F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.". He was talking about ideas that rationally cannot be true at the same time. But increasingly it takes a first-rate intelligence to hold ideas from two politically opposed sides. Take for example the following two ideas: "Hamas is a terrorist organization that with a brutal series of attacks recently started a major conflict against Israel" and "Large-scale air strikes on civilians in Gaza is a disproportionate way to fight a terrorist organization". Rationally, both of these ideas can be true at the same time. But these days everything is so polarized, and identity politics have such a strong need to classify people into labeled groups, that it is incomprehensible to many people that somebody could believe both of these things. Clearly you are either anti-palestinian or antisemite. A 75-year old conflict must be a simple black-and-white affair, where you only need to choose a side to be done with it, as anything else would be far too complicated.

49% of Americans in a poll this year said they were neither Republican nor Democrat, but Independent. Political polarization means that you are either very extreme, or not aligned with any party. If only a quarter of Americans on each side are staunch supporters of their party, it seems rather obvious that the winning party will be the one that persuaded to most independents to vote for them. Which would require that winning party to make some concessions from their extreme positions and propose solutions that would be acceptable to moderates and centrists. There are very few signs of any of that. Moderates of both sides have been hounded and chased out of politics by their own parties. Any compromise is seen as treason, which will get you fired.

The sad reality is that real life is a lot more complicated and has shades of gray. Extreme solutions to any problem are bad solutions most of the time. We do not want every war to end with genocide and the complete eradication of one side. We do not want every election to end with an insurrection by the losing side. We need first-rate intelligence people that believe in the credos of their side, but are able to admit that sometimes the other side has justified grievances that need to be addressed. The alternative is political violence and civil war. 

- posted by Tobold @ 2:38 PM Permanent Link