Political Theatre category archive

University of Connecticut Professor Keith M. Bellizzi explores why persons are impervious to facts, with a focus on facts vs. political positions. Here’s a bit from the opening of his piece:

In my work, I see firsthand how hard it is to change someone’s mind and behaviors when they encounter new information that runs counter to their beliefs.

Your worldview, including beliefs and opinions, starts to form during childhood as you’re socialized within a particular cultural context. It gets reinforced over time by the social groups you keep, the media you consume, even how your brain functions. It influences how you think of yourself and how you interact with the world.

For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position.

I commend his article to your attention. It helps explain dis coarse discourse.

Via Juanita Jean.

(Missing link fixed.)

Image via Job’s Anger.

Yes, indeed, many countries are taking exception to events here in the States.

Via Job’s Anger.

The writer of a letter to the editor of the Portland Oregonian has a suggestion for a new national holiday.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Susan Krauss Whitbourne explores how persons who do bad things manage to feel good about themselves. It is a relevant read in these roiling times. Here’s a bit:

According to University of Koblenz-Landau psychologist Benjamin Hilbig and colleagues (2022), such deviations from the norms of society reflect the constellation of traits known as the “aversive” personality. Driven by a core of “D,” or Dark Triad traits, people with an aversive personality not only engage in manipulative, psychopathic, and exploitative behaviors but also maintain a set of beliefs that allows them to see themselves simultaneously as moral even as they engage in immoral actions.

(Grammar error fixed.)

At the Hartford Courant, Connecticut Congressman John Larson takes a look at the damage that the Senate’s devotion to the filibuster, an arcane ritual rooted in attempts to protect slavery and, later, segregation, is doing to the welfare of the nation.

His piece is worth read; here’s a bit:

Most recently, the negative effects of the filibuster have been compounded by devastating Supreme Court rulings. How is it that in the Senate it only takes 51 votes to confirm three conservative Supreme Court Justices, yet requires 60 votes to safeguard women’s reproductive rights, pass universal background checks on gun purchases and protect the right to vote for all Americans?

If you want to know why things are not getting done in Washington, you need look no further than this unconstitutional rule allowing a minority of senators to block the people’s will.

In a related piece at The Japan Times, Minxin Pei points out that, in the United States, the call is coming from inside the house.

Aside:

One of the underlying assumptions, or, perhaps, it would be better to say “acts of faith,” of the Founders was that citizens, however much they might disagree on policy, would act in good faith.

They did not envision political parties, though parties appeared shortly later, much less a party dedicated to acting in bad faith whenever possible.