Red Herrings

I’m writing this column on July 30, two days before the deadline on the debt ceiling.  But I’m not focusing so much on the issue, as I am on how the issue is being used.       

A red herring is something used in order to divert attention or mislead.  Michael Scherer, of Time Magazine, recently wrote a column pointing out four red herrings being used to divert our attention and mislead us.  The following are quotes from that column:

“President Obama doesn’t have a plan.”  The fact:  “The President has presented House Republican leaders dozens of different plans behind closed doors in the hopes of crafting a compromise.”

“Republicans reject the idea of compromise.” The fact:  “The plan that Speaker John Boehner put forward this week, for instance, is dramatically more centrist than the plan Republicans passed last week, representing significant compromises.”

“Not raising the debt ceiling is no big deal.”  The fact:  “interest rates would likely go up, putting added pressure on the weak economy, with damaging effects, not just in the U.S. but around the world.”

“This debate is about getting Americans back to work.”  The fact: “if the debt ceiling is not raised, job growth is almost certain to slow, if not reverse.”

These ideological red herrings are being used to divide and manipulate us.  And we’re lapping them up like ice cream on a hot day.  As you can imagine, I get lots of emails.  Most of them are reasonable.  But the one’s that aren’t always contain some form of ideological red herring.  Here’s the interesting part:  When I offer counter points based on facts that I research, several things happen.  The first is a repudiation of my sources.  If I respond to that repudiation with more facts from other sources, I am then repudiated for my political leanings.  If I defend my political leanings, the ad hominem attacks begin in earnest.  Finally, they insist that I take their names off my email list.

This whole process is predictable and explained very well in a new book by Michael Shermer titled, The Believing Brain.  In it, he explains how our brains are wired to believe and then find explanations to defend our beliefs.  Robert Heinlein, the famous science fiction author, said it this way:  “man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”

So are we lost?  Can we never change our minds once we believe something?  The good news, is that we can.  The bad news is that very few people want to.  Bertrand Russell said, “Most men would rather die than think.  Most of them do.”  He reminded me of an old saying: “Some sixty-year olds, live sixty years.  Most live the same year, sixty times.  So how do we know which one we are?  The first clue is the absence of doubts.  When you are absolutely dead-sure of your opinions, you are the most vulnerable to ideological red herrings.  As I’ve written here before, we select the facts that support what we already believe.  But so do the people who have completely contradictory beliefs supported by totally different facts.

You see, the political system is filled with professional people who know how we think and how we will respond.  They pander to our pre-existing beliefs.  They protect us from doubts by constantly repeating well-designed sound bites.  Haven’t you noticed that very few people, while having political discussions, ever say, “this is what I think, but I’m not sure of it?”        

That’s not an accident.  It’s the result of carefully planned and expertly carried out assaults on the minds of the voting public.  The weapons used in these assaults are ideological red herrings.  I know it’s difficult to question our heart-felt beliefs when we receive confirmation by our party’s ideological red herrings.  But for the sake of this country we had better start doing it.

Robert DeFilippis