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00:00Democracy is dying because we're clinging to a dangerous and outdated myth that talking about politics can change people's minds when it doesn't.
00:08Well, such is the premise of a new book called Don't Talk About Politics.
00:12It combines modern neuroscience and psychology to look at what does and does not change people's minds and why.
00:18Prince Cant debates apparently don't.
00:20Well, social theorist and author Sarah Stein-Lurana joins us now to bring us her insight on it all.
00:26Dr. Stein-Lurana, thanks for joining us.
00:28Tell me, first of all, talking about politics, I mean, debates are such an integral part of campaigns and yet it seems like they're a waste of time.
00:37Yes, at least in terms of changing people's minds directly and perhaps in terms of helping people think about politics at all.
00:46In my first chapter of this book, I look at all of the evidence, for example, about people watching television debates.
00:52And you're right, they're a huge part of our political culture, but social scientists have looked at the effect they have on people's voting habits and their political beliefs, and they appear to have roughly zero effect.
01:02It's an amazing thing if you think about it, because so much of parliamentary debate or television in general involves debates.
01:10But it seems that when people are given new information or new arguments about their beliefs, especially if they already hold strong beliefs in that area,
01:17they often experience something called cognitive dissonance, where they feel discomfort about the contradiction between new information and ideas and their existing ideas.
01:27And this often causes them to re-entrench, to double down on their existing ideas.
01:32Additionally, there are other forces in our lives that have more effect than anything we might encounter, you know, in a TV program or a debate, even a debate with our friends a lot of the time.
01:41So it takes much more than debate to change people's minds about politics.
01:46So we like to stick to our comfort zones, our brains like consistency, basically, overall.
01:50But we are seeing politics around the world change.
01:53I mean, we're seeing people move to the far right.
01:56Yes, yes. And one of the arguments that I make in this book, looking at a lot of data from social science and psychology,
02:03is that one of the reasons that people might be moving to the far right is that we're experiencing something called social atrophy,
02:10which is what happens when the brain is isolated.
02:14Neuroscience shows that when the brain is isolated, that is when human beings are socially isolated and the brain reacts to that,
02:19we're essentially losing use of a muscle in our brain, a metaphorical muscle.
02:23We're losing use of the parts of our brain that are used to interacting with other people.
02:28We lose some of our social skills and our social judgment.
02:31And one of the main things that happens is that people become more paranoid.
02:34They're less good at reading social cues.
02:36They attribute negative intentions to neutral interactions with other people.
02:42And they also just have fewer people to rely on in terms of getting information about the world.
02:46So this might help explain why we have a number of rising areas in the world, sorry, areas in the world that experience the rise of the far right,
02:56because a lot of the far right ideology is about suspicion of other people.
03:00It's about saying, you know, we can't trust our neighbors, we can't trust migrants and so on.
03:05And that corresponds with the level of social isolation we're seeing in Western countries over the last 50 to 70 years.
03:11In the UK and the US, for example, we're seeing a massive decline, both in social trust and in people's decline in friendships,
03:19time spent face to face with other people and things like that.
03:22OK, so how do you think we can go about turning that around?
03:25That's a great question. In sociology, there's a term called social infrastructure, which is anything really that causes us to interact with human beings,
03:37especially ones we don't know that well, but might know a little bit on a daily basis.
03:41My favourite example is the waiting areas for parents outside of schools.
03:45It matters a lot how those are designed. If parents are waiting alone in their cars in a long line, they're not talking to other parents.
03:51They're not listening to what other issues people in their community might have, and they're not getting that face to face interaction with people.
03:57They know a little bit, but not so much. If, however, you have a space where people can chat,
04:02maybe they can even have the kids play on the playground while they talk, then you've got a piece of social infrastructure.
04:08And it's not just about getting more social infrastructure. It's about preserving the infrastructure,
04:12social infrastructure that we have from often cuts to budgets.
04:17And it's also about designing that infrastructure to help people see each other as equals.
04:21There's a lot of evidence from something called social contact theory that it really matters whether we are,
04:27we see the people in that social infrastructure as our equals, whether institutions position them as equals,
04:32and whether we see ourselves as having shared goals.
