One of my facebook friends posted an opinion piece which contends that, despite yet another mass shooting, nothing will change in our political landscape despite the fact that the majority of our citizens support increased control over access to guns. The opinion piece lamented the failure of reason to impact this debate. Here's the news - emotion trumps reason almost every time.
Whenever we feel passionate about something, we employ all kinds of mechanisms to ensure that our passionate feeling is validated. Confirmation bias? Heck yes, I'll have some of that! Selective interpretation of data? Bring it on! I suspect these tendencies have been hard-wired into us, though I don't know why. I see it on both "sides" of the evolution/creation debate, it's evident in the 2nd amendment and 1st amendment debates, and it's obvious in gay rights debates.
The question is, does this matter? Naturally, I think it does, because the two "sides" in most of these debates are not equal. For example, in the "debate" about gay rights, those who oppose gay rights often bring passages from the Bible into the debate, and then intone "love the sinner, hate the sin". But it seems to lead to "hate the sinner, hate the sin." Gays have been paying for their sexual orientation with their lives for much of "civilized" human history. Just today, there's a story about two men being arrested in New York for beating two other men because those two were perceived to be gay. Despite abundant evidence that sexual orientation is no more a "choice" than being black, those who oppose gay rights persist because "it's in the Bible". Point out that wearing cloth made of two different fibers is also a grave sin, according to the Bible, and you'll be ignored; or that particular passage is "not relevant", or needs "interpretation".
Freud was right; we're irrational beings.
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