In defense of partisanship

[anna.]

I wouldn't call that partisanship if it is based on your values.

Agree.

Partisanship for me is if you would praise/accept/tolerate something if done by your side, but criticise exactly the same thing if done by the other.

I'd call it hypocrisy, and there's a lot of it out there.

It is to disavow one's values whenever it is politically expedient to your team. It's when who does the action is all that really matters, not what the action was.

That's what I see as the meaning of the term anyway, but others may have their own preferences.

Disavow, or just realize the world isn't gonna give you everything you want, so you'll work with what you have?

Happy Birthday btw

Thank you. I hadn't noticed the banner until you mentioned it.

 

[PureX]

Don't you think it's more of an eastern than a western thing to hold two or more conflicting views and be at peace with it?

No. I see people doing it on here all the time. Unfortunately, "westerners" tend not to be aware of it because it has not been a prominent aspect of western philosophy or culture. The west has focused on "good and evil" (thanks to a lot of religious rule) while the east has incorporated "yin and yang" as a significant part of their traditional world view. "Good and evil" are considered antithetical and mutually exclusive, while "yin and yang" are considered part-n-parcel of a singular whole. So although all humans exhibit this dichotomous complexity, westerners are far less aware of it, and often even resist it as a character flaw.

 

[Koldo]

You're right, but that's not exactly what I said. When you asked "are you going to support the part of the platform that you don't agree with," I replied that you're tacitly supporting it when you vote for the candidate representing that party. When you support the candidate you're supporting the platform even if you're not 100% on board with it. That doesn't make you partisan. Are we in agreement?

Yes. But that's not the kind of support we are talking about, right?

 

[wellwisher]

Opinion | Why Partisanship is Good​

E.J. Dionne Jr.
September 7, 2022

Partisanship is a moral good, not an evil. Parties organize conflict in a democratic society, acknowledge that a free people will always have disagreements to resolve, and accept that the other side will sometimes win.​

​

With that paragraph, I have violated one of the central assumptions of contemporary political commentary. Even in opinion writing, virtue is typically cast as “nonpartisan,” “independent,” and unconstrained by grubby political concerns . . . .​

​

Small-d democratic partisanship entails an acceptance of ongoing discord, and of victory and defeat, because the partisan understands that “my party’s status is just one part in a permanently pluralist politics.” . . . .​

​

The mistake anti-partisans make is to confuse necessary limits on partisanship with an attack on partisanship altogether. The most obvious: Courts should not twist the law on behalf of party leaders. . . .​

​

I pulled a few quotes on partisanship from the above opinion piece, just to get the gist of it into the OP for those who likely won't click the link.

Partisanship doesn't hold a negative connotation for me, and I'm wondering if I'm in the minority? I know there are plenty who see it as negative, but I don't, if it's not the "blind partisanship" the OP cautions against. I'd argue there's such a thing as a healthy partisanship.

Full disclosure: I've been registered as NPP (no political party) for the last decade-plus, and have voted Democratic for that same time period.

What do you think?

Partisanship is for the intellectually lazy, since all you are not expected to do is repeat a party line. This ten part harmony way of thinking stands in the way of critical thinking, since you cannot criticize your own home team, or else you will not be allowed to remain a card carrying partisan.

However, since most people do not use critical thinking, partisanship allows the masses to participate in the process. This is also why mudslinging and others appeal to emotions is also so popular. These also appeal to base intellect; pre-critical thinking.

One of the dark sides of partisanship is the ends justifies the means; mob mentality. This leads to unethical and even criminal behavior, which also are symptomatic of lack of critical thinking skills and lack of good ideas. If you do not have good ideas you will need to use propaganda and other forms of cheating, with a partisan mob able to justify their means to that end; gain power to force a result that cannot stand on its own merit.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It comes back to what one means by partisanship.

The context isn’t armed resistance, but loyalty to a political party. And few find any political parties noble nor admirable, just that they may be a bit better than the alternative.

While we all think in terms of "my side" and "their side" to some degree, it distorts our view of reality when we commit to it. Especially when our side is very flawed by any reasonable standard.

