Chandra is reading... The Political Brain

A couple of months ago, my brother-in-law introduced me to a new book, The Political Brain, by Drew Westen. He was enthusiastic about it, saying it would have to revolutionize the way progressives campaign. The human brain is wired in such a way that without appealing to emotion, progressives will always be fighting elections from behind.

I went home and grumbled about this concept to my husband. “It makes me feel so dispirited about politics. It rules out any possibility of a conversation. You can’t change people’s minds about a subject, all you can do is try to manipulate them emotionally. Truth means nothing.”

My husband wasn’t quite as despondent about the idea as I was, so rather than let me avoid the book as I would have done if left to my own devices, he picked up a copy for me to read.

It turns out actually reading the book has also made me an enthusiast. My perception of the role of emotion in deciding elections was totally wrong – not that I’m alone in making this mistake. One of Drew Westen’s reasons for writing the book is because so many progressives get it wrong.

More importantly, my idea of the relationship between emotion and truth was totally wrong. Westen’s book isn’t about lying and emotionally manipulating people into supporting policies they wouldn’t otherwise support. Rather, it is about telling the truth in an emotionally compelling way.

First of all, we need to rid ourselves of the idea of the dispassionate mind. Our cultural idea of the wise, mature adult is someone rationally weighing evidence, balancing alternatives, considering competing possibilities, and dispassionately arriving at a good decision. Our brains don’t work that way, however. What allows us to translate knowledge into good decisions is actually our emotions. Westen offers the example of someone with a traumatic brain injury who watched the person in front of him slide off the road because of a patch of ice, yet he drove right through the icy patch himself. He was aware of the risk, but he had no sense of danger to make him think the risk not worth taking.

Similarly, we need to rid ourselves of the idea of voters as dispassionate, rational creatures. Voters don’t weight the cost and benefits of various policy alternatives in order to choose the candidate who represents maximum utility to themselves. Voters make choices based on which party they like, which person they like, and then which policies they like. Voters rely on their passions, their instincts, their feelings, to make political decisions.

But the good news is that this doesn’t mean the candidate with the nicest sweater always wins. What appeals to voters’ emotions are candidates who appeal to their values. Voters want to know that candidates think like they do, understand the world like they do, and therefore care about their problems. Politicians therefore need to be able to explain what their values are and what their values mean for their policies and their political approaches. This is why I feel so enthusiastic about The Political Brain – it encourages a level of honesty and a focus on principles that we haven’t seen in Canadian politics in a long while.

That’s not to say that there are no unethical appeals to emotion that happen in politics. Paul Martin’s ad about “soldiers in our streets” in the 2006 election and the recent accusation that Bloc MPs are soft on child pornography are two examples of unethical emotional campaigns in Canada. But it’s the attempt to mislead the audience that is unethical, not the appeal to emotion itself.

Westen also encourages conversations about the tough issues, rather than avoiding issues based on poll numbers. Polls should help leaders to understand how to talk to people rather than convince them to avoid certain topics, he argues. Another refreshing idea – that politicians could be leaders of public opinion, instead of tiptoeing around tough subjects to prevent a 0.4% drop in poll support.

The lessons of Westen’s book are not just for political campaigners. There are a number of good insights for my own work here at CPJ. In many ways, his approach is much like the framing advocated by George Lakoff: frame things in a way that people will be able to understand and support, because it appeals to their values. But Westen develops the idea a bit further. Here’s what I took away from it for my own work:

1. Always think of the narrative – people are able to make sense of the facts and remember what you’re telling them if you put it in the context of a story. This doesn’t mean you need an actual story (Sarah got laid off from her job, etc.), although an actual story doesn’t hurt. It means you need to have a narrative structure to your argument. Who are your characters? What happened/is happening to them? How does that fit with the larger story of who we are/what are values are? And who or what is the villain in this narrative?
2. Make your values explicit – this is something we’ve been working on already at CPJ, but this is a good reminder. People understand things in the context of values. Let them know how what you’re working on (like income inequality) relates to your values (loving your neighbour, equality of opportunity, collective well-being), and they will feel drawn to share your concern about the issue.
3. Don’t avoid the tough stuff – not everyone can be persuaded to change their mind, but some people can. By speaking honestly in emotionally compelling ways and appealing to shared values, you can convince people to change their minds.
4. Address negative attacks when they happen – negative attacks have an impact at a subconscious level, even when people are consciously opposed to the message. Appealing to people’s better instincts will actually activate the conscious level, and prevent the unconscious creep of the negative message. Just think how many thoughtful, loving people believe the stereotypes of poor-bashing – that the poor are lazy, that punitive programs will make them work but generous and truly supportive programs will only encourage them in their laziness. Not responding to such attacks isn’t taking the high ground – it’s allowing negative values to gain ground.