Escaping the election cocoon

Good piece by Scott Gilmore on the risks of living in a bubble (I try to ensure my newsfeed includes a range of perspectives). As always, it starts from mindfulness of one’s own biases and applies to more than just politics).

Sound advice:

Unfortunately, our habit of tuning out ideas and voices we don’t like is part of our biological programming. “Confirmation bias,” the tendency to search for information that confirms our beliefs and to remember it longer, is a well-documented and inescapable element of our behavior. As a result, we instinctively tailor our universe to limit the emotionally upsetting views that contradict us. Until recently, the shortage of media choices made this hard to do. Left or right, we all watched the same suppertime newscast. Now, it’s finally possible to be bound in a nutshell, and count ourselves kings of infinite space, because we can avoid any bad dreams.

This has been very apparent in the refugee debate. A significant number of Canadians are opposed to allowing in more Syrians, due to the possibility that they would include Islamic State supporters, or that they would spread Islam or because we should be helping our own poor first. If you listen to a specific set of radio stations, read certain blogs and interact with people similar to yourself on Facebook, these ideas aren’t only defensible, they are overwhelmingly obvious.

Likewise, another group of Canadians who subscribe to different newspapers, listen to the CBC and read the Huffington Post are equally convinced of the self evident fact that there is a clear need for Canada to do more, and accepting far more refugees would neither strain our economy nor our social fabric. In reality, both sides are filtering out important pieces of information, making it impossible to see the full picture. Which is why neither group can grasp how anyone could possibly be so asinine as to dispute what is so clearly self-evident.

This is bad, and not just because it prevents us from having civil conversations about Canada’s refugee and immigration policies. It creates a lack of empathy that leads us to denigrate and dismiss the opinions of others. The leaders of all political parties, who are equally unable to acknowledge they do not have a monopoly on the truth, demonstrate this attitude repeatedly.

Our self-made cocoons also impair our ability to make intelligent decisions. In this election, most voters will not watch a single debate, read any of the party platforms or attend any campaign events. They don’t need to. They already know whom they’re going to vote for and, coincidentally, everyone else in his or her cocoon is voting the same way.

And for those we ultimately elect? Their own filters will make their governing decisions less effective. Ruling parties of all stripes tend only to listen to academics who support their agenda, only attend rallies that contain true believers, only read newspapers that  endorse their policies and only engage constituents who already voted for them. If it looks as if the Conservative party has only been thinking about its base for the last nine years, it’s because that’s literally true.

There are ways to cut through these cocoons, however. Just by being aware that you are constantly self-censoring the information that reaches you helps. You can also consciously resist the urge to mute the outspoken critic on Twitter, or unfollow the Facebook friend who shares articles in support of that politician you loathe. One step further would be to actually read some of those articles, or pick up a newspaper you wouldn’t normally read, no matter how much of a rag you think it is.

Source: Escaping the election cocoon