The Problem of Political Ignorance

2021 ◽  
pp. 156-187
Author(s):  
Maxime Lepoutre
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Group Cognition ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
Scientific Questions

This chapter turns to the problem that political ignorance poses for democratic public discourse. It is often held (1) that ordinary citizens know too little to engage competently in public debates about politics and (2) that, because of the influence of group identity on political beliefs (or ‘group cognition’), this problematic ignorance is here to stay. The chapter argues that this influential worry fails, because it misunderstands the epistemic function of social group identities. The experiences involved in being a member of a particular social group are epistemically useful for deciding whose political judgment and what political information to trust. This is true even when it comes to scientific questions that bear on political issues, and even when people are dogmatically committed to their group perspectives. So, group cognition constitutes a useful tool for managing and overcoming political ignorance—and, by extension, for defusing the threat it raises for public discourse.

scholarly journals A cross-linguistic analysis of the ‘homework’ metaphor in German and English political discourse

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 609-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Bisiada
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
American English ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
German Newspaper

A frequently encountered expression in political discourse across languages is the assertion that someone has not ‘done their homework’. As the expression is a combination of structural metaphor and understatement, it is a figurative frame that simplifies public debates by presenting complex issues such as economic reforms as simple tasks and stifles critical and consensual political debates by replacing questions of fairness and adequacy with unquestionable moral obligation. In spite of this manipulative force, metaphor research has paid little attention to this metaphor. I investigate its emergence and pragmatic effects in American and German newspaper discourse through the Corpus of Historical American English/Corpus of Contemporary American English and Die ZEIT corpora. Findings for both English and German show that, while the metaphor was originally used for positive self- and negative other-representation, it is now used increasingly often without specifying whether or not someone has done their homework, which is evidence to suggest that it has become accepted in public discourse as a normal way of framing political issues.

scholarly journals Discursive work in resisting stereotypic representations of the Chinese among Chinese students

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Zanne Seng ◽  
Mei Yuit Chan ◽  
Ngee Thai Yap
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Fragmented Self ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Discourse Strategies ◽  
Discourse Understanding ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Discursive Resources

AbstractThe negative effects of stereotyping arising from a victim’s acceptance and internalisation of stereotype identities are well-known. As stereotypes are created and maintained in discourse, understanding how targets of stereotyping employ discursive resources to resist the constraining structures of stereotypic identities imposed upon them can provide insight into the process of stereotyping and contribute to efforts to reduce the threat of stereotyping. We examined the strategies used by targets of stereotyping in contesting stereotypic representations of their social group through the mobilisation of a range of discourse strategies when presented with stereotyping attacks on the group. The findings revealed that stereotypes are subtle in nature and may not be easily recognised and hence, difficult to resist. Participants employed a number of discourse strategies to repair their fragmented self and group identities. However, in their attempt to maintain identity coherence, they ended up using stereotyping discourses themselves to devalue the perceived outgroup as well as subgroups they created within their own social group. The study highlights the complexity of stereotyping and its self-perpetuating character, and sheds light on the difficulty faced by targets of stereotyping discourse in reconciling their identities through intense discursive and identity work.

Het publiek in de tribune : vormen van politieke informatie

Res Publica ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-470
Author(s):  
Guido Dierickx
Keyword(s):  
Social Problems ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Discriminating Power ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Rules Of The Game

This contribution should be seen as an attempt to retrieve information from restcategories, such as «does not know» and «no answer».  From these, and from other data as well, we constructed 10, mostly summating, indexes of political ignorance. Among them is an index of objective ignorance, that is about political events, persons and situations.  The others aim at more subjective dimensions. Does the respondent feel informed about the political process : about government and party performance, partisan congeniality, modalities of voting, local politics social problems, political issues ?There seems to be some evidence in favor of the following hypotheses.1. The indexes tend to compensate each other: respondents who score low on one index, do not necessarily score low on the next one.2. I t is difficult to ascertain the validity of an index of objective ignorance. Moreover it does by no means express all the (relevant) dimensions of political information.3. A mong indexes of subjective ignorance one should distinguish between «policy» and «political» information ; the latter seems to refer to a situation where strictly political rules of the game, a.o. those of political conflict, prevail.4. Of all indexes the «political issues» index showed the most discriminating power, as well as the most expected associations.

