Commonweal Institute Blog

The role of religion in our politics has been growing steadily and the strongest religious voices have been on the religious right who after decades of shunning politics decided to enter into the fray wholeheartedly in the 1980s. According to fundamentalist Christian leaders like Pat Robertson the problems in the United States are the fault of the mainstream culture. In the minds of many fundamentalists, 9/11 happened because Americans have been too tolerant and too accepting of abortion and homosexuality. They want to stamp out the culture that they see is so dangerous and compel Americans to follow their scripture or to be condemned.

Ironically, one of their biggest fights with the American mainstream society is how difficult it has been to keep their children in the fundamentalist camp when they grow up. Fundamentalists have invested a great deal into trying to make sure their children are not polluted by the sinful world. They’ve created a parallel mass media where they can see and hear only godly programs. They’ve put on huge rallies and concerts providing Christian entertainment and music. And they’ve created a separate press that publishes Christian novels and magazines. Indeed, home-schooling was started largely in response to the “godless” culture which was so seductive to the children of the Christian fundamentalists.

Nevertheless, no matter how hard they have tried to build a haven where alien ideas are not allowed and unquestioning faith rules, many of their children have abandoned their faith. Why is that?

The Christian right believes it is because Satan is too strong, particularly in our godless American culture. And this causes them to be even more adamant that they must control all aspects of life and the government including the school boards, the city councils, the state houses and the federal government.

But is that true? Dr. Bob Altemeyer says no. Bob Altemeyer, a social psychologist and researcher at University of Manitoba, has conducted a large body of research that has studied Christian fundamentalists as a part of his larger research into authoritarian personalities. (Altemeyer’s research was featured in John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, where John Dean, a life-long conservative and counsel to Richard Nixon during the Watergate years, sought to discover the roots to the problems afflicting the conservative movement and its dangerous effects on the Republican Party.)

Despite pointed political guidance from academic social scientists such as those at the Rockridge Institute and Drew Westen at Emory University, the Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress still haven't gotten their minds around the need to change how they talk about issues of the day.

Rick Perlstein has unearthed an article about campaign advice given by Murray Chotiner to Republicans back in 1954; read Rick's piece here. Turns out that his advice is compatible with that given by psychologist Drew Westen, in his book, "The Political Brain":

Positive and negative emotions are not the opposites of each other. They are psychologically distinct, mediated by different neural circuits, and affect voting in different ways. Focusing primarily on the positive and leaving the negative to chance is simply ceding half the brain to the opposition. You can't win an election with half a brain. [p. 250]

Political strategists and media advisors often make use of the "message grid," which consists of four simple questions every campaign should ask at the beginning: What will I tell voters about me? What will I say about my opponent? What will my opponent tell voters about himself or herself? What will my opponent say about me? [p. 252]

Chotiner's strongest focus was on what to say about one's opponent--a real weak point for most progressive candidates. Hard to believe its been over fifty years, and we still haven't learned not to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, trying to appeal to audiences through half their brains.

The Lucifer Effect
Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
Philip Zimbardo
Random House
New York, 2007

Philip Zimbardo, world-famous social psychologist, created the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) which gave the world a remarkable insight into human behavior. Dr. Zimbardo prematurely ended the experiment because he found himself dismayed at what he had created. Yet, what happened in that 1971 experiment became the catalyst that led him to explore what causes normally good people to do evil. And it made him realize how astonishing easy it was for any of us to harm others based on the type of circumstances we find ourselves.