On being questioned in an interview on ABC about the Supreme Court’s ruling that eliminated Affirmative Action for African-Americans (and only African-Americans), former lynching target Mike Pence indicated that he thought the decision was the right move, because of the “incredible progress” blacks have made, rendering Affirmative Action obsolete.
When interviewer Jon Karl reminded him that in those states where Affirmative Action had been banned, there was a significant drop in enrollment among Blacks and Hispanics, Pence was unfazed and undeterred. “I don’t know the numbers”, he admitted, adding, “I’m just very confident”.
Sadly, there’s nothing unusual about that combination of sentiments, for Pence or right-wingers in general. If there’s one statement that sums up the mindset of the MAGA cult better than any other, it’s “I don’t know the numbers, but I’m very confident.”They have no clue what Critical Race Theory is, and they can’t begin to define woke, but they have no doubt that both are satanic communist plots.
At about the same time, Pence appeared at a “town hall” type assemblage on the campaign trail, where a woman among his throng upbraided him for failing to halt the certification of the 2020 election and declare his boss the winner, since “we all know who really won” that election. To his credit, Pence gently corrected her misconceptions. Well, at least one of them.
He protested that contrary to her assumptions, he had absolutely no authority as vice president to interfere in the election. But he did not, in the least, address her loony claim about who “really” won. His interest was solely in getting his own ass off the hook, not in setting any record straight. In fact, he’s been quite willing to profit off the “stolen election” trope all along. Even if he doesn’t buy into it himself, he knows that it would not serve his ambitions to admit it – it would in fact piss off a great many True Believers.
Sometimes it’s very hard to tell whether these people really do know better, or they’re really that gullible and deluded. There’s often a significant overlap between self-deception and deception of others. This is reflected in a couple of studies about the “bullshit blind spot”, which found that individuals who deliberately spread misinformation are more likely to fall for it themselves. As a corollary, those who are most confident about their own ability to detect bullshit actually tend to be more vulnerable to it; and conversely, those who are least confident about their bullshit detector tend to be less likely to bite.
This really shouldn’t be surprising if you think about it. It makes sense that if you’re doubtful about your own skill in distinguishing truth from trash, you’re going to be extra cautious before jumping to conclusions; while if you’re supremely confident that you’re an invincible goalie on the data field, you’ll probably get so cocky that you’ll lower your guard, and an occasional big fat lie will slip right past.
This has led to what we might call the Curse of Certainty, which has haunted and bedeviled the human race from Day One, and has been a major stumbling block in the progress of civilization. When you examine the atrocities that have been committed throughout history, you’ll invariably find that they were committed by people who were absolutely one hundred percent convinced that they were right.
When the 19 hijackers flew airplanes into buildings, they were certain that they were doing God’s will. As were the inquisitors who tortured and murdered accused “heretics” and “witches”. And the Nazis when they exterminated Jews and others. The MAGA cultists are absolutely certain about… well, everything.
It’s unfortunate that the word right has evolved to designate three very separate meanings: conservative, correct and entitlement. (This is in addition to its designation of a directional orientation, which led to the ideological sense of the word simply because in one instance conservatives happened to be seated on the right side.) It surely must provide some subtle reinforcement (as if any is really needed) of the right-wingers’ attitude that they are one hundred percent infallible and entitled.
They believe they have God on their side, and so by definition anything they say is going to be The Truth and anything they do is going to be morally superior. Very, very often you can see this reflected on their faces in the form of a smug smirk as they go through a litany of shaggy man conspiracy theories about space lasers, the Deep State, laptops, emails, vaccines and boatloads of ballots from China. The smug smirk is almost as much a part of the uniform as a red cap.
Their arrogance leads them to believe that they are unequivocally entitled to rule, to govern, to be in control of everyone else. When they lose elections, they can’t grasp the concept that they deserved to lose, so instead they assume they must have been cheated somehow or other. It also leads them to believe that they should be exempt from the laws and standards of conduct that apply to mere mortals; that they should be able to say or do anything they want to with absolutely no consequences. Thus, when they are held accountable for their misdeeds, they chalk it up to being persecuted unfairly — and “investigate” the investigators, or otherwise seek revenge.
Among some cults — notably the Unification Church (aka the “Moonies”, which coincidentally has had strong ties to the GOP), adherents commonly practice what they call “heavenly deception”. They believe that lying, fraud, and other shady practices are perfectly justifiable when they commit them, because they are serving a “higher truth”. You can see the same attitude very much in evidence among the MAGA cultists. (See, for example, their nonstop parade of disinformation about abortion.)
None of which is meant to suggest that we can never be, or should never be, certain (or at least reasonably so) about anything. The reality that the earth is round is about as close to certainty as we can get – maybe 99.99999999….. percent. It would be contradicted only if it turns out that the existence we know is really just some kind of Matrix simulation – in which case all bets are off. But given the hard, verifiable knowledge we have about the shape of our planet, those who are certain that it’s actually more likely to be flat are not only delusional but downright stupid. Not to mention just plain silly.
