Author: Jason Weeden
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400851963
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
Why your political views are more self-serving than you think When it comes to politics, we often perceive our own beliefs as fair and socially beneficial, while seeing opposing views as merely self-serving. But in fact most political views are governed by self-interest, even if we usually don't realize it. Challenging our fiercely held notions about what motivates us politically, this book explores how self-interest divides the public on a host of hot-button issues, from abortion and the legalization of marijuana to same-sex marriage, immigration, affirmative action, and income redistribution. Expanding the notion of interests beyond simple economics, Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban look at how people's interests clash when it comes to their sex lives, social status, family, and friends. Drawing on a wealth of data, they demonstrate how different groups form distinctive bundles of political positions that often stray far from what we typically think of as liberal or conservative. They show how we engage in unconscious rationalization to justify our political positions, portraying our own views as wise, benevolent, and principled while casting our opponents' views as thoughtless and greedy. While many books on politics seek to provide partisans with new ways to feel good about their own side, The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind illuminates the hidden drivers of our politics, even if it's a picture neither side will find flattering.

Author: Mark Abraham
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1456810138
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The Interactions Between Instinct and Intellect and its Impact on Human Behavior Length: 208 pages Mark Abraham was displeased by the phenomenon of politicking, although he studied it for a deeper and more accurate understanding of this fatigued term, "politics," as a major aspect of human affair. For reasons he could not identify as a student, he was never satisfied with the prevailing definitions. Thus, he asked his professors in both undergraduate and graduate school in the political science department to share their understanding of the term with him. Each of them seemed to have an understanding uniquely different from all the rest. Then, he realized that this was a vaguely understood phenomenon even by the professors in the field and he relented his efforts and concluded that, "politics," was one of the most used but the least understood phenomena. As he developed his own theories, he formulated that unlike the commonly perceived concept, politics is not just a profession for the few in each society, but it is a brand of behavior unique to humans that starts in early childhood. Thus, he formulated, "to be instinctive is to be selfish. To be selfish and intelligent is to be political. Because instincts and intellect are permanent human fixtures, politicking that results for their cofunction also becomes a permanent human fixture." This perception justifies Aristotle's claim that, "man is a political animal." The ultimate objective of politicking is to impose and thus, he tries to redefine it. He perceives politicking as a range of complex and manipulative deeds afforded by people to impose their will and interest on others against their will and interest. As such, it erodes innocence and is one of the least desirable of all human attributes. Yet the selfish nature of all instincts as the driving force behind politics is the sole force that governs the world of animals, thus politicking becomes the refined reflection of animals in man. Where animals use fangs, claws, venom, speed and brute force to subdue and devour their pray, humans apply politics that includes the use of brute force. Misconceiving this term greatly contributes to human conflicts at all levels, which is why most people unconsciously dislike politicking and politics worldwide.

Author: George Lakoff
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845409248
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
At first glance, issues like economic inequality, healthcare, climate change, and abortion seem unrelated. However, when thinking and talking about them, people reliably fall into two camps: conservative and liberal. What explains this divide? Why do conservatives and liberals hold the positions they do? And what is the conceptual nature of those who decide elections, commonly called the "political middle"? The answers are profound. They have to do with how our minds and brains work. Political attitudes are the product of what cognitive scientists call Embodied Cognition — the grounding of abstract thought in everyday world experience. Clashing beliefs about how to run nations largely arise from conflicting beliefs about family life: conservatives endorse a strict father and liberals a nurturant parent model. So-called "middle" voters are not in the middle at all. They are morally biconceptual, divided between both models, and as a result highly susceptible to moral political persuasion. In this brief introduction, Lakoff and Wehling reveal how cognitive science research has advanced our understanding of political thought and language, forcing us to revise common folk theories about the rational voter.

Author: George Lakoff
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440637830
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
A groundbreaking scientific examination of the way our brains understand politics from a New York Times bestselling author One of the world 's best-known linguists and cognitive scientists, George Lakoff has a knack for making science make sense for general readers. In his new book, Lakoff spells out what cognitive science has discovered about reason, and reveals that human reason is far more interesting than we thought it was. Reason is physical, mostly unconscious, metaphorical, emotion-laden, and tied to empathy-and there are biological explanations behind our moral and political thought processes. His call for a New Enlightenment is a bold and striking challenge to the cherished beliefs not only of philosophers, but of pundits, pollsters, and political leaders. The Political Mind is a passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book that will appeal to anyone interested in how the mind works and how we function socially and politically.

Author: Jonathan Haidt
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307455777
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed social psychologist challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review). Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.

Author: Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
A media expert and network commentator examines the welter of misinformation--generated by politicians and the media alike--that surrounds political campaigns.

Author: Mark Lilla
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179021
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
We don’t understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today’s political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas. Lilla begins with three twentieth-century philosophers—Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss—who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks since the French Revolution, and shows how these narratives are employed in the writings of Europe’s right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate. The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why.

Author: Roy Eidelson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999823705
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Psychologist Roy Eidelson explains how we can recognize and counter the manipulative appeals used by the 1% to advance a selfish agenda that leaves most Americans worse off. With examples from climate change to voter suppression to poverty wages, Eidelson shows why debunking the 1%'s "mind games" is essential for building a more decent society.

Author: Thomas E. Patterson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806165685
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.

Author: Rick Steves
Publisher: Rick Steves
ISBN: 1641710470
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
Change the world one trip at a time. In this illuminating collection of stories and lessons from the road, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves shares a powerful message that resonates now more than ever. With the world facing divisive and often frightening events, from Trump, Brexit, and Erdogan, to climate change, nativism, and populism, there's never been a more important time to travel. Rick believes the risks of travel are widely exaggerated, and that fear is for people who don't get out much. After years of living out of a suitcase, he still marvels at how different cultures find different truths to be self-evident. By sharing his experiences from Europe, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East, Rick shows how we can learn more about own country by viewing it from afar. With gripping stories from Rick's decades of exploration, this fully revised edition of Travel as a Political Act is an antidote to the current climate of xenophobia. When we travel thoughtfully, we bring back the most beautiful souvenir of all: a broader perspective on the world that we all call home. All royalties from the sale of Travel as a Political Act are donated to support the work of Bread for the World, a non-partisan organization working to end hunger at home and abroad.