Like fans of opposing football teams who watch the same incident yet one is certain the referee was correct to award a penalty as it was a clear foul, while the other is certain they have been on the end of a historic injustice, each side living in incompatible realities certain they are factually and morally correct on all things is not something I can be persuaded is a positive facet of politics.

You

• reduce partisanship to acting like noxious football-team fanatics,
• sanctimoniously rail against it, and then, in a shout out to True Scotsmen everywhere,
• caution us that "it comes back to what one means by partisanship."

Well done.

 

[anna.]

No. I see people doing it on here all the time. Unfortunately, "westerners" tend not to be aware of it because it has not been a prominent aspect of western philosophy or culture. The west has focused on "good and evil" (thanks to a lot of religious rule) while the east has incorporated "yin and yang" as a significant part of their traditional world view. "Good and evil" are considered antithetical and mutually exclusive, while "yin and yang" are considered part-n-parcel of a singular whole. So although all humans exhibit this dichotomous complexity, westerners are far less aware of it, and often even resist it as a character flaw.

So... being at peace with it is more of an eastern thing, yes? That's what I said.

You were the first person, years ago, who brought the concept to my attention, because I was completely unaware of it. Someone else had helped me become aware of how black and white my thinking was, but you'd explained out how a person can be at peace, or comfortable, holding two conflicting ideas and not seeing it as a bad thing.

 

[anna.]

Yes. But that's not the kind of support we are talking about, right?

You'd have to go all the way back to your first post where you said "blind partisanship to some extent is an integral part of partisanship."

The "some extent" would be the segment of partisans who're blindly partisan. Even you see that you can have partisanship without blindness. That kind of partisanship is useful, perhaps even helpful or necessary.

 

[anna.]

One of the dark sides of partisanship is the ends justifies the means; mob mentality. This leads to unethical and even criminal behavior, which also are symptomatic of lack of critical thinking skills and lack of good ideas. If you do not have good ideas you will need to use propaganda and other forms of cheating, with a partisan mob able to justify their means to that end; gain power to force a result that cannot stand on its own merit.

Very good! As in the mob mentality of the Jan 6 swarm on the Capitol? It did indeed lead to unethical and even criminal behavior. When other methods of cheating the American public of their voting intent were failing (flailing court cases, fake electors and a vice president who wouldn't refuse to ratify the electoral votes) then a partisan mob attempted to force a result that couldn't stand on its own merit.

 

[Koldo]

You'd have to go all the way back to your first post where you said "blind partisanship to some extent is an integral part of partisanship."

The "some extent" would be the segment of partisans who're blindly partisan. Even you see that you can have partisanship without blindness. That kind of partisanship is useful, perhaps even helpful or necessary.

I would like to elaborate then. As I have said, blind partisanship is an integral part of partisanship. The caveat is that sometimes a massive shift might happen in party lines that happens to cause a radical ideology to surface within that party, and not even partisans should be reasonably expected to support it.

Here's a random example: Suppose the elected president of Party A decides to support, along with other politicians, racial segregation laws that were never part (or at least in recent history) of that party's political platform. Even most partisans would, probably, oppose it.

But if we are talking about an ordinary policy change, then partisans are supposed to turn a blind eye and still support it, despite being personally opposed to it. Thus, partisanship is, to some extent (since there are radical examples that would be exceptions), blind partisanship. They are almost one and the same.

 

[PureX]

So... being at peace with it is more of an eastern thing, yes? That's what I said.

You were the first person, years ago, who brought the concept to my attention, because I was completely unaware of it. Someone else had helped me become aware of how black and white my thinking was, but you'd explained out how a person can be at peace, or comfortable, holding two conflicting ideas and not seeing it as a bad thing.

Yes, we can. And rightly so, I think. Because the world (existence) is a holistic phenomenon, and we are tied to all of it. Not just 'this' or 'that'.

The concept of yin and yang helps people in eastern traditions to understand that they may be yin to one person's yang, while being yang to someone else's yin. That yin and yang are each being determined by the other. And likewise our relationships with the people and things around us are interactive, and are always defining and being defined by each other.

