When Beliefs Become More Like Possessions

Coincidentally, two things happened during my just concluded cross-country trip that helped me better understand Tea Party followers.

Even though Tea Partiers are rare, just 9% of the general public and 11% of registered voters, I was able to meet and/or listen to several either during refueling stops or during dinner conversations because, traveling alone, I choose to eat at the bar in the places where I stop.  This often leads to some interesting encounters.

At the same time I was interacting with some of these folks on the trip out west and back, along the northern route this time, I read What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought by Dr. Keith E. Stanovich, a professor and researcher on human reasoning at the University of Toronto.  I was able to apply some of the information I gleaned from this research during my encounters.

Each of the Tea Party adherents I met appeared to have well above average intelligence but only a shallow grasp of facts and information.  It appeared to me that they based their opinions almost entirely on testimonials heard on talk shows or at rallies.

In his book Stanovich notes that while intelligence is innate, rationality is learned and that research reveals that “open-minded thinking is associated with reliance on statistical evidence” while what he terms “myside bias” has an over-reliance on testimonials.

This explains why, to a person, the activists I met seemed unperturbed to learn that the vast majority of the current debt problem occurred under a conservative president who had inherited a budget surplus.  When probed for the basis of their beliefs they almost always cited talk show hosts or speakers at rallies.

Similarly, they didn’t appear to be racists but tended to generalize about immigration and racial issues based on group stereotypes gleaned from testimonials that may have been racist rather than on facts or any personal experience with or knowledge of individuals.

The nation is currently held hostage not by the 11% of registered voters who are Tea Party adherents but by the less than 6% who insisted, in the very recent USA Today/Gallup poll, that the Congressional Committee now charged with trimming the debt should “stand pat on principle no matter what.”

Based on what I learned from the research reviewed in this well-written book, the inflexibility of this very small group is grid locking the nation and the economy because they “treat their beliefs” in Stanovich’s research, “as possessions” making it almost impossible to inform them with additional information or to find compromise.

To me, this is what makes them so dangerous and why even conservative columnist David Brooks raises questions about their moral decency.  Maybe even more dangerous are those officials elected to represent far more than this tiny 6% but to whom they pledge allegiance, “no matter what.”

Independent Voters At Odds On Issues

I’m not sure Republicans in the North Carolina legislature care what Independent voters like me think, but they should.  Overall, Republicans has lost the 11 point advantage Independents gave them and now trail among all likely voters.

Independents now represent 1/4th of all registered voters in the state.

Take a look at how Independent voters line up on six key issues of debate in the General Assembly based on various scientific polls including Public Policy Polling.

• 85% of Independent voters oppose permitting the outdoor billboard industry to override local tree ordinances and clear more trees so billboards can be seen for longer distances compared to only 9% in favor.

 

• 60% of Independents prefer to minimize cuts to education compared to 26% who support letting a temporary sales tax expire instead.

 

• 53% of Independents prefer a separate vote to extend unemployment benefits compared to 23% who support making it conditional on other issues.

 

• 46% of Independents oppose compared to 28% in favor of chopping a week off of early voting.

 

• 78% of Independent voters support retention of the law requiring greater reliance by utilities on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

 

• 80% of Independent voters support new legislation to double the amount of renewable power that energy companies are required to use.

Political parties formed almost immediately after the founding of this nation as a “representative” republic but not for the same reason.  We became a republic because it was hard for the general public to access information and voice opinions in a timely fashion.  But that’s no longer true.

Parties formed around dangerous factions focused on seeking power and control, a danger noted by President George Washington in his farewell.  I’m not sure the nation or North Carolina is ready for a pure democracy, although with new technology that is more than feasible.

It is still valuable for elected officials to take a closer and more in depth look at issues as long as they exercise what a recent book by a conservative columnist terms good “mental character” which is far more important for “real-world” judgment and decision making.  Far too many forget they are elected to represent “all of the people,” not just those who voted for them.

But several elements of “mental character” don’t come easily to many politicians such as the “tendency to collect information before making up one’s mind,” “seeking various points of view before coming to a conclusion” and a “disposition to think about future consequences before taking action.”

A good start would be for Republican lawmakers in North Carolina to listen to the collective opinions of Independents, that is unless they want the only time that party has controlled the legislature in 136 years to be “one and done.”

Blackballing Is A Form Of Organizational Incest

“Politics isn’t logical, it’s personal” was the ominous warning an elected official gave me many years ago when he told me I could either look the other way with my organization’s legal restrictions on use of funds or pay with the loss of my job.

I didn’t look the other way and instead kept seeking a win/win solution, but that didn’t stop those bent on violating those restrictions. For them it was purely win/lose. It was personal and all about power.

Given that official’s revelation though, you’d think elected officials would be better at discerning controversies in other realms that only appear to be about money but are usually about something more personal such as the practice of blackballing or cabals.

One of the things that can give any governing board, but especially non-profit boards, a deadly reputation is when, or if, the practice of “blackballing” potential board recruits is permitted or enabled or practiced in any form.

