How Selective Biases Apply to Political People

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to any of my frequent readers (Hi! The five of you doing alright? Freshen your coffee or anything? No? Okay, I’ll get back to it, then, talk amongst yourselves!) that I am a flaming liberal. Lower case “L” liberal. So far to the left of center that things start getting more a little wacky. I mean, no, really, get me talking about politics and my eyes start spinning in counter rotation, rainbow colored smoke starts pouring out of my ears, and I start spitting fire out of my mouth. I’m more than a little out of the mainstream of political discourse, is what I’m trying to say. But, well, separating this author from this text (I like to call it a “blog”) is a bit tricky so it’s bound to crop up every now and then. Especially when I talk politics. I’m sorry, I’ll try and keep the spittle on my side of the screen.

And I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that it was the only recently completed federal elections in the United States that have, in part, bolstered my confidence. To the point where I’ve started this blog, and posts my thoughts here and elsewhere again, I’ve become engaged again because the world just seems a little brighter. A little warmer. A little more sane. Because, let me tell you, when you think the progressive wing of the Democratic Party doesn’t go anywhere near far enough then, yeah, the past six years (Or twelve, really, if you want to count from the start of the Republican “rebellion”) have been just a touch insane. Now at this point I could launch into a rant about just what’s happened to this country or what I’d do to fix it or why aren’t other people listening to me, but, well, that’s just not me, I guess. Not right now, anyway. Because while I’d like to think our elections were a watershed moment, the moment when the great ship of state grinds slowly along its axis and turns away from the rocky shores ahead, I’m just not sure. Could just be the enthusiasm talking – and it’s not wanning at the moment, no, if anything it’s only growing stronger, better, faster as my voice finds me again – and I really can’t say for sure. I’ve been huddled in the corner cowering under my blanket, so to speak, wishing for the scary bad nightmares to go away for so long that even the merest hint of light feels like the dawn of a whole new era. It’s morning in America, again, for me at least. And I’ve rubbed my eyes open to greet the dawn (And I know, for a fact, that I’m not the only one.).

I don’t want to get too carried away with things, though, not because I’m certain they’ll turn out wrong but because I’m not sure if I’m right. It’s all down to a little thing statisticians and poll takers call selective biases. There’s a list of them as long as my arm and what they all do is warn those people trying to sample mood and opinion about getting too trusting of the numbers. What the people being asked think about things can slant – bias – those figures and lead to a wrong conclusion (What happens when the people asking the questions think strangely about things is a whole separate issue. One I’d like to call “incompetence”). That’s what statisticians do, after all, take a small group of people and jump to assumptions about a much larger group. But if that small groups assumptions aren’t taken into account, well, then they can waste a lot of time tracking down ghosts in the machine, so to speak.

And, well, I know I’m from a very liberal family in a very liberal area in a very liberal state – on average. My friends and I don’t talk politics much because we all get uncomfortable when our views don’t exactly match up so I really can’t say where their politics lie – I’m shocked when people I consider to be reasonable and rational can disagree with me about things as simple as, you know, war being a bad thing. But, see, that’s just what I’m talking about. My background, my history, my experience leads me to believe that my own particular brand of “liberal” isn’t all that odd or special. It’s the default. It might not be what everyone believes but it’s not that far out of the mainstream as to be unusual, either. That’s one of my favorite selective biases, statisticians call it the projective bias. Because what I’m doing when I think that because I’m liberal then all good and right thinking people should be the same (or at least able to be talked into it). I’m projecting my own ideas onto other people and taking it for granted they agree with me.

