Wrangling Our Political Herds: Upholding Intellectual Standards, No Matter Who Gets Angry

“It may sound naïve in a time of intense political polarization, but in It’s Debatable I make a case for more humility and a bit of hubris. We need to be willing to argue with passion for our political positions but at the same time remember our limitations.”

Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics, published by Olive Branch Press.

Thinking is a collective endeavor, and we all can contribute to public dialogue and debate. But a bit of critical self-reflection can make our contributions more constructive.

In my five decades in and around journalism, academia, and politics, I have never met anyone who thinks alone. Throughout history there have been trailblazers, people who have pushed beyond existing thinking to generate new ideas. But people who believe they are truly independent thinkers—if they indulge the illusion of having risen above the collective thinking process—are failing to practice the critical self-reflection that is supposed to be a core attribute of independent thinkers.

We are a herd animal, and we often unthinkingly think as a herd. The fancy term for this is “identity-protective cognition,” the tendency to resolve disputed facts in a manner supportive of our group identities. We are motivated to adopt those beliefs to signal that we belong.

Here is another fancy term: “cultural cognition of risk,” our tendency to form beliefs about dangers to society that are consistent with our value judgments about what constitutes an ideal society. We are motivated to assess the facts about potentially dangerous behaviors in ways that support policies we already endorse.