I don't think a lot of folks in western culture understand this idea that the 'good' and 'evil' they are perceiving in the world define and label each other. That they exist as partners in the same morality play. They each exist (in our minds) because of the other, ... as counterpoints. And it's why as a culture we have a lot of difficulty 'rising above' these binary opposites. Transcending to a higher, more holistic understanding, and therefor, resolution.

It's a real problem for us.

 

[anna.]

I would like to elaborate then. As I have said, blind partisanship is an integral part of partisanship. The caveat is that sometimes a massive shift might happen in party lines that happens to cause a radical ideology to surface within that party, and not even partisans should be reasonably expected to support it.

Here's a random example: Suppose the elected president of Party A decides to support, along with other politicians, racial segregation laws that were never part (or at least in recent history) of that party's political platform. Even most partisans would, probably, oppose it.

But if we are talking about an ordinary policy change, then partisans are supposed to turn a blind eye and still support it, despite being personally opposed to it. Thus, partisanship is, to some extent (since there are radical examples that would be exceptions), blind partisanship. They are almost one and the same.

Merriam Webster's says partisanship is "sometimes blind." Can we agree that partisanship isn't 100% blind? You say they're "almost one and the same which means you see there's room for degree.

To the first part of your post: there was a link to a UC Irvine pdf I couldn't open which had in its thumbnail:

Instead of people adjusting their partisanship in reaction to new learning, as in the running tally model of party ID, motivated reasoning may lead many people to adjust the facts to match their prior partisan loyalties—especially among strong party identifiers.

I wish I could open the link. Here it is:

PDF The Blinders of Partisanship? - University of California, Irvine

That's a key concept: motivated reasoning. And it seems a good way to mark the difference. Adjusting partisan belief to new learning vs. adjusting the facts to fit one's partisanship. Does that work for you?

 

[Ella S.]

I don't consider partisanship to be inherently negative, either. If you genuinely believe that supporting a particular party contributes to the greater good, then that is exactly what you should do. It's easy for me to imagine times where one will need to swallow their minor disagreements to cooperate with a larger group, such as a political party, in order to further effective action.

The problem that I have with partisanship is that it lends implicit legitimacy to the state and I think that hierarchies like states are inherently abusive. The whole point of a political party is to coerce others into acting in particular ways through an organized monopoly on violence, which I think is unjust and therefore at odds with virtue.

This is particularly an issue in the US, where both parties are in the complete opposite corner of the political compass from me, so I tend to see them as essentially interchangeable. The minute differences that parties have are not ones that I find relevant, for the most part. I don't even really think the Democratic Party is the champion of minority rights that it tries to pretend to be; I think it co-opts actual leftist activism for its own agenda, which is usually corporate, and I think this actively damages these movements.

I don't think the idea of partisanship is incoherent or self-refuting, but I'm not a partisan and I disagree with partisan politics for these reasons.

 

[Augustus]

You

• reduce partisanship to acting like noxious football-team fanatics,
• sanctimoniously rail against it, and then, in a shout out to True Scotsmen everywhere,
• caution us that "it comes back to what one means by partisanship."

Well done.

Fascinating insights.

Imagine words having more than one meaning

 

[Augustus]

Merriam Webster's says partisanship is "sometimes blind." Can we agree that partisanship isn't 100% blind? You say they're "almost one and the same which means you see there's room for degree.

There are certainly degrees, but imo as soon as one starts identifying with a “team” then this has a significant effect on judgements regarding that team and their opponents.

The primary function that drove the evolution of coalitions is the amplification of the power of its members in conflicts with non-members.. Since coalitional programs evolved to promote the self-interest of the coalition’s membership (in dominance, status, legitimacy, resources, moral force, etc.), even coalitions whose organizing ideology originates (ostensibly) to promote human welfare often slide into the most extreme forms of oppression, in complete contradiction to the putative values of the group...

