The Ideological Brain - A Radical Science of Susceptible Minds
by
Leor Zmirgrod
The current political landscape seems extreme, lacking civil discourse and prone to ideologically motivated violence. But what exactly is ideology and why are some people seemingly more prone to becoming ideologues? And why is ideology harmful?
Zmirgrod proposes that ideologies have two defining features, namely having a rigid doctrine and requiring a rigid identity. It supplies the believer with absolute truths that are immutable and irrefutable. And individuals that resist updating their beliefs, despite newer evidence contradicting current beliefs, require rigid identities to mitigate the strain of this cognitive dissonance.
Intellectual humility, on the other hand, stands across the chasm from this sort of dogmatism. An intellectually humble person leaves open the possibility of being in the wrong. Now, ideology exists across the entirety of the political spectrum. As the author points out, it‘s equally important to look at how they think and not just what it is that they are claiming to be fighting for.
Interestingly, perhaps horrifyingly, there is, to some extent, a genetic predisposition that influences whether or not you are a more rigid or flexible person. Zmirgrod, however, emphasizes that a genotype does not dictate everything. The circumstances of upbringing, epigenetic factors as well as exposure to certain ideas all influence a person‘s susceptibility to any ideology.
There is much more nuance within the pages of this book that I fail to properly account for and address. People are changed by ideological thinking. It is a bane unto a free thinking and civil society. We must be equipped to both identify ideological traits in others and ourselves. Understanding that it‘s not as simple as accusing the other party of being stupid, I find, is a first step. A good second might be reading this.