One of the things I noticed after working fairly closely with Republicans on Capitol Hill is that many of them earnestly believe every terrible thing they've ever heard about the dark side of politics and seem to derive justification for some of their more despicable actions on account of the fact that they believe Democrats are doing it, too. Turnabout is fair play, right?
To some of these people, the notion of people who enter politics with the aim of establishing good government for the common citizen is nothing more than a fig leaf for the pursuit of liberal power. They honestly seemed to believe, at least the ones I went out drinking with, that there was no one on the Democratic side who sincerely wanted to help poor people, it was all just a big vote-grab through entitlement programs. At best, if there was in fact anyone who was trying to help the poor, they were just seen as unwitting dupes who were nothing more than useful idiots for the shadowy "liberal elite." None of the so-called "bleeding heart" types could possibly have any real power within the Democratic Party.
Now, I'm not so naive as to think there aren't Democrats playing politics for power and wealth. Nor am I so naive to think that there aren't Democrats who genuinely want to help people, but have been seduced by the allure of that same power.
The same holds true with Republicans. There are those who legitimately believe that what they do is justifiable for the greater good of the nation.
But the focus of this post is about the buried assumption that rests inside this thought process; the Fundamental Attribution Error. It's a psychological principle of the West that posits that people have the tendency to assume that others act due to some certain traits that define who they are. Not only that, but the flip side of this coin is that they assume their own actions are purely a result of circumstance. This is the kind of cognitive dissonance that results in people voicing the position that their abortion is acceptable, but the abortions of any others are immoral at their core. It's the belief that absolute evil exists, while simultaneously holding that you yourself are not absolute good or absolute evil. You're willing to define yourself in terms of ethical gray areas, but you are not willing to extend the same favor to those with whom you disagree.
It is acceptable to fight pure evil using somewhat contemptible means. It is not worth arguing with pure evil because they cannot say anything that is right or good. Pure evil is simple; black and white; clear. Pure evil is a foe in every possible universe.
Fundamental Attribution Error is the reason we're able to call other drivers 'assholes' when they make mistakes, while maintaining that when we make the mistake, there's an excuse and a qualifier to go with it.
The cold, hard reality, however, is that very rarely is there ever a driver on the road with a tweedly mustache and monocle cackling madly as he cuts you off. "Yes, this will surely inconvenience that person who has done me no wrong- Bwahahahahahaha!"
Cartoonish supervillainy just doesn't actually exist like that with the tentative exception for people who literally lack the capacity to empathize with others and have developed antisocial tendencies as a result. Barring that, people don't act simply because it causes misfortune unto others. Things aren't nearly that simple. But humans really want them to be.
We're a species that loves to other. We want schema; groups; identifications; barriers; teams. We don't like gray areas. We don't like ambiguity. We don't like uncertainty.
This has been the great philosophical debate between modernism and post-modernism. Objectivism vs. Subjectivism. It's incredibly easy to deal with people when you write off all their behavior as something inherent to who or what they are. You don't need to know anything else about them. If someone cuts you off, they're an asshole. If they're an asshole, logically, they will continue to be an asshole in all they do.
Or so the idea goes. It certainly removes a lot of the troubling complexities out of life.
Unfortunately, with that goes nuance, care, consideration, and empathy.
People are more than their actions; even if their actions say something about them.
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