By Keith Payne
There was a fair bit of overlap here with some of my other recent reading: Determined and Hope for Cynics in particular. The primary message is that people shape their views around group identities. Most people don’t have coherent ideologies that show consistently liberal or conservative views. It is a more accurate view to see people as determining their stance on issues based on their party affiliation than determining their party affiliation based on the issues.
- When the author connects the correlation of chalk in the earth to suitability for cotton crops, to increased utilization of slavery to modern beliefs about race, I immediately think back to Determined. So much worldview determined by happenstance of birth location.
- The title is fitting as the book emphasizes the notion that everyone sees themselves and their group as “good, reasonable people” and will adjust their thinking to be consistent with this. The “psychological immune system” will not permit groups to see themselves as other than “good, reasonable people” so their justifications for how the world works start with that foundation and build from there.
- Although the book offers an empathetic explanation of why conservatives reach different conclusions than liberals, it still clearly picks a side: Uneducated conservatives don’t want to be blamed for racism. As someone who grew up away from cotton, I find that I agree with the author, but I doubt that this book would be well received on the other side. In that regard, I don’t think it helps to address the divide as I hoped it would. I felt the same way when I read The Persuaders. I was hoping for something that would help bring the two sides together and understand that we’re all aiming to be “good reasonable people” but both books make progressives out to be “better, more reasonable people” even if they don’t say it that way.
- Near the end, the author touches on the same findings shared in Hope for Cynics that the perception of our divide is wider than our actual disagreement.
- Universities lean liberal, but they don’t make liberals. 4th year students didn’t show noticeably different political views than they did as freshman. Liberals are more likely to send their kids to college and liberals are more likely to choose a life in academia.