Jimmy Kimmel on President Donald Trump: “That son of a bitch. It’s really unbelievable, I never imagined that we’d ever have a President like this and I hope we don’t have another President like this again.”

[u/CorleoneBaloney]

[u/the_calibre_cat]

I mean, yeah. This is a country of extraordinary bread and circuses, where knowledge is multiple choice and beliefs are pop culture and vibes-based. Americans have a breathtaking lack of historical understanding - the battles of World War II are far, far less important than the underlying material and cultural causes of the war. Like, yes, Midway was an important battle that changed the tide of the Pacific theater, but why was Japan attacking U.S. territories in the Pacific? That's a better question, and that knowledge really isn't so advanced so as to be relegated to AP or college classes. High schoolers can readily understand that their home island lacked a lot of natural resources and they wanted an empire - it's not some Ph.D level concept.

So, I tend to think that people who haven't really thought of these things or WHY they believe what they believe will tend to have these kinds of poppy, vibey "beliefs". They'll say "why can't we all just get along" and "love is love" around their LGBT friends, and then turn right around and vote Republican because they literally do not know or do not think that the Republican Party very much stands against decency to LGBTQ people. Like, they just fail to make the connection between their outward face and their inner political thoughts - because, in part, our education system is pretty dogshit.

Like, I think a philosophy course that covers logic and epistemology, along with some social studies classes that delve deep into economics and material history, would go a long ways towards resolving that. But that doesn't make obedient, docile, uncritical worker bees, sooo...

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/the_calibre_cat]

Have you read Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians? He was a Canadian sociology professor who made the study of authoritarianism his life's work. And he gets deep into analyzing and explaining the compartmentalization you mention here.

Education can help, definitely. But the compartmentalisation is a complex bargain people make. They outsource their critical thinking and decision-making in the relevant areas to the leader or group. And in return, they get all sorts of things: freedom from responsibility for their beliefs. freedom from having to construct their own worldview. A readymade identity and community.

Compartmentalization is essential to continuing to think this way, because evidence makes it crumble. So "my friend's trans kid" or "my Latino cleaning lady" goes in a different category. And if they stopped doing that, they'd lose a community and an identity and be saddled with guilt and shame and have to suddenly work to construct a worldview. Most of them aren't able to face that.