I am, hopefully, sane and rational and thoughtful and I expect other people to be the same. To make their decisions and choices from a deliberate process. I like to call that being “sane”. And I, of course, do the same. I don’t do most of the things I do or make the choices I make or act the way I act just because. No, I have reasons. And, if other people could understand those reasons, well, they’d agree with me. The only people who can’t I’d like to call “insane” – people who just won’t listen to reason and act like I don’t want them to. I mean, I’m not saying everyone has to be exactly like me, far from it, just that things are better – for everyone if not any one person - when we’re all getting along. So, when people disrespectfully disagree with me, on a certain level, I think either they’re insane. Or I am. And that last one’s an uncomfortable feeling. Especially when it’s not just one person but a lot of people. Like, say, the entire conservative movement. Because I’m pretty sure that if I could just sit them down and talk to them I could explain things and we’d all be happy and everyone would get a pony to ride around town on, I’m sure. But I’m almost as sure that they couldn’t care less what I have to say. Which is, I think, unfortunate but it’s also uncomfortably like what I think about crazy people. I’m happy to help them and pat them on the head and lead them to their padded rooms and all, but after a certain point I’m a bit sick of listening to their drivel. You know, when they break down and get all insane on me. Crazy fuckers.

The crazy don’t think they’re insane, though, no. Take it from me I’ve had…oh, let’s say some experience in the area, they think they’re perfectly sane and rational. And it’s everyone else that’s wrong somehow. So, being, you know, sane myself after enough repetition of the message that I’m somehow wrong, I can’t help but think, on some level, that, yeah, I’m a little bit insane verging on being completely crazy. I know I’ve certainly felt like that watching the world the past few years. As the message that I’m wrong, in some way, has been repeated. On the news. In speeches. In newspapers. During elections.

Oh, now, it’s not aimed solely at me, no, but I’d like to think it’s been pretty apparent to anyone that considers themselves, you know, liberal (I know, I know, some of us think that’s a dirty word. Don’t worry, I’m almost done.). Outside of that small group I try to surround myself with – my friends and family – the world’s been a pretty harsh place for someone with my views. Crazy as they are. I mean, all the politicians and columns and shows keep telling me that, don’t they? And every time I step back inside my circle and think that, yeah, things are going to change, well, they don’t. It’s that old projective bias again. Telling me that I’m normal when I’m not in the mainstream at all. My circle’s pretty small, after all, and the world’s a big place. I can’t help but listen to it when it speaks to me.

So exposed to the constant drumbeat echoing across the lands for the past, oh, six years or so that liberals loses elections, that liberals have no ideas, that liberals blame America, that they, that we, that I support terrorists and betray any and everything that this great country stands for and how dare I even try to have my say in things because I am soft and weak. Nothing but a sheep. Nothing at all. Nothing. Well, it kind of gets to one after a while. I’ve done some thinking, as is my wont, now that my eyes are open and I think I’ve finally figured out just how to call bullshit on just about all of that, it’s just going to take me some time, I’m guessing, and I’m going to do it in my own special way.

But, well, the other day for whatever rhyme or reason I stumbled across someone who’d already figured that out, over at Number 9. You see, I’ve been listening to the wrong sort of people, I think, and putting emphasis where I shouldn’t. If I hadn’t, of course, I wouldn’t be where I am right now – which, truth be told, I’m starting to like - but, then, I might have had a much easier couple of years. You see, I’ve been cowering in the dark. But, as the saying goes “better to light a candle than curse the darkness”. It’s people like Mr. Benari – and, no, he’s not the only one – who’ve been keeping those slim fires of hope burning. The best way, I think, with a little fun and games. But someone who just stayed in that particular circle, only listening to and only reading those sites and watching those shows and listening to those radios that were telling everyone that things were okay by mocking those in power would risk their own loss of perspective, wouldn’t they? Trapped in an echo chamber of their own making, limiting their experiences to just those things they liked, they’d have been pulling the blanket over their heads just as much as I had. To them the world would have been full of people who were making fun, making light, and motivating themselves to carry themselves to the ballot box, so to speak, and correct things. I’m going out on a limb here and going to say, fortunately, they were right.

But, trust me, as someone who’s done a little looking into the sausage factory we call electoral politics and climbed behind the numbers and tried to peer outside, there were almost as many people who felt another way. The margin between the Democratic Party taking control of the Congress and the Republican Party holding onto it was a lot smaller than it looks, in retrospect. Razor thin. And the blade of history could well have cut another way. And that good feeling I’ve had for, well, weeks would never have been. Because instead of being in the majority with all the sane people, I would have been on the outside with all the crazies wondering just what I wasn’t seeing again.