Blackballing doesn’t have to be by secret ballot anymore, it can be done informally through a whisper campaign or a side-comment, but it is almost always deployed to keep people off a board either as retribution for a past position or out of fear of diverse opinions or losing control of a hidden agenda.

Many boards and executives form strong opinions and then look for information and sycophants to support them and blackball those who don’t.

They flunk “real-world 101” according to the award-winning book What Intelligence Tests Miss; The Psychology of Rational Thought by Keith E. Stanovich a professor at the University of Toronto. He identifies key attributes for successful “real-world” judgment and decision making that go beyond IQ, the first two being the “tendency to collect information before making up one’s mind and to seek various points of view before coming to a conclusion.”

The practice brings to mind the immortal words of Phil Everly, “I’ve been cheated, been mistreated” in a song later made even more famous by Linda Ronstadt. Two organizations that I know of blackballed me during the time I’ve lived in Durham. But thankfully I never had to worry about “when will I be loved” during my time here.

The first instance occurred a month or so after I was recruited here to jump-start Durham’s community/destination marketing organization. An organization to which I had belonged in other communities for nearly 15 years didn’t have a Durham chapter because some folks in Raleigh had blackballed Durham by claiming their chapter was “regional,” hoping to perpetuate the myth that these two very separate and distinct communities were just one big place.

Understandably, having me as a member, with my express mission to protect and foster Durham’s identity, would have upset their agenda or been awkward to say the least. Anyway, I didn’t really have the time or desire to commute all over an area twice the size Rhode Island just to attend meetings as they rotated from community to community.

I was also blackballed by a Durham organization that could have used my expertise given their tendency to use tourism as a rationale. But apparently, as sources eventually volunteered, I just had “too much information” at my fingertips and besides powerbrokers, often non-residents, knew from past experience that when facts didn’t support a proposal, I just wasn’t a “go along to get along” kind of guy.

It may have been their loss but I definitely never needed “more meetings” to attend during my now-concluded four-decade career as a community marketing executive. While friends and family know I’m a bit of a hermit, I never went so far as the Groucho Marx quote that “he didn’t care to belong to a club that would have him as a member,” later made famous again by Woody Allen in one of my favorite movies, Annie Hall.

But the temptation to blackball is also why non-profits with self-appointed governing boards should beware of any members with that tendency or even those who might tolerate it. Any credible organization should also be very careful to insulate all qualifications, procedures, practices and policies from this schoolyardesque behavior.

In fact the whole idea of an entirely self-appointed board, either by policy or practice or maybe just from laziness is never a good idea. Like any form of incest, inbreeding always has serious consequences.

Public bodies in particular should avoid funding any organization that tolerates blackballing; and should there ever be a need to identify underlying reasons for any controversies surrounding a funded organization, the composition of its board and how it is appointed along with any evidence of blackballing might be the first place to investigate.

Remember, politics is personal, not logical.

Too Many in Tourism May Suffer Lack of Mental Character

Too often tourism interests are viewed as superficial because, well, they often are!  Something that sets apart the “best from the rest” among community/destination marketing executives across the country these days is the ability to be “selfless.”

Take outdoor billboards for instance.  Ostensibly useful, cute and quaint in the century before last, today in obsolescence, scientific surveys show billboards are viewed by 7 out of 10 residents as a detraction from communities and a defacement of the scenic landscape.

Unlike the value of other advertising that, beyond the advertiser’s message, subsidizes the creation of or access to overall content in newspapers and magazines and on television, radio and the Internet, billboards provide no valued-added content in return for the desecration they cause while contributing to the ad clutter that is dramatically eroding the  effectiveness of all advertising and creating a backlash among consumers.

So you’d think that opposing outdoor billboards and working for their elimination should be a slam dunk for tourism interests and especially community/destination marketing execs, right?

But while many acknowledge the threat, instead of showing leadership and speaking out selflessly on behalf of the very destinations upon which they rely, the majority of tourism interests and DMO execs alike sit on their hands, as a group did recently in North Carolina  because, “oh my,” by speaking up they might lose some donated advertising space.

Equally pathetic, in another very scenic state out west, a DMO bragged about using a digital billboard to communicate the very importance of the tourism, which billboards, by their nature, desecrate.  Tourism isn’t alone in the failure to “get it.”  Other types of organizations, even in communities that ban billboards, like mine, will slip their use in proposals for public funding right under the noses of elected officials.

Don’t get me wrong, the failure by many tourism interests to “get it” has nothing to do with IQ or mental force but it definitely shows a lack of mental character including the courage to “selflessly” defend destination integrity.

So if your community is seeking “best from the rest” leadership in its pursuit of visitor-centric economic and cultural development, look for someone with courage, mental character and the ability to be “selfless.”

For anyone feeling deficient, science shows selflessness can be “learned,” but courage and passion, probably not.  And as a tourism blogger often laments, “just plain stooopid is forever.”