Chapter two in out books discusses at large Democracy and the finer details of it. As we know democracy is the citizens elect representatives to govern the country on their behalf. I have never fully understood how a democracy was run effectively, seeing that it is in my opinion that America does not run our democracy in a positive manner. While watching the State of the Union Address I began to feel even more disillusioned about America and democracy. As some of you may have watch the president speech on national concerns and so forth. It began apparent that the house was divided strongly due to partly lines. As the camera viewed representatives through the entire speech it was clearly seen that on many issues party members were not clapping while other member stood in applause. Not only was this division troubling but the fact that most representatives that where typing away on their phones during the closing of Obama’s speech. If was as if they cared less about what Obama was speaking about. Seeing that there opinion have already been formed and there is no changing their minds.
This is significant to what I really wanted to talk about seeing I am discussing how Americans are to dumb for democracy. I recently read an article by the Boston Globe about threats to democracy. This article being about how our brains are the biggest threat to democracy due to something known as “Backfire” Backfire is known as “Natural defense mechanism to avoid cognitive dissonance.” Cognitive dissonance “is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.”
The article also on how democracy thrives on voters being blank states. A blanks state does not mean being ignorant it means being free of strong beliefs. Seeing most if not all voters have a strong form of beliefs it hinders our ability to distinguish fact from fiction. This is not to say that we do not understand some fact what we see in this article is that human base their beliefs on fact but in many cases these facts that we assume are true are misinformed information because of this out beliefs are formed about information that is misconstrued.
Joe Keohane the author of this article states “in reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs.”
Thus when we do here facts that are true we are not likely to accept it as truth seeing it goes against our beliefs. Other things such as motive reasoning also are discussed in this article. Motive reasoning is understood as when a human has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it.
This thus effects democracy because it creates a situation here beliefs interfere with the facts, thus creating a populations that is self delusion holds precedence over all else.
I attached the article below. I also attached a short video done by PBS on Threats to Democracy. Its only 3 minutes but it is a good video to help show how true this article really is. Take notice to Matt Bar a journalist as well as Congressmen Tom Feeney.
