“When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.”

                   An Old Jew of Galicia [quoted by Czeslaw Milosz in The Captive Mind]

Strict conformity of opinion is the enemy of intellectual liberty — and both conservatives and liberals fall into this trap. 

By Monte Bute

MINNEAPOLIS STARTRIBUNE–AUGUST 29, 2015 

Regardless of one’s belief system, political creed or group affiliation, we are all susceptible to an intellectual short circuit — groupthink. Groupthink seeks conformity by stamping out dissent. The stronger an in-group’s loyalty, Irving Janis writes, “the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups.”

Nothing demonstrates this like presidential elections. Mark Twain’s 19th-century quip remains true today: “Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side.”

Devout conservatives religiously digest the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard, and watch Fox News; doctrinaire liberals faithfully consume the New York Times and Talking Points Memo, and watch MSNBC. Few in either camp are ecumenically inclined.

Stereotyping and scapegoating flow from groupthink. Reactionaries pummel the poor, immigrants and women. Progressives torch Wall Street capitalists, fundamentalist Christians and white males. The irony is that while both factions astutely call out their antagonists’ faulty generalizations, each remains oblivious to its own.

What’s the remedy? First, one must recognize having fallen prey to group thinking. This insight often occurs with the disturbing experience of cognitive dissonance — the mental discomfort caused by holding two contradictory ideas at the same time. Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald put it best, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

In the last half of the 20th century, the eminent economist Albert Hirschman best exemplified Fitzgerald’s definition of “a first-rate intelligence.” In the midst of the Reagan counterrevolution, liberals sought to grasp the conservative mind. Hirschman, himself a liberal, did not limit his inquiry to the contemporary scene. Instead, in “The Rhetoric of Reaction,” he returns to the French Revolution and examines 200 years of conservative rhetoric opposing social change.

Hirschman discovered three perennial rhetorical strategies pursued by reactionaries.

• The Perversity Thesis— radical social change will result in outcomes that only worsen the condition that progressives seek to alleviate.
• The Futility Thesis— pursuing social transformation is futile because the laws of social order are immutable.
• The Jeopardy Thesis— as desirable as a reform is “in principle,” the practical cost or consequence will endanger previous accomplishments.

Had Hirschman ended his book there, he would have won universal applause from his liberal allies for exposing conservative groupthink. Fortunately, he had a “propensity for self-subversion.” He explained: “Skepticism toward other people’s claims … is, of course, not a particularly noteworthy characteristic. It is, however, more unusual to develop this sort of reaction to one’s own generalizations or theoretical constructs.”

To the chagrin of his liberal colleagues, Hirschman had a moment of self-subversion as he was finishing the book — reactionaries have no monopoly on this sort of intransigent rhetoric. He realized that he and his friends inhabit a parallel universe of groupthink and added a chapter on the symmetrical theses of progressive rhetoric.

• The Desperate Predicament Thesis— the old order is irreparable and a new order must replace it, regardless of possible unintended consequences.
• The History Is on Our Side Thesis— inevitable historical forces, which are futile to oppose, justify progressive action.
• The Imminent Danger Thesis— inaction will result in disastrous consequences.

I contend that the most significant obstacles to independent thought are not the usual suspects, such as governments and corporations. The danger is closer to home. Our friends are often the enemies of our free thought. People suppress contrary perceptions and opinions when they must take a public stance in the presence of fellow group members.

There is one liberty that no group (libertarians included) really wants its members taking to heart — intellectual liberty. Intellectual liberty is not free. On the contrary, freedom of thought is like a sown seed, requiring a citizen to nurture it.

Monte Bute teaches sociology at Metropolitan State University.

Six police officers to be criminally charged in Freddie Gray’s death

“I heard your call for no justice, no peace,” the state’s attorney said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/freddie-gray-death-homicide-baltimore-117551.html#ixzz3Yu7mwxN9

My Dear Friend,

The Baltimore uprising has prompted you to ask, “How is rioting and looting going to solve the problem?” My colleague Jeff Langstraat offers a concise answer: “No, burning down a CVS won’t solve the problem. Neither does focusing solely on the folks burning down the CVS, to the exclusion of other protesters, or to the simmering issues of economic disinvestment and ongoing police brutality.”

“A riot is the language of the unheard,” Martin Luther King.

Many public officials and a majority of Americans still think that African Americans themselves are the problem. You argue that riots and looting “are an insult to human intelligence and dignity.” That assertion is one that only privileged bystanders have the luxury of making. Perhaps you need to re-examine your idea of what is an insult to dignity. For those who are murdered, brutalized, humiliated, exploited, and segregated by American Apartheid, riots are the terrifying scream of a people living in 21st-century bondage. Think of these actions as latter-day slave revolts.

You speak of “human rights.” In these times, that concept is an empty abstraction. In occupied and oppressed urban neighborhoods, mere survival is the first order of business. These riots are the visceral voices of a long-silenced people. Remember, you cannot solve a problem until the majority population and public officials recognize what the problem really is—and it ain’t rioting.

The last time this centuries-old problem was officially acknowledged was during the 1965-68 riots in Watts, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Tampa, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., Baltimore, etc. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission. Its report was scathing: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

What Martin Luther King said in a 1968 speech, “The Other America,” still echoes true today.

“Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence . . . But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society.

“These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

Make no mistake, I neither condone nor condemn the Ferguson and Baltimore riots. I seek only to awaken the sleepwalkers among us. As the Old Testament’s Jeremiah admonishes us, “Now hear this, O foolish and senseless people, Who have eyes but do not see; Who have ears but do not hear.” When called upon to seek justice, all too many of us have a self-satisfied response—I am not my brother’s keeper.

Your steadfast friend, Monte

P.S.

Six police officers to be criminally charged in Freddy Gray’s death

“I heard your call for no justice, no peace,” the state’s attorney said.”

Politico

Historic street battles took place for four days during the May 1972 antiwar protests at the U of Minnesota. Britt Aamodt of KFAI interviews two who were there: A reporter, Bill Huntziker and an activist, Monte Bute. Her outstanding 27-minute radio show has great stories of riot police, helicopter tear gassing, National Guard troops and, most importantly, 5-6,000 determined antiwar activists. Save it to listen later.

https://soundcloud.com/britt-aamodt/riot-spring-university-of-minnesota-the-antiwar-protests-of-may-1972