Are we all just stupid? Or are many of us simply racist?

After reading a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend entitled “The Racial Identity of Americans Is Rapidly Blurring. Politics Hasn’t Caught Up”, I decided to write this piece given the racial and polarized animus that has emerged in the runup to the US elections in a couple of weeks. The WSJ article is an excellent description of how the racial categories and descriptions of the various races have blurred in recent years: “the (racial) categories familiar to recent generations—white, Black, Asian, Native American, Native Hawaiian and Hispanic—are dissolving rapidly, yielding to more fluid and complex identities that researchers and politicians are struggling to understand”. I would also add “struggling to accept”.

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As a former South African, growing up in Apartheid South Africa under the dominant control of the Afrikaner National Party government, and as a young 16-year-old track athlete at the time, I became inspired by the Black Power protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games and committed myself to immigrating to the US, which I eventually did in 1973 on a scholarship to Ohio University. I desperately wanted to live in a non-racist country where people of all racial backgrounds could live together and interact in a collegial and respectful manner. It appears that my then youthful “rose colored glasses” missed much of the underlying resistance to the “more fluid and complex” mix of races noted in the WSJ article. Comments made recently by Donald Trump and others about immigrants “Poisoning the Blood of Our Country” is not only a neo-Nazi talking point, but is reminiscent of the Apartheid dialogue I grew up hearing in South Africa. And while South Africa appears to have made progress since the 1994 transition (my son lives in Johannesburg and is married to one of those “blurred race” women – an act that would likely have got them arrested in Apartheid era South Africa), while the ugly and dangerous undercurrent of racism in the US has now bubbled to the surface in plain view. This is seriously dangerous! I have personally experienced the profound damage this kind of belief system can have on a society.

Based on the publication of my recent book “The Crisis of Expertise and Belief” co-authored with Dr Bill Bergquist, I am frequently asked about how this country got to the point of extreme polarization, racism, belief in conspiracy theories, blatant lies and misinformation – Why is it that so many people believe “bullshit” (a scientific term as described in our book)? This is a complex question, but I believe it is one that needs to be discussed and debated to be better understood, and ultimately solutions identified. Our book deals with a number of these topics and references hundreds of research studies, white papers and books on many aspects of this important topic.

I am often amazed while reading the news of the day, that the deeper factors at play in our current polarized social environment are seldom mentioned. These factors and our deep polarization are not recent – this is not a “Donald Trump” issue – these factors go back many decades and even to the early founding of this country.

Our book focuses - in part - on the Authoritarian Personality that describes people who are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, accept misinformation and blindly follow authoritarian leaders and respond positively to their racist and hateful fear mongering. Authoritarians tend to view anyone different from them as dangerous and suspicious, tend to be less educated, have limited critical thinking skills and lack agency. They latch onto strongman leaders who use language such as “Only I” can solve this problem. There is also evidence that people within this profile have a tendency towards racism – their lack of agency stimulates fear of out-groups who may threaten their historically dominant roles in society – the South African Apartheid version of this was referred to as the “Swart Gevaar” – the black danger! The demeaning and dehumanizing dialogue used by Trump and his acolytes is very similar to those of Nazism and South African Apartheid. It should be noted that the authoritarian personality does not refer to specific individuals pe se, but rather populations of people. Also, “authoritarianism” does not refer specifically to right wing conservative people – indeed, left wing extremism fits this description as well.

Many of us have viewed video clips of interviews by journalists with voters who have extreme and often angry responses to questions about their viewpoints. Often, when questioned on the details of their views, it is apparent they have no idea of the facts. While I am far from being an expert, I am frequently amazed at the lack of basic knowledge of many Americans about how, for example, the US government works, how the electoral college system operates or some basic facts about the US Constitution – like, God is not specifically mentioned! David Dunning and Justin Kruger of ?the “Dunning-Kruger Effect” note “we are all stupid, it’s just that some of us are aware of how much we don’t know, and what makes us ignorant”—and are therefore less likely to parade our ignorance.? Most of us have little or no idea about why we think and behave the way we do. Our book includes details on how this phenomenon impacts critical thinking and belief in conspiracy theories, blatant lies and rejection of scientific facts.

The research underpinning the Authoritarian personality profile goes back almost 70 years and was originally conducted in the 1950s by a group of young psychologists at the University of California and a noted philosopher, Theodor Adorno. These researchers found that those people who exhibit Authoritarian Personalities tend to be conservative and uncomfortable with ambiguity and complexity. By contrast, liberal thinkers “think harder”.? Now, more than seventy years later, researchers like Robert Sapolsky (American neuroscientist and primatologist at Stanford University) quotes research suggesting that “leftists” have a greater capacity for “integrative complexity”.

Our book also investigates the role of religion as a stimulus for polarization and sometimes violence, (as was the case in Apartheid South Africa – the notion that Afrikaners were the “chosen people” and ?“mixing of the blood” with “non-whites” would ruin the European races), education – or lack of it, and includes a review of the research into prolific liars and manipulators, and those who tend to believe these lies (“they need to believe!”). We investigate a study of those who have a high “need for chaos”. The “need for chaos” research paints a profile of about 5 percent of the U.S. population, known as “high-chaos” types: “Like most malcontents, these people feel increasingly marginalized. They have an intense need for social dominance and they are angry that they feel they are losing power and influence”. While this profile tends to represent primarily right-wing (white) men who had not obtained a college degree, the extreme left was also represented. “Chaos isn’t owned by one group,” the authors of this study carefully point out. This is also true for Authoritarian Personalities – they are not all far Right extremists – the profile also defines some on the far left.

If you are interested in any of these topics, you may contact me directly by email ([email protected]) or you can read more by purchasing our book at The Crises of Expertise and Belief | The Professional School of Psychology.