On the other hand, the reality of man-made climate change is somewhat less certain – perhaps “only” 99.5 percent or so. (While you often hear that 97 percent of scientists concur about it, the actual figure is over 99 percent.) Still very, very, very certain – especially when we are essentially being called upon to wager between life and death. Considering the stakes, it’s far wiser to be certain that climate change is real than to be certain that it’s a hoax.
My rule of thumb is that if a proposition is about 75 percent certain or more, it deserves to be given the benefit of a doubt, and treated as fact until shown otherwise. And given today’s unprecedented access to an overwhelming trove of data, it’s highly unlikely that any premise achieving that 75 percent threshold will ever be discredited.
It’s certainly above 75 percent certain that Former Guy committed serious crimes; the probability that he’ll ever be held accountable is considerably less. The odds that Joe Biden committed offenses that were criminal/ impeachable are far less than 50 percent. The odds that the GOP will continue to “investigate” him forever are at least 100 percent.
The difficulty, of course, is in assessing such probability; it isn’t always an exact science. But we can generally guesstimate closely enough if we’re sufficiently informed. The important point is that our degree of certainty should reflect our degree of knowledge rather than the intensity of our beliefs and preferences. The attitude that evidence, instead, should follow certainty, often results in a willingness to just invent “facts” in order to support a narrative (see “stolen election”)
The Irish poet William Butler Yeats perceived this problem a century ago when he wrote:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.
A few years later, as the Nazi storm was brewing to a head, British philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell echoed him:
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
The second part of this observation isn’t necessarily a problem; indeed, it’s often a boon. But the first part is a very big problem indeed.
The Propaganda Professor 
Well stated…thank you for the insight.
Thanks for reading!
Given the reverence the evangelicals have for Trump as the “only one” who can save America, and being sanctioned by no one less than Jesus Himself, their certainty is elevated and incorporated into their religion. That’s how cults operate.
Trumpism IS the newest American religion. Their prophet cannot be questioned, but believed and trusted as the nation’s savior anointed by the Supreme Creator of the Universe.
No contradictory facts can be considered or even tolerated. Beliefs trump facts, and Dear Leader Trump defines their truth.
Offering them information is futile. They need de-programming, or a profound reality shock.
An old friend of mine admitted voting for Trump twice. He’s a devout Christian of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
You may see where this is going.
It took Trump’s worship of Putin and Putin’s murdering of his relatives that finally took hold of him. Now he says he will do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the White House.
Howdy Professor!
I’ve often characterized this moral and factual certainty as being “I’m a good person, so everything I do is good.” That seems to reflect the Christian right’s attitude.
Certainty has an interesting psychological history as in the biases and heuristics that help convince us of our correctness. Interestingly, we needn’t be 100% correct about something, we need only be correct enough to allow us to survive long enough to reproduce and raise our young to the age of reproduction. That feeling of certainty serves to get us to act when the stakes are high and doubt and fear will cause us more problems than help. As with most psychological tendencies that evolved as hunter-gatherers, it served us well on the savannas, but not so well in the cities.
It isn’t so much that MAGA believes these things with certainty but that there are politicians who are willing to cynically exploit this all together too human tendency to believe. We are, after all, designed to believe.
Huzzah!
Jack
There are lots of areas where suggesting something is true hooks the mind into believing what one wants to believe. Recently there has been a resurgence of UFO sighting and hints that our government is once again working behind a cloak of secrecy, but the reasons so many of us are willing to believe such a proposition is because we don’t know any other answers that make sense. So we decide something is true based on theories and guesses i.e. how did people build the pyramids?
All it takes is a persuasive narrator wondering aloud why certain hieroglyphics include figures that look like they could be wearing space suits? And all it takes is the suggestion that strangely marked terrain “Could” be a landing field constructed by aliens in the middle of a present day corn field etc? Thus the narrator’s explanation relies on cryptic intrigue, and reminds viewers that still other anomalies suggest that something so deep and mysterious actually proves that something so deep and mysterious exists—because it (could) exist? Thus, if our thinking proves that something “might” be true, then it IS true!
Considering how many things we don’t know much about. Why not let ourselves be wowed, by assuming that every anomaly that exists is here to reveal its secrets to liberated minds who know why Alien life sources are monitoring us– although for what purpose no one seems to know?
In the 1960s and early 70s, I was really into space ships, and I dreamed that we might someday meet the aliens that man first proposed the existence of, aliens who could be a way to explain many other unknowns. So, If several sources offering physical evidence explain the same photos that some eyewitnesses affirm are real, does that mean a pile of coincidental evidence should be taken as factual evidence?
The military has encountered and tried to explain many designated citing, but they are almost always explained as visual images, like glare on telescope lenses, or even toy Frisbee, that after close inspections prove to be found hanging from strings or photographed from too far away to verify their existence. I know that today, as in 1968, many unknowns about alien sightings have been explained, producing far more mundane results. The ones examined so far do prove that the air force is not hobnobbing with Martians or alien Cosmonaut from Andromeda, or from some other galaxy only a few hundred thousand light years away.
