Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Political Philosophy/Political Analysis

I always try and inform as well as educate…..with that I mind I would like to go back to my days of Grad school  back in the Dark Ages……there are many happenings in the world of political analysis, especially by the media and its pundits, that seem to over look some of the theories from the days of old to explain what is happening in the world of Washington politics……It seems analyst today make the whole process of political thought way more complicated than it really is…….I will attempt to help clarify some of the happenings….

First there is the Rational Ignorance Effect (RIE),,,,,,,,

Ignorance about an issue is said to be “rational” when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, such as general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small.

Basically, it is the art of allowing someone else to tell you what is important to you and then vote on it without ever checking the issue and solution out…..Lazy would be a good description..

Second is the Paradox of Voting……also called Downs paradox, is that for a rational, self-interested voter the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits. Because the chance of exercising a decisive vote (i.e. in case of a tied election) is tiny compared to any realistic estimate of the private individual benefits of the different possible outcomes, the expected benefits of voting are less than the costs. The fact that people do vote is a major problem for public choice theory, first observed by Anthony Downs.

However, this implies that voting choices are unlikely to reflect the self-interest of voters, as is normally assumed in public choice theory, i.e., rational behavior is restricted to the instrumental as opposed to the intrinsic value of actions.

Third in my list is the Impossibilities Theorem……

Arrow’s impossibility theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, demonstrates that no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria with three or more discrete options to choose from.

A common way “around” the paradox is limiting the alternative set to two alternatives. Thus, whenever more than two alternatives should be put to the test, it seems very tempting to use a mechanism that pairs them and votes by pairs.   The specific order by which the pairs are decided strongly influences the outcome.

A bit high brow but as simple as psossible the more choices that voters have to worse decision they make…..

Fourth is ”argumentum ad populum”…..In Logic, a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges, “If many believe so, it is so.“  This is a common practice today…the media and opposition politicians have been using this technique to win elections…..Polls are the prime way that pundits use to influence the voter….so it boils down to the fact that if they say it long enough, it becomes truth…..

Fifth, is my final tactic that one needs to be aware of…….or the “yuck factor”, describes the belief that an intuitive (or “deep-seated”) negative response to some thing, idea or practice should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful or evil character of that thing. Furthermore, it refers to the notion that wisdom may manifest itself in feelings of disgust towards anything which lacks goodness or wisdom, though the feelings or the reasoning of such ‘wisdom’ may not be immediately explicable through reason.

An excellent tactic and being used prolifically by the Repubs in their battle against health reform…..pick an issue, any issue and watch the rhetoric closely and you will find at least one of the above “old school” tactics at work…