The Kool-Aid Story

This post kicks off the kool aid konfidential. And like many first posts it requires an explanation.

It was the spring of '08 that I started thinking about kool aid.

I was at an Obama fundraiser doing what I sometimes do - defending views that were not immediately popular. In this case, I was explaining to two Obama supporters why I thought John McCain would make a fine president.

To be clear, I was then planning - as I eventually did - to vote for Barack Obama, but unlike most of my Democrat friends (i.e. most of my friends) I thought McCain was a man of intelligence and integrity who, in spite of his temper and a few policy positions I disagreed with, would probably end up working with a Democratic Congress and help to steer our country generally in the right direction.

As I explained my views, the couple I was speaking to listened with an attitude somewhere between pity and fear. The woman, a smart, intellectually rigorous political science professor at a good university, was particularly disbelieving and concerned. "Haven't you seen the MoveOn email with the 10 reasons John McCain would be a dangerous president?" she asked. I had seen it and explained why I thought some of its points were misleading and inaccurate. She winced and counseled me that I "really needed to do more research".

It was awkward but we managed to be pleasant enough to exchange cards as I left the Yes We Can brunch. Later that day I came across an article by Fareed Zakaria (whose views I respect) on why he thought John McCain would be a dangerous president, and I took the opportunity to smooth over the day's earlier tension. I emailed the article to the professor saying, with Zakaria's analysis, I was no longer so certain McCain would be a sound president.

She was thrilled, responding that she was happy I had seen the light and wished that I would tell others "who had drunk the John McCain Kool-Aid" so that they would be similarly enlightened.

After a few phone calls to friends who endured my sputtering, ego-bruised rants against this woman, I was able to calm down enough to wonder at the Kool-Aid phenomena - and start to think about its wider implications for the democratic process.

It's a phenomena you're probably already familiar with; people who believe something strongly tend to think that those who disagree with them are either a) under-informed, i.e. ignorant or b) mis-informed, i.e. brain-washed or drinkers of kool-aid. (There are also those who think contrarians are evil, bigoted, selfish, weak-minded or otherwise just bad, but that's another post.)

What's, of course, interesting about the Kool Aid phenomenon is that everyone on side A of an issue thinks exactly the same thing as those on side B of the same issue - that is, that their opponents are being fed misinformation and aren't even aware that they might be being duped. At the same time each side is confident that they are receiving the correct, un-spun, information.

Now, it could be that one side is right and the others are, in fact, true dup-ees. My guess is that they're both staring at the same mirror. My professor is the perfect case in point: clearly smart, clearly "informed" - yet it never occurred to her that MoveOn, a liberal political organization bent on getting more Democrats in power, might spin or blur information to forward their ends.

She's not the only one who thinks she knows the truth and that everyone who disagrees with her has "drunk the kool aid." We all do - to varying degrees.

That begged the question for me: "Is there something about our human nature that makes us over-confident of our own understanding of the world - and too easily dismissive of those who disagree with? Might this be a problem for democracy, which depends upon an open discussion of views and beliefs?"

Then I got to the bigger question: We all want to live in a democracy and have ideals about how democracy should work, but maybe human nature isn't suited to those ideals. Put another way: maybe humans aren't cracked up for democracy after all.

Of course, humans are somewhat democratic by nature; after all, we invented it. But what I'm curious about - and what this blog will attempt to flesh out - is how much our human-ness gets in the way of the aspirations we have for ourselves as citizens.

There are many aspirations to look at - engagement in the democratic process, being well-informed, open-dialogue, bipartisanship, holding leaders accountable, being forward-thinking and solution-oriented, to name a few. This blog will bounce around each - and others as they come to mind - at the same time as looking at what social scientists - anthropologists, political psychologists, behavioral biologists, etc. - have to say about our human limitations in those areas.

I doubt at the end we'll discover if humans are or aren't cut out for democracy; my guess is we'll fall somewhere in between. What might happen, however, is that we uncover ways in which we, as citizens, trip ourselves up. As with all self-discovery, that could lead to us being better citizen-selves. Not a waste of time.