Truth & Facts...A Challenge For Democracy

About two months ago I wrote a blog titled "Patriotism Is A Virtue". In it, I refer to what I call "Hate & Fake" emails from extremists with messages that are completely false and often degrading and insulting . You know the ones I mean. Then they ask you to forward the message on to everyone you know.

I ended the blog by saying:

"Patriotism is a virtue that can not exist on a foundation of lies, false innuendo and diatribe."

Now researchers also suggest that such lies, false innuendo and diatribe are a significant threat to democracy.

The Sunday Boston Globe's Idea section ran an article called "How Facts Backfire" by Joe Keohane. According to the article:

"Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It's this: Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. And in the presense of the correct information...instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper."

This refusal to accept or admit that you are wrong is the result of Cognitive Dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors... or by justifying or rationalizing them. Dissonance occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency in their beliefs, when one idea implies the opposite of another.

The Globe article goes on to say:

"Rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we choose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they better fit with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. In other words, it's never been easier for people to be wrong, and at the same time feel more certain they are right."

So what the article suggests is that cognitive dissonance might be experienced as guilt, anger, frustration, or even embarrassment and in an effort to avoid those uncomfortble feelings many people will simply choose to ignore the truth and go along happily believing whatever tends to reinforce their beliefs.

And therein lies the threat to democracy, because voters that choose the above path are susceptible to voting based upon ignorance and misinformation, uniquely unenlighted by facts or truth.

That would be a shame.