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The Unbridgeable Kavanaugh Gap
Author and cartoonist Scott Adams colorfully describes one of the lamentable features of our current society as “two movies, one screen.”
The concept is that our reality has, for practical purposes, split into two. Everyone has access to the same information, but we divide into two groups, each coming to believe in a version of reality that is mutually exclusive of the other.
This isn’t “glass half-full / glass half-empty.” There, the essential truth remains the same: Both sides agree that 50% of the glass contains water. The significance of what that means is a matter of perspective, but the fundamental premise is not in dispute.
Once upon a time, that’s how politics often worked. Republicans might see a budget deficit and say, “let’s cut taxes and reduce spending (except on defense).” Democrats might see a budget deficit and say, “raise taxes on the wealthy and increase spending (except defense).”
In that kind of environment, compromise and finding common ground is more likely—or at least possible. Why? Because both sides are grounded in at least one fundamental idea that’s the same. Namely, that deficits are usually undesirable. It’s a shared premise.
I admit this is a peculiar example in 2018 since neither party apparently cares much about deficits anymore, but I digress.
Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer shared premises from which we proceed. That affects how we process facts, not just how we assign significance to them. This phenomenon eventually creates an unbridgeable gap. We’re seeing that play out in the direst way in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation battle.
Enough has been written about the hearings themselves, the political machinations, and the accusations. I’m not going to talk about any of that specifically. Instead, I’m interested in highlighting a very specific reason why this topic has created a divide that will not (and cannot) be closed.
First, the obvious: Yes, the timing of the nomination so close to midterms is clearly a factor in the intensity of the Kavanaugh furor. As is the potential impact of the appointment on abortion jurisprudence. As is, too, the already ratcheted-up baseline level of partisan division and Trump-related rage.
But there’s something else. The way that progressives and conservatives organize their reality is now fundamentally different.
To put a fine point on it: Modern progressives, broadly speaking, order society based on group affiliation. This is the lens through which they view nearly every ideological or cultural question.
Conservatives, by contrast, still orient their thinking primarily to the individual, particularly when it comes to something like due process rights or a default presumption of innocence.
As such, conservatives look at the hearings and are flabbergasted that unsubstantiated and uncorroborated accusations against someone with no previous history of bad behavior are enough to condemn him in the minds of half the country. They see Kavanaugh’s anger during the reconvened Thursday hearing as justified and righteous. After all, he’s been accused of sexual assault and organizing gang rapes. If you were (falsely) accused of heinous crimes that caused you and your family significant anguish, you would likely be upset as well.
Progressives have a much different perspective. Viewing the hearings and related news with a group-oriented mindset fosters ideas connected to Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s group identities. These ideas inform the way progressives perceive each of the key figures in this story.
Whereas even a fair-minded conservative might look at this situation and think, “There are simply too many gaps for a conclusion to be drawn at this time,” someone whose mindset is oriented around groups will fill in those gaps with their perceptions of the relevant groups, drawing a definitive conclusion as a result. This is true of most Democrats and, certainly, most non-Fox mainstream media members (but I repeat myself).
Specifically, note that the lion’s share of the criticisms or condemnations of Kavanaugh—even by media members—reference his race, sex, schooling, and socioeconomic level. The negative associations that the speakers have regarding those groups attach to Kavanaugh, bolstering a record that is largely devoid of content.
Opinion writers at major outlets don’t even attempt to be subtle about it. Here’s a small sample of some recent headlines regarding Kavanaugh:
Brett Kavanaugh didn’t ‘lie’ — he just told some ‘little white-male-privilege lies’ (Chicago Tribune)
The roots of male rage, on show at the Kavanaugh hearing (Washington Post)
Brett Kavanaugh’s Fragile Manhood (Rolling Stone)
A crying Brett Kavanaugh. This is what white male privilege looks like (San Luis Obispo Tribune)
Kavanaugh is lying. His upbringing explains why (Washington Post)
Kavanaugh Borrows From Trump’s Playbook on White Male Anger (New York Times)
Lindsey Graham, Brett Kavanaugh, and the unleashing of white male backlash (Vox)
Hell hath no fury like an entitled white man denied (Washington Post)
The Entitled Rage of Brett Kavanaugh (The Cut)
The Angry White Male Caucus (New York Times)
In sum, Kavanaugh critics believe that society is full of “Brett Kavanaughs,” that they knew people like him in high school or college, and/or that they’ve worked with people like him. They transfer all of those negative beliefs, feelings, and experiences to Kavanaugh himself, making it easy to say, “Of course he did this—this is how privileged, rich, white males who attended elite prep schools act. You know how they are.”