04:34So I would argue that this kind of social infrastructure, whether it's a restaurant or a pub or a school or a park,
04:40is a big part of our democracy. And we have a lot of reasons to think that's shrinking,
04:44shrinking due to neoliberalism in the last 20 to 40 years, but also shrinking for reasons of people kind of retreating into their homes
04:53and using public spaces and resources less in various ways.
04:57I know you've alluded to it a little bit, this idea of self, but from what I've gleaned, it's not equal around the world.
05:03I mean, it seems that the idea of the self is a concept that's stronger in a lot of Western countries,
05:09and that impacts how we react and how we digest information.
05:14Can you explain a bit more about this and how it is different depending on the countries?
05:17Sure. Yes, this isn't as much a focus of the book, but it's true that a lot of the findings in this book
05:23are dependent on what psychologists and cultural theorists call weird psychology,
05:28the psychology of Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic countries.
05:32And when you look at psychology studies, there are aspects of human psychology
05:36that are not only different in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic countries,
05:41but they are extreme. So people in these countries are very individualistic.
05:46They also see traits in human beings as fairly fixed. So if somebody does a crime, for example,
05:50they say that's because of that person's internal characteristics. They're a bad person.
05:54Rather than thinking maybe that person was hungry, maybe they had a bad experience when they were younger,
05:59maybe this is changeable. And many of the aspects of weird psychology make us think about ourselves
06:04as individuals with fixed traits. Whereas in other cultures, people tend to see this a bit differently.
06:11They see people as flexible. They see people as interdependent.
06:14They might attribute situations when they think about why a person behaved the way they did.
06:19And that probably helps explain a little bit about why it's so difficult for Western people sometimes
06:24to change their minds about political views. They think, I'm a fixed individual.
06:28It's a huge threat to my sense of self if I change even one belief.
06:31What does that mean about my prior character when I held this other belief?
06:34So yes, the concept of the individual here is crucial, and it is somewhat culturally determined.
06:39And it's fascinating how we can justify certain decisions.
06:45A lot of people say they do see climate change whatsoever, or they say they wouldn't vote
06:49for a convicted criminal, but then they can justify that through various actions that go
06:55against their belief.
06:57Yes, I give an example in the book of Trump voters.
07:00So before Trump was convicted of a number of crimes, many of his voters, people who were
07:05planning to vote for him, said that they didn't want the President of the United States to be
07:09a felon or to have done a number of other things that he had done.
07:12So, you know, paying a porn star to stay quiet about an affair.
07:15And pretty much as soon as Trump was convicted of these charges, they switched their views.
07:20A lot of them, a huge percentage, maybe roughly half of people who were planning to vote for
07:24him said, actually, it's okay if the President is a felon.
07:27It's okay if the President of the United States has done these things.
07:30And we do this again to reconcile discomfort between, this is the cognitive dissonance theory
07:36again, discomfort between our existing beliefs and our actions.
07:41These folks planned to vote for Trump.
07:42They did generally vote for Trump.
07:44And to feel more comfortable with their own beliefs, they swapped their beliefs towards
07:48their actions and said, actually, it's okay.
07:50It's okay if the President has done this kind of felon.
07:53Because we needed to stick to that bigger picture of what we believed on the wider scale
07:58of things.
07:59Very briefly, can I just ask you, what prompted you to go down this road of study?
08:03Well, firstly, I've always been concerned about politics.
08:09I think that it is important for all of us to think about it.
08:12No one is outside of politics.
08:14I say this as the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor.
08:17And when Trump was elected in 2016, it made me realize that there were many, many things
08:23about people's political psychology that I didn't understand and that I wanted all of
08:26us to understand better so we could do politics in a more constructive way.
08:30And I don't think we're there yet, but I hope that reading the book for some people will
08:34help them think about it a bit differently.
08:36Dr. Sarah Stein-LeBrunner, thanks so much for bringing us your insight on it all.
08:40In any case, here at To France 24, your book, Don't Talk About Politics, hits shelves very
08:45shortly.