The reason we are still so fascinated probably involves the fact that, if just one possibility is explained, that means that the skies could be full of objective evidence that suggests we human beings have been here for hundreds of thousands of years, until we learned that “my way” :is not always the only way. So let’s not completely close our minds to the possibility that the many theories that “might affirm”our gullibility quotient!” Otherwise we may have to accept the fact that since very little proof exists that aliens are among us, that conclusion means they don’t actually exist– until we discover some completely new way of viewing the cryptic evidence they (may have left behind).
About the book I read in the 1960s (The Charriots of the Gods) , Its most devastating bit of proof, was a map of the Earth viewed from the South Pole. It was remarkably accurate and drawn at a time when cartographers had no idea what the Earth’s Southern Pole looked like. Thus it had been carbon dated as existing in the 1500s. So how could this not be definite evidence of space aliens who were here on Earth–the answer is easy–the map was actually drawn quite recenlty on a piece of paper that looked as if it was from that time. So all the poor reader knows is that it was drawn to look as if it was genuine. Furthemore, the reader can’t examine it closely to see how it was made. Thus the only thing the reader knows for sure is that it was included as an image in a paperback book, so we just assumed that it was authentic, even though it could have been created last wednesday.
Here are my comment after editing to make it read more sensibly. So POP, this is the one I’d like you to accept:
There are lots of areas where suggesting something is true hooks the mind into believing what one wants to believe. Recently there has been a resurgence of UFO citing and hints that our government is once again working behind a cloak of secrecy, but the reasons so many of us are willing to believe such a proposition is because we don’t know any other answers that makes sense. So we decide something is true based on theories and guesses i.e. how did people build the pyramids?
All it take is a persuasive narrator wondering aloud why certain hyrogliphics include figures that look like they could be wearing space suits? And all it takes is the suggestion that strangely marked terrain “Could” be a landing field constructed by aliens in the middle of a present day corn field etc. Thus the narrator’s explanation relies on cryptic intrigue, and reminds viewers that still other anomalies suggest that something so deep and mysterious, actually proves that something so deep and mysterious exists—because it (could) exist? Thus, if our thinking proves that If something “might” be true, because many of us say it (IS) true! Considering how many things we don’t know much about. Why not let ourselves be wowed, by assuming that every anomaly that exists is here to reveal its secrets to liberated minds who ” know” that alien life forms are monitoring us– although for what purpose no one seems to knows?
In the 1960s and early 70s, I was really into space ships and I dreamed that we might someday meet the aliens that man first proposed the existence of, aliens who could offer us a way to explain many other unknowns. But the same photos and evidence that were around fifty years ago, are still used by our modern day thinkers to answer the same intriguing questions?
The military has encountered and tried to explain many designated UFO citing but they are almost always explained as visual phenomenon, like glare on telescope lenses, or even a Frisbee that after close inspections is only found to be hanging from strings, or in photographs too far away to verify their existence. I know that today, as in 1968, many unknowns about aliens sightings have been explained, with far more mundane results. However, the ones that are examined suggest that the airforce is not hobnobbing with martians or alien Cosmonaut from Andromeda or from some other galaxy only a few hundred thousand light years away.
the reasons we are still so fascinated probably involves the fact that, if just one possibilities is unexplained that may means that the skies are full of evidence that suggests alien have been watching us for thousands of years. So let’s not completely close our minds to the possibility that the many theories we hear might actually affirm “the gullibility quotient” of we earthbound beings. Otherwise we may have to accept the fact that since very little proof exists that aliens are among us, that means they probably don’t exist. Verification will come after we discover some way that our evidence can actually (prove) that aliens exist—and not merely because we want them to exist.
One of the most compelling evidence of Alien visitors that I encountered was in a book called, “Chariots of the Gods, which included a map drawn in the way cartographers drew maps in the 1500s.
It was a view of the earth from the South Pole which perfectly illustrated the Antarctic and its surrounding areas in ways that would have been impossible for cartographers to record in the 1500s–unless it actually was a map depicting how the Antarctic looked from an Alien Spaceship hovering hundreds of mile above the South Pole? What else could represent such perfect and irrefutable proof that aliens exist and once hovered over the South Pole while taking photos of that area from space.
The answer is simple! The map was bogus and actually drawn a few years ago, by earthly beings who wanted to create a hoax. After all, the viewer could only see what was depicted in the book–which could have been a map drawn to look like a cartographer’s map from the 1500s! But remember,when David Blaine makes the Statue of Liberty disappear, we can be pretty sure that event didn’t really happen. My wife and I viewed it on TV and she said the audience must have been legally bound not to tell anyone that such an amazing event never really occured.
So just believing something exists or happened in a miraculous way, doesn’t mean it happened that way. Republicans are constantly using out of context videos, fake videos and deceptive ways to make voters believe the cultist lies spread by Trump and his gang of co-conspirators. Times like these are times that we should recall what a great Ameircan humorist once said. (not an exact quote) “Belive only half of what you hear, and none of what you see.”