Epistemic Closure

This post by Anonymous Liberal succinctly sums up my frustration with political conversation in our current environment. I recall discussing Sarah Palin with a conservative blogger and his readers last Summer. As our discussion ensued, I noted, “[w]e’re not living in the same factual universe. In my universe, the facts clearly indicate that Sarah Palin is . . . let's just say "not so good." In your universe, she’s the epitome of virtue.”

How could we see her so differently, when the facts were readily available for all to review? Well, Anonymous Liberal gets it spot on - the modern conservative movement has achieved “epistemic closure.” Epistemic closure is the state of having shut out or dismissed all evidence and/or argument contrary to your chosen views and having retired behind a wall of confirming opinion and information. Anonymous Liberal is correct; the modern conservative movement has transformed itself into an army of Trumans (reference to the film “The Truman Show”).

I think this is the result of two factors. The first is the integration of Evangelicalism and the Republican Party. Evangelicals are world renowned for our epistemic closure. Anyone who has spent any time with us knows that’s how we roll. Not all of us, but the vast majority of us. And when millions of us went “all in” with the Republican Party, we’ve brought that intellectual style with us.

The man who most facilitated the fusion of epistemic closure and the conservative movement is George W. Bush - and not merely because that was his intellectual style. President Bush’s status as a Christian, combined with his heroic post 9/11 persona, created a personality cult. For a long time, conservatives worshiped him as the leader God sent us in times of peril. The problem was, President Bush was so manifestly incompetent and unfit for his duties, that it took Herculean effort by the faithful to avoid seeing the obvious. And let me tell you, you don’t continue to support a President like George W. Bush to the bitter end without a serious and sustained effort at epistemic closure.

The result? Conservatives perfected the art, and we’re seeing its fruit.

The second factor is that conservative policies have never been very popular. That doesn’t mean their policies are wrong headed. But it does mean that they could never be described accurately and pass on their merits. A great example of this is social security. Conservatives tried to enact a policy of partial privatization. They were confident that if partial privatization was enacted, it would create irresistible political pressure for full privatization.

They were, of course, right. If you doubt this, imagine what your attitude would be if you received monthly social security statements indicating that part of your contribution was being set aside into a growing fund that you personally owned, while your remaining contribution disappeared into a “black hole general fund” that was always “going broke.” Now, spread that feeling out among . . . well. . . just about everyone, and you’ll see how the politics would play out.

Republicans wanted to privatize Social Security. Of course, replacing a social insurance program with a system of private savings accounts would not “save social security.” It would get rid of it entirely. But because they couldn't propose this directly, they instead proposed a reasonable sounding policy that they understood would lead to the desired result. They then presented the reasonable sounding policy as their method of “saving social security.”

In other words, they lied to everyone about what they were trying to accomplish. I don’t blame them - try running for reelection on a policy of eliminating social security. But they lied nonetheless.

And this is just one example. They pretty much did this with every policy initiative they had. Go through the list and see for yourself. They disembled so much it became reflexive.

And now it has consumed them. Consider Mitch McConnell’s behavior this last week - claiming over and over that the Wall Street reform bill would institutionalize tax payer funded bailouts - when the bill would completely eliminate tax payer funded bailouts and replace them with an industry financed fund used by regulators to resolve (and end the lives of) failed investment banks. Or consider the utter nonsense about death panels. Or consider the numerous documented lies that Sarah Palin told, and continued to tell, even after they were exposed as lies. She can’t help herself.

Epistemic closure has one inevitable result - it renders people delusional. And that is where I think the modern conservative movement is. Let me be clear, I’m not criticizing conservatism when I say this - although I am generally liberal, conservative thought has a lot to teach us. But the modern conservative movement is simply out to lunch.

Joe H.