A few days ago, I wrote a longish post
arguing that contemporary American politics are post-rational, and further, that
post-rationality was the core of the right-wing political strategies of
the last couple decades. At the end of that post, I promised to explain
(among other things) why I thought that heuristics are both useless and the rule of the day. And here we are.
So, why is this possible, this wholesale contemporary rejection of the fundamental lessons about facts and causation, so hard-won over the last few centuries? I think it's because as a species, we've outstripped our ability to comprehend our world. Humans evolved to survive in small communities where the primary threats were physical, and almost everything that happened could be divided into two categories: simple physical problems that could be solved by heuristics (e.g. the intuitive Newtonian physics of throwing a spear) or complicated happenings that were relegated to the category of the supernatural (e.g., illness or pretty much any non-obvious causal connection). Social interactions were likewise based on heuristics, at least in part. That was modified by living in small communities, where you saw everyone over and over again, so that you could correct your misimpressions. It's hard, if you live in a small community, to outlive a reputation as a liar or a cheat, or a witch, if so accused.
Then we went through a long period in various civilizations, eventually centering on Western Europe and North America, in which science and reason gradually verified or debunked various superstitions (a fancy name for an incorrect heuristic), and encouraged people to look beyond their rules of thumb, or at least to test them against the facts. (As shorthand, we generally refer to that process as the "Enlightenment".) That insistence worked pretty well, and it created an extraordinary machine for innovation, growth, and the development of knowledge. (I will not dwell here on that machine's proven capacity for destruction -- I understand it well enough.)
So, let's fast forward a bit. That glorious Enlightenment machine has helped us develop a world so complex that the vast majority of people simply do not have the time to learn a wide enough variety of skills in sufficient depth to understand even the basics of the larger machinery that affects their lives. That's not an elitist statement, just a fact. I'm fortunate enough to be a pretty well-educated individual, and know a lot about my field of specialty, and quite a bit about a fair number of other areas, but I have a hell of a time with (among many other subjects) monetary policy, one of the most basic levers that just a few people pull, and which controls all of our lives. Think about how many years of study it takes to truly understand even one subspecialty of any of the technical fields of economics, science or engineering. Think about how likely we are to screw up communication with someone from a truly different culture from us (crusade v. jihad, anyone?).
So, what do we do when we have to make decisions about this complex world? We fall back on heuristics, shortcuts, rules of thumb, gut instinct, because we have no other tools. But tools developed for small communities with simple interpersonal and survival problems are entirely useless for selecting course of action to manage larger complex systems in which facts and causation are counterintuitive, complex, or probabilistic. There's simply too much we don't know, and too many ways in which the heuristics don't line up with the actual system. George Bush is a simple example of how badly this works. He projects the image of resolute, unswerving leadership, which resonates with a simplistic shortcut people use to determining leadership potential. It doesn't matter that the projected image is simply not true; worse, it doesn't seem to matter that it would be destructive even if it were true, because it doesn't take into account changes in circumstance or the complexities that subject matter experts (inheritors of the Enlightenment, policy wonks, liberals) have warned about time and time again. People use the shortcut anyway, because the underlying reality is complex, and the presentation resonates with something they think they already know.
So there's the rub. The heuristics that the complexity of our world drives us to use in making our decisions are entirely useless for making those decisions, precisely because they don't work reliably in complex environments. Ironically, much of that complexity is owed to the contribution of the rational, the reasoned, the Enlightenment.
Next big post will probably be about the manipulation of heuristics and abdication of responsibility by those charged with intermediating between the complex reality and the rest of us, otherwise known as "Wonk-Hating, Dirty Politics, and Talking Points".
So, why is this possible, this wholesale contemporary rejection of the fundamental lessons about facts and causation, so hard-won over the last few centuries? I think it's because as a species, we've outstripped our ability to comprehend our world. Humans evolved to survive in small communities where the primary threats were physical, and almost everything that happened could be divided into two categories: simple physical problems that could be solved by heuristics (e.g. the intuitive Newtonian physics of throwing a spear) or complicated happenings that were relegated to the category of the supernatural (e.g., illness or pretty much any non-obvious causal connection). Social interactions were likewise based on heuristics, at least in part. That was modified by living in small communities, where you saw everyone over and over again, so that you could correct your misimpressions. It's hard, if you live in a small community, to outlive a reputation as a liar or a cheat, or a witch, if so accused.
Then we went through a long period in various civilizations, eventually centering on Western Europe and North America, in which science and reason gradually verified or debunked various superstitions (a fancy name for an incorrect heuristic), and encouraged people to look beyond their rules of thumb, or at least to test them against the facts. (As shorthand, we generally refer to that process as the "Enlightenment".) That insistence worked pretty well, and it created an extraordinary machine for innovation, growth, and the development of knowledge. (I will not dwell here on that machine's proven capacity for destruction -- I understand it well enough.)
So, let's fast forward a bit. That glorious Enlightenment machine has helped us develop a world so complex that the vast majority of people simply do not have the time to learn a wide enough variety of skills in sufficient depth to understand even the basics of the larger machinery that affects their lives. That's not an elitist statement, just a fact. I'm fortunate enough to be a pretty well-educated individual, and know a lot about my field of specialty, and quite a bit about a fair number of other areas, but I have a hell of a time with (among many other subjects) monetary policy, one of the most basic levers that just a few people pull, and which controls all of our lives. Think about how many years of study it takes to truly understand even one subspecialty of any of the technical fields of economics, science or engineering. Think about how likely we are to screw up communication with someone from a truly different culture from us (crusade v. jihad, anyone?).
So, what do we do when we have to make decisions about this complex world? We fall back on heuristics, shortcuts, rules of thumb, gut instinct, because we have no other tools. But tools developed for small communities with simple interpersonal and survival problems are entirely useless for selecting course of action to manage larger complex systems in which facts and causation are counterintuitive, complex, or probabilistic. There's simply too much we don't know, and too many ways in which the heuristics don't line up with the actual system. George Bush is a simple example of how badly this works. He projects the image of resolute, unswerving leadership, which resonates with a simplistic shortcut people use to determining leadership potential. It doesn't matter that the projected image is simply not true; worse, it doesn't seem to matter that it would be destructive even if it were true, because it doesn't take into account changes in circumstance or the complexities that subject matter experts (inheritors of the Enlightenment, policy wonks, liberals) have warned about time and time again. People use the shortcut anyway, because the underlying reality is complex, and the presentation resonates with something they think they already know.
So there's the rub. The heuristics that the complexity of our world drives us to use in making our decisions are entirely useless for making those decisions, precisely because they don't work reliably in complex environments. Ironically, much of that complexity is owed to the contribution of the rational, the reasoned, the Enlightenment.
Next big post will probably be about the manipulation of heuristics and abdication of responsibility by those charged with intermediating between the complex reality and the rest of us, otherwise known as "Wonk-Hating, Dirty Politics, and Talking Points".
Comments