Cruising the inter-tubes, I came across this great article:
medicalxpress.com/…
An excellent discussion of recent fMRI research about belief and how it changes...or doesn’t.
To my point is this quote:
"Political beliefs are like religious beliefs in the respect that both are part of who you are and important for the social circle to which you belong," said lead author Jonas Kaplan, an assistant research professor of psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute. "To consider an alternative view, you would have to consider an alternative version of yourself."
That is to say, political beliefs are tightly woven into personal identity-who you think you are. Challenging someone to change a ‘core’ political belief, for example, ‘Democrats want to take my money.’, is tantamount to saying, ‘Be a different person.’ The belief is not a free floating proposition that can be proven false. This makes progressives crazy because the ideals of scientific inquiry and rational discussion are part of our identity, i.e. our personal experience, our self-understanding, our historical trajectory and our cultural structure.
For Democrats or progressives to move forward, we need to fully absorb this reality. It should guide our messaging, our campaigns and who we recruit to run for office.
Most importantly, it is consonant with one our deepest values: Every person is deserving of respect.