

But if you grant that (giving causal power to something called "cognitive style"), then there arises an even more difficult explanatory problem: Where do cognitive styles come from? Further more, to defend the proposition that "Cog.S. Q generates P.View X," it would be necessary to show that only an insignificant number of those with Q are Not-X in their political choices.

Personally, I prefer the agnosticism of your next statement --
>
> It's a tangled, convoluted web of causal relations here.
> (Don't you love psychology?)

But if one accepts that, the _social_ conclusions which flow from it is that "psychology" tells us nothing useful about political action! After the fact we _might_, in the case of a given individual, establish that in her case, Q led to X. Of what worth would that be except to her mother or her therapist?

There seems to me to be an incredible arrogance involved in claims that propositions about individual psychology can ground political action. But of course, most of those who make claims for psychological explanation of large political facts are themselves politically passive: they don't have to make political choices but only arrive at self-satisfying conclusions about all those other people out there.

And of course there is a tremendous difference in the way a given individual would act (a) if sitting alone in her living room, watching TV (b) in a mob (collection of individuals following a visible leader) and (c) in town meeting debating the selection and implementation of a given policy. One can add innumberable other contexts, and it seems to me grossly misleading to believe that a person's attitude in (a) necessarily or even probably predicts her conduct in (b) or (c) [or d or e or f or g or h].

Carrol

P.S. "Political passivity": Confining one's political action to voting.



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