Moreover, to earn membership in a group you must send signals that clearly indicate that you differentially support it, compared to rival groups. Hence, optimal weighting of beliefs and communications in the individual mind will make it feel good to think and express content conforming to and flattering to one’s group’s shared beliefs and to attack and misrepresent rival groups. The more biased away from neutral truth, the better the communication functions to affirm coalitional identity, generating polarization in excess of actual policy disagreements. Communications of practical and functional truths are generally useless as differential signals, because any honest person might say them regardless of coalitional loyalty. In contrast, unusual, exaggerated beliefs—such as supernatural beliefs (e.g., god is three persons but also one person), alarmism, conspiracies, or hyperbolic comparisons—are unlikely to be said except as expressive of identity, because there is no external reality to motivate nonmembers to speak absurdities.

This raises a problem for scientists: Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees.

What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? - Coalitional Instincts
John Tooby

Instead of people adjusting their partisanship in reaction to new learning, as in the running tally model of party ID, motivated reasoning may lead many people to adjust the facts to match their prior partisan loyalties—especially among strong party identifiers.

Might be of interest:

The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief

In this vein, one study examined the relationship between math skills and political problem- solving [58]. In the control condition, people who were strong at math were able to effectively solve an analytical problem. However, when political content was added to the same analytical problem – comparing crime data in cities that banned handguns against cities that did not – math skills no longer predicted how well people solved the problem. Instead, liberals were good at solving the problem when it proved that gun control reduced crime, and conservatives were good at solving the problem when it proved the opposite. In short, people with high numeracy skills were unable to reason analytically when the correct answer collided with their political beliefs. This is consistent with research showing that people who score high on various indicators of information processing, such as political sophistication ([59]; although see [48]), science literacy [60], numeracy abilities [58], and cognitive reflection [61], are the most likely to express beliefs congruent with those of their party...


Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics

Public opinion toward some science and technology issues is polarized along religious and political lines. We investigate whether people with more education and greater science knowledge tend to express beliefs that are more (or less) polarized. Using data from the nationally representative General Social Survey, we find that more knowledgeable individuals are more likely to express beliefs consistent with their religious or political identities for issues that have become polarized along those lines (e.g., stem cell research, human evolution), but not for issues that are controversial on other grounds (e.g., genetically modified foods). These patterns suggest that scientific knowledge may facilitate defending positions motivated by nonscientific concerns.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Fascinating insights.
Imagine words having more than one meaning

Imaging words being distorted and abuse, as in ...

Saying Party X aligns more with my values so I support them is not partisanship.

Promoting one’s values is not partisanship.

Feeling the need to see anything Party X does as good and anything Party Y does as pure evil is partisanship ... [emphasis added]

 

[anna.]

Moreover, to earn membership in a group you must send signals that clearly indicate that you differentially support it, compared to rival groups. Hence, optimal weighting of beliefs and communications in the individual mind will make it feel good to think and express content conforming to and flattering to one’s group’s shared beliefs and to attack and misrepresent rival groups. The more biased away from neutral truth, the better the communication functions to affirm coalitional identity, generating polarization in excess of actual policy disagreements. Communications of practical and functional truths are generally useless as differential signals, because any honest person might say them regardless of coalitional loyalty. In contrast, unusual, exaggerated beliefs—such as supernatural beliefs (e.g., god is three persons but also one person), alarmism, conspiracies, or hyperbolic comparisons—are unlikely to be said except as expressive of identity, because there is no external reality to motivate nonmembers to speak absurdities.

Humans are tribal, it was ever so and will continue to be so. We form, join, and leave all kinds of groups all throughout our lives. It's interesting that your link calls religious beliefs unusual, exaggerated... absurdities. Much of the world belongs to a religious group and that wording is off-putting, to say the least. There are more respectful ways of referencing the groups he studies.

Might be of interest:

The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief

In this vein, one study examined the relationship between math skills and political problem- solving [58]. In the control condition, people who were strong at math were able to effectively solve an analytical problem. However, when political content was added to the same analytical problem – comparing crime data in cities that banned handguns against cities that did not – math skills no longer predicted how well people solved the problem. Instead, liberals were good at solving the problem when it proved that gun control reduced crime, and conservatives were good at solving the problem when it proved the opposite. In short, people with high numeracy skills were unable to reason analytically when the correct answer collided with their political beliefs. This is consistent with research showing that people who score high on various indicators of information processing, such as political sophistication ([59]; although see [48]), science literacy [60], numeracy abilities [58], and cognitive reflection [61], are the most likely to express beliefs congruent with those of their party...


Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics

Public opinion toward some science and technology issues is polarized along religious and political lines. We investigate whether people with more education and greater science knowledge tend to express beliefs that are more (or less) polarized. Using data from the nationally representative General Social Survey, we find that more knowledgeable individuals are more likely to express beliefs consistent with their religious or political identities for issues that have become polarized along those lines (e.g., stem cell research, human evolution), but not for issues that are controversial on other grounds (e.g., genetically modified foods). These patterns suggest that scientific knowledge may facilitate defending positions motivated by nonscientific concerns.

I couldn't access the first link, it's behind a paywall. I was interested in the sampling and methodology, among other things. The second one, I was able to download and here's the sample:

​

Participants​

The composition of the GSS sample in 2006 and 2010 was very similar. We provide demographics for the subset of participants who took the science literacy test, as our analyses involve only these participants, or a subset of these participants. In 2006, among the 1864 participants who took the science literacy test, the average age was 47.2 (SD = 17.3). Forty-three percent were male and 76% were white. Forty-three percent had taken a high school science class and a college science class. Twenty-eight percent held a bachelor’s degree or higher. On average, they answered 6.5 science literacy questions correctly out of a possible 11 (SD = 2.6). Thirty-two percent reported their religion as liberal, 34% as moderate, and 31% as fundamentalist (3% did not provide an answer). Their self-reported political views averaged 3.1 on the 0-6 scale, from extremely liberal to extremely conservative, SD = 1.4. In 2010, among the 680 participants who took the science literacy test, the average age was 46.2 (SD = 16.8). Forty-three percent were male and 76% were white. Forty-six percent had taken a high school and a college science class. Thirty-two percent held a bachelor’s degree or higher. On average, they answered 6.6 science literacy questions correctly out of a total of 11 (SD = 2.7). Thirty-five percent of participants reported their religion as liberal, 38% as moderate, and 22% as fundamentalist (5% did not provide an answer). Participants’ self-reported political identity averaged 3.1 on a 0-6 scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative, SD = 1.4. Table S10 in the SI Appendix reports descriptive statistics for the combined sample.​

It's a rather convenient sample, imho, but overall it was an interesting study. One limitation they noted, which I agree is a limitation, is that the two samples predate the Trump years and MAGA ascendancy and radicalization and results may have been quite different had the samples been from, say, 2020 and 2022.

This caught my eye:

Our main result, that general education, science education, and science literacy are associated with greater political and religious polarization, is consistent with both the motivated reasoning account, by which more knowledgeable individuals are more adept at interpreting evidence in support of their preferred conclusions, and the miscalibration account, by which knowledge increases individuals’ confidence more quickly than it increases that knowledge. Speculatively, better educated people are more likely to know when political or religious communities have chosen sides on an issue, and hence what they should think (or say) in keeping with their identity.​

So thanks for an interesting link.

 

[Koldo]

Merriam Webster's says partisanship is "sometimes blind." Can we agree that partisanship isn't 100% blind? You say they're "almost one and the same which means you see there's room for degree.

To the first part of your post: there was a link to a UC Irvine pdf I couldn't open which had in its thumbnail:

Instead of people adjusting their partisanship in reaction to new learning, as in the running tally model of party ID, motivated reasoning may lead many people to adjust the facts to match their prior partisan loyalties—especially among strong party identifiers.

I wish I could open the link. Here it is:

PDF The Blinders of Partisanship? - University of California, Irvine

View attachment 80345

That's a key concept: motivated reasoning. And it seems a good way to mark the difference. Adjusting partisan belief to new learning vs. adjusting the facts to fit one's partisanship. Does that work for you?

That's one mark of blind partisanship, but I consider something less strong to also mark blind partisanship: to support one's party regardless of what it is doing (barring extreme changes completely out of line).

Partisanship is like cheering up for any given sports team, being a big fan. You support the team regardless of how well it is performing.

 

[Augustus]

Imaging words being distorted and abuse, as in ...

You seem to have misunderstood and are thus barking up the wrong tree.

Never mind.