On the other hand, their favorable view of Dr. Ford draws in part from positive aspects of two groups: Women (generally) and sexual-assault survivors (specifically). Most of them know—or are themselves—survivors of some form of sexual assault, and those understandable and powerful sympathies immediately attach to Ford.
Thus, when Ford appears to be enduring a tremendous emotional toll, it only serves to strengthen their support for her. Here, the reaction from someone viewing her testimony with an individual-centric mindset would tend to have a similar reaction, as Ford certainly seemed to have genuinely suffered a trauma. However, their sympathy to her does not extend to the point that they believe Kavanaugh committed the act.
“Job interview” questions
The two groups diverge sharply as to the response to Kavanaugh’s anger and sorrow, though. Individual-oriented folks have the same reaction to Kavanaugh as they did to Ford. That is, great sympathy.
On the other hand, group-oriented observers saw Kavanaugh as an envoy of the dreaded white patriarchy, and took his anger not as an understandable response to being accused of awful crimes, but, instead, merely the entitled rantings of a man-child terrified of the possibility of his group at long last losing its power.
For conservatives, individual trumps group. For progressives, group trumps the individual — and, most critically, the concept of group guilt is implicitly but powerfully accepted. That makes it easy to scoff at ideas like the presumption of innocence, because, to them, Kavanaugh is already terminally infected with the residual guilt that emanates from his group memberships.
Note also that these group associations are so strong for progressives that they can actually defy objective fact. For example, if there is a contextually negative association with “old, white man,” someone who is a middle-aged Hispanic man can become “old” and “white” if progressives deem him worthy of condemnation.
This, again, is something more than a simple assessment of the state of a glass of water.
Proceeding from such a fundamentally different premise about whether group membership or the individual matters more makes it impossible to find common ground in a situation like this one. That’s because we’re left with a binary choice: Either you believe Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted someone, or you don’t.
If one side is convinced he did, based on negative group characteristics they ascribe to him, then there is nothing that can be done.
It will be difficult to prove what happened on an undetermined night in the summer of 1982. It will be impossible to prove that Kavanaugh isn’t a wealthy, white male.
As such, many of the people observing this story on both sides have already made up their minds. It is incredibly unlikely the FBI investigation will produce any new evidence, which is what it would take for an individual-focused person to believe Kavanaugh is guilty of sexual assault. That lack of additional evidence won’t matter to group-focused observers who have already mentally convicted him—and who never would have supported him in the first place. For them, his characteristics, coupled with Ford’s testimony, easily overcome the problem of lack of corroborating or substantiating evidence.
As for the two movies we’re watching on a single screen, Adams says that the way to merge our realities again is that “one [side] needs to see [its] expectations violated in ways that even cognitive dissonance can’t explain away.”
Sadly, we’ll have to look elsewhere for that violation. To those who think Kavanaugh is a sexual predator (and will happily repeat that as fact for the rest of his life), there is nothing that could possibly happen now to cut against their expectations in such a way as to make them reverse their position. Even a hypothetical situation in which Ford completely recanted her story would simply shift the narrative to “she was intimidated into doing so.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation, then, has become a societal proxy war for progressives. Kavanaugh is emblematic of the evil they see in certain segments of our culture. And our competing ways of ordering our reality will ensure it isn’t the last such battle.
Published in Politics
Doctors and lawyers, maybe. Nurses? Teachers? Sure, they have education, but I hardly think they’re part of the elite. I guess I don’t understand what is meant by “political class.” That sounds to me like people involved in electoral politics.
