As someone who has spent many years working and researching the field of decision making I know that the process is often flawed, usually lacking all the necessary information and almost always subjective rather than objective. My experience also suggests that most decision makers are unaware of just how uninformed they are about the issues surrounding their decisions. So welcome again to the Dunning Kruger effect😉.
The specific trigger for this post is the role of voting in the democratic process – however – the thinking is not limited to that. Since this post addresses democracy it is as well to point the reader in the direction of four previous times that I have ventured into this subject area.
I should stress that this is not politically motivated – the flaws in the process (IMHO) affect all democratic systems and is much more about people than politics. It is neither left nor right; red or blue; or whatever other “us and them” divide you would want to use (a search of the blog will show posts where I have argued against the use of “usandthemism” previously).
Fundamentally the issue is that each individual is knowledgeable about only a small – perhaps tiny or miniscule would be a more appropriate description – part of reality. As you will also find in my previous writing that knowledge almost certainly comes with some untruths as well where what we “know” is actually incorrect. Unfortunately – and here is where Dunning Kruger comes in. The less informed you are about any subject the more you tend to believe that you know all there is about it – only as you learn do you start to realise – “oh yes – there is a lot more to it than I thought”.
The third of the links to previous posts that I have given above includes the paraphrase of the Dunning Kruger effect that was uttered by John Cleese. He puts it a lot less “politically correct” than I ever would – but for many people it is probably more meaningful!
The rise of the availability of “information” over time has, unfortunately, been exploited by some to provide information that is less than accurate to a much greater extent than was happening in the past. Yes, it has always been the case that unfounded rumours might spread – but that spread was naturally bounded by the limits of communication now it seems that these rumours have morphed into conspiracy theories which spread like wildfire.
So, people feel more informed than ever before – and the “bad actors” continue to ensure that they are poorly informed at best and are fed misinformation more often than not.
A connected thing (and I have written about this subject as well) is that the majority do not feel comfortable with the phrase “I don’t know”. Such an admission is seen as a weakness and a stain on their character. Not only have I written about this the topic is the fundamental reason for this blog – there are things I don’t know and things I am unsure about.
Turning specifically to elections and the political process I have previously admitted that I believe all currently used systems as being flawed in one way or another – nor do I have a perfect replacement – why – because of what I have written above. As long as ‘people’ believe that they “know” there is no way to frame things differently. Consider, for example, a referendum where the choice is “yes”, “no” and “I don’t know”. If the question is honestly answered there will be an overwhelming majority for the third choice – showing some measure of the level of ignorance about the subject matter.
Such decisions are also mischaracterised as black and white when grey is the majority view. Most political decisions are not simple yes/no situations – certainly something like “Brexit” should never have been characterised that way. Being part of the EU was certainly not all bad – nor was it all good – but such balancing acts are what politicians should spend their time carefully considering. The question could be asked “is there ANY thing that politicians concern themselves with that is truly a black/white issue”?
The election in the US has, of course, played a part in triggering this post. Regardless of what I think of the result I find the whole process of selecting a President quite bizarre. Even laying aside the obscene amounts of money involved and the complications of the electoral college the process by which someone becomes president (and the limited population from which they are drawn from) does not fill me with any confidence that the “right” person will end up in the White House – not, for that matter, is it clear what “right” means in this case. One man, one vote should mean that everyone has a say – however it seems that the ‘system’ as it currently stands means that for almost all the population it doesn’t matter.
Looking from afar it also seems that there is a large proportion of the voter pool who are chronically uninformed – not just about politics.
Is this all a bit of a result of the “reality TV world” sort of view where everyone gets to vote on who is the ‘best’ dancer or singer or chef or ‘most talented’? In all of these types of programme there is no objective discriminating factor involved and I suspect that (at least in the ‘celebrity’ version) most of the voters for any of the participants are voting for them because of factors completely removed from the actual competition. Yes – it makes good, simple and engaging entertainment – but carry that over into real ‘reality’ and there are problems. Someone who is a football star, for instance, will not necessarily make a great prime minister – although equally it does not disbar them from doing so.
Of course it would be folly to disenfranchise people, although it is possible to argue that those who “think” they know what or who they are voting for due to being unaware of the ‘reality’ have already been disenfranchised. So any ‘improvement’ to the system must be inclusive whilst avoiding undue influence from those who really “don’t know”. Increasingly over recent years (probably down to the fact that it seems that politicians are skilled at not telling the ‘whole’ truth) there have been “fact checks” appearing in the media. Whilst this is sort of a good thing – a better thing would be for the truth to be told in the first place.
We come back to usandthemism – one of the top rules here is that anything that “they” do is wrong. Rooting out usandthemism in all areas would allow “them” to have good ideas as well as bad. I have many times stated that just because someone is in a different ‘group’ does not mean that I need to disagree with them all the time or avoid them or be unfriendly to them. Again going to the recent US election – one of the things that stood out to me was the ratio that was on display between statements about how great we were and what wonderful plans we had compare to belittling them and their ideas. Of course point out the flaws, but in the end you want to have the balance in favour of “what we will do”.
To close, I have my thoughts about the current political scene in the US but in keeping with all that I am saying here I have to come down to the fact that “I don’t know” whether a Trump presidency will be good or bad – there are simply too many variables. Do I think that he should be president – no I do not think he is presidential material for all sorts of reasons – but looking back at US history it is seemingly true that many of their presidents had their faults.
So – there you have it – a lot of feeding my ignorance in this particular post…