Comments for True North at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Thu, 20 Jun 2013 02:09:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/true-north.html#comment-5274 Among social psychologists the phrases "compartmentalized thinking" or "low integrative complexity" refers to the tendency among some to make assumptions or speak out an issue in ways that are clearly at odds with what they had just said about it -- often only a short time earlier. This apparent hypocrisy results from only using negative memories of a person, his religion or lack of one (for example...could be anything) to arrive at some sweeping opinion of "all them .....s!" . But in another situation will be recalling a positive situation involving the same people or religion to reach the opposite conclusion, somehow keeping the two contrasting anecdotes completely separated in their mind without ever integrating the two into some third, more balanced opinion of the entire matter. I bring it up here because I see several commenters speaking on an article that raises the issue of religion in public life, with repeated assertion of how the framers of the Constitution would disapprove of recent moves to ban religion in publicly owned venues and schools. I see quotes from Founding Fathers and some other original statesmen that would seem to support that opinion as well. But nowhere do I see any reference to the First Amendment of the Constitition of the United States of America despite it's extremely high relelavence to the very matter in question here! How is that possible? Clearly the authors of everything I see here are all bright, rational, literate people. Neither do I suspect any to be deliberately avoiding it so they can promote their POV using an incomplete picture or half-truth to decieve us all. No. What I see happening here is something I see happening very frequently on blogs that are written by or aimed at social and politically conservative individuals. Nor am I the only one. Researchers, when looking at differences in cognitive development and personality traits between various kinds of people and groups, consistantly find the highest scores on measures of low integrative complexity and compartmentalized thinking among those who identify as social/political conservatives. And there is little doubt that this very feature of the conservative personality is one that leads to most charges of hypocrisy and/or extremism being hurled from those not sharing their particular viewpoint. - Gary Williams Sat, 13 Nov 2010 12:34:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/true-north.html#comment-5230 I took the polls to be slight corroborating evidence. What did Chesterton say about taking the pulse of entire ages? It doesn't take too discerning a mind to see that the media is at diametric and even diabolic odds with the vast majority of our great country still trying to parley the moral capital of our forefathers into dividends for our progeny. That 25 % must be what the world mistakenly calls “the educated”. The elite will waste our moral capital on immediate gratification returns. - Achilles Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:53:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/true-north.html#comment-5229 Mr. Danielson: As always, you make valid points. However, as I wrote in the column, Mr. Anderson uses polling only to indicate the extent to which most Americans are in concert about many issues on which the media meme is disunity. We move nowhere based simply upon polling data, but we can make real progress towards justice when we recognize that most people agree on what that is - and that the just society we seek today is the one designed by the Founders and (to a great extent) embodied in Catholic social teaching. - Brad Miner Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:47:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/true-north.html#comment-5228 I don't see how polling data reliably can get at what people really believe. High proportions of Americans believe in God. Which God? More importantly, how does this belief in the existence of a God influence their lives? Polling data cannot tell us this. One reads that American Catholics get divorced (which implies at least some infidelity), contracept, and have abortions at the same rate as the rest of the population. Ok, maybe this suggests something about the moral commitments of the people doing these things, but if we are looking for some kind of common ground on which to build a social consensus for good government, polling data are too flat and unreliable for the job. Some years ago, Reinhold Niebuhr gave a talk in which he asked this question: If the authority of government rests upon the consent of the governed, and if the governed are too fragmented to achieve consensus on the function of government, does this not mean that the governed are incapable of giving consent and that therefore government has no legitimate authority? Whatever one thinks of the question or its answer, this does neatly raise the question of the nature of governing authority. If it arises from consensus, and we seek just such a consensus, I personally fail to see how we can move in that direction on polling data. I suspect that if we need polls to figure out who we are and what we want, we're too large, geographically and otherwise, to have a common view of things. - James Danielson Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:10:11 +0100