So I don’t see where you think I’m wrong. I’d tend to agree with nearly everything you’ve said here. I’d only disagree that conservatives support tradition for a purpose, not for its own sake. It doesn’t mean one never supports reform — again, I’m appealing to Burke who unquestionably did.
I was thinking only in the Anglo-American context. I’ll certainly grant that a conservative in another society will have a completely different set of priorities than an American in 2018, or a Brit in 1900.
It doesn’t mean opposing change per se. I’m recalling (as best I can) Russell Kirk’s analysis of British leadership in the 1800s. Where the French dug in and saw their old order swept away, the British recognized the tide and accepted the inevitable, bringing in reforms they might not have preferred (such as the expansion of the franchise) in an orderly, considered fashion, suiting the reform to the character of their society, and sparing their country anything like the upheaval of the French revolution. To Kirk, that was conservatism in action.
Leigh, I was being facetious with the “you’re wrong” bit, as I tried to make clear with the rest of the comment. But the topic of conservatism, as a philosophical position or disposition, is interesting.
If I read your third sentence correctly, you’re saying that you believe conservatives do support tradition “for a purpose.” Is that correct?
While I’ll accept that some people use the word that way, it isn’t the meaning I consider most accurate or must useful. I really do think conservatism is an emotional state, an innate disposition in most people. I think most humans are fundamentally conservative, fundamentally attracted to existing rules and rituals and norms of social behavior. I think that’s probably the product of evolution: those who followed conventional wisdom tended to do better than those who tried new, possibly dangerous things. Once upon a time, when mankind lived much closer to the ragged edge of survival, mistakes were extraordinarily costly, and people tended to stick with what they knew worked, adopting new ways only when necessity or gradual encouragement finally pushed them to do so.
I liken the traditions of a culture to the genetic makeup of a species. The functional part of our genetic code is an accumulation of tested patterns; mutations, when they occur, tend to work out poorly for the organism. If the mechanisms of genetic reproduction produced a lot of mutations, species would die out before selection had a chance to weed out the mutations and preserve the successful genes.
Similarly, if people embrace change too quickly, to much untested change accumulates and the “species,” the culture or civilization, collapses. It takes time, sometimes generations, to test and reject failed ideas. Sometimes a culture fails, though (unlike with biology) its best ideas may survive in another culture that draws inspiration from it. Western history is full of such examples.
So I think humans have evolved to feel more secure when they resist change. We aren’t evolved to seek “good” systems, particularly, but rather to feel an affinity for what we know.
Radicals, with their new ideas, are to cultures what mutations are to species: they bring untested change, occasionally beneficial but most often harmful; we need them, but not too many; and most of us resist them.
If true, I think there are interesting, and positive, implications for all of this. And I do think it’s true. Conservatives in America have the advantage that our system, as it has been for generations, is deeply good. Feeling an affinity for that and seeking to preserve happens to be both “conservative” and, I think, beneficial to us. We are very fortunate.
Why radicalism is so popular in America right now is the subject of another soapbox. Thanks for reading this far, if you did. ;)
I got that. My attempt at reciprocal humor got lost somewhere in rewriting, which is what happens when one is writing tired.
To the main point, that would be where we somewhat disagree, as I do see conservatism as a specific ideology rather than an inherent tendency. I also do definitely view it in a Judeo-Christian framework, in which conservatives are in general trying to conserve some specific things; and within the American tradition some specific political things.
Not but what I agree that there’s a human tendency to prefer the status quo. And that’s often in conflict with what American “conservatives” want to do, and partly why we have a “RINO” problem (for lack of a better term).
I think most people — and by most I mean the vast majority — use the word in the sense you do. And, since I believe that words are tools, I perhaps should do so as well: the point is to be understood, after all.
My own interests have far more to do with human nature and the emergent behavior that engenders than with politics, which may explain why I think of the conservative/radical spectrum as I do.
Even within our own political context, there’s a value to understanding the different angles of it. I think in general Americans use the word “conservative” as I described it, but many more people vote Republican for the reasons you describe and not because of any clear philosophy.
Conservatives tend to view those people — or at least the commentators and politicians who best represent them — as just squishes. (There are some politicians who are precisely that, of course). That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the coalition, and I think the conservative movement would be more effective if we understood that better.