No, the Elephant I refer to in the title of this post has nothing to do with the mascot of the GOP. Well, almost nothing.
In the book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Religion and Politics, moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt asserts that for all of us, intuition comes first, and strategic reasoning comes second. This is true across cultures, across socioeconomic strata, and across the political spectrum. We all react to information first through our emotions, and then we apply our reasoning to the situation at hand. Not only that, but our emotions are a fairly large proportion of how we process information, even if we view ourselves as very rational people. This occurs outside of our awareness. These emotions are the elephant one which we ride. The rider is our conscious reasoning and is there to serve the elephant, according to Dr. Haidt.
So when people on the Conservative side claim that Liberals just apply their emotions to situations at hand in order to make decisions – guess what? They do too. And when we Liberals call Conservatives out for having reactions that seem a little knee-jerkish to us regarding things like religion and tradition – guess what? They are acting just as we do - on our emotions. Let’s give each other some mutual respect in this arena.
It seems as though people from both sides like to try and shock each other with undeniable evidence that they are correct in how they view the world, as if to say, "Duh, how can you not agree with this fact? This will surely change your mind and if it doesn't, you are an imbecile!" Does this strategy work for you? It doesn't work for me. Incendiary political posts on Facebook serve to polarize people and I doubt it changes a single mind.
We are better able to get our point across if we demonstrate respect for another person's view. If we are dismissive, that's likely to be the attitude we will receive in return. It's like an attitude boomerang.
Quoting Jonathan Haidt:
"...and if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first. If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the "other" group, you'll find it far easier to listen to what they're saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light. You may not agree, but you'll probably shift from Manichaean [good vs. bad] disagreement to a more respectful and constructive yin-yang disagreement."