Le Bon’s crowd psychology and post-truth

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Dusko Prelevic
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Crowd Psychology ◽  
Philosophical Community

The phenomenon of post-truth, in which truth (or facts or the best scientific evidence) is brushed aside in public debates, has recently caught the eye of many philosophers, who typically see it as a threat to deliberative democracy. In this paper, it is argued that Gustave Le Bon?s remarks on crowd psychology, which had been very popular in past (and brushed aside later on), might be relevant for a better understanding of psychological mechanisms that lead to post-truth. According to Le Bon, crowds are often irrational, whereas those who try to convince them to do something should use specific techniques of persuasion, such as affirmation, repetition, contagion and prestige, of which the last one can be undermined either by fiasco (the fastest way), or by critique (a bit slower, but nonetheless effective way). It is the age of posttruth that goes towards the neutralization of any critique (Le Bon himself considered such neutralization devastating for democratic societies), which has been, according to some authors, affected to a great extent by technological innovations in media, such as social media that some authors consider anti-social due to their negative impact on society. I argue that Le Bon?s insights might be useful to members of scientific and philosophical community in their attempts to eliminate the spreading of quasi-scientific views in public discourse.

scholarly journals Social Media and Youth’s Political Activism: Emergence of a Networked Public Sphere in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 64-82
Author(s):  
Dr. Qasim Mahmood ◽  
Dr. Kasim Sharif ◽  
Zarmina Gull
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Networked Public Sphere ◽  
Politically Active

Social media has become a central component of modern society and politics around the world including Pakistan. The paper attempts to examine the influence of political activism among social media-savvy youth in highlighting the political issues of Pakistan. This paper examines how Pakistani youth’s political activism via social media gives rise to an emergent-networked public sphere. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 403-university students aged 18-29 to examine their social media use and political engagement. Findings of the survey show that public discourse on social media, driven by Pakistan’s networked youth, is a growing force that political players and pundits must reckon with. The paper concludes that politically active youth make use of social media to discuss political issues, highlight problems besetting the country, which generates a public discourse, put pressure on government and politicians to take action that ultimately bears influence upon politics and governance in Pakistan.

scholarly journals En opplyst samtale: Om rettsvitenskapens oppgaver i kriminalpolitikken

2017 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Holmboe
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Political Decisions

English title: Title in English: An enlightened public discourse: On the tasks of legal research regarding criminal politicsWhat are the primary tasks of legal research regarding the politics of crime? Political decisions on crime are decided and executed by politicians, the courts and administrators. Researchers should not avoid politically hot issues, but must take care not to let their political sympathies influence their statements when they give opinions qua legal experts. Academic freedom implies a duty for researchers to take part in enlightened public debates.

The Legal Construction of the Notion of Anti-White Racism in France

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-155
Author(s):  
Mathias Möschel
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
White Racism ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Legal Construction

This article focuses on the legal construction of the notion of anti-White racism in France. By analyzing cases litigated under criminal law, it describes how a right-wing NGO has been promoting this notion via a litigation strategy since the late 1980s, initially with only limited success. Public debates in mainstream media in the 2000s and intervention by more traditional antiracist NGOs in courts have since contributed to a creeping acceptance of anti-White racism both within courtrooms and in broader public discourse. This increased recognition of anti-White racism is highly problematic from a critical race and critical Whiteness perspective.

Nutzen von Erfahrungswissen in Krisen.

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-139
Author(s):  
Janina Barth ◽  
Andrea H. Schneider-Braunberger
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Business Reporting ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
The Media ◽  
German Newspaper ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Historical References

Abstract It appears to be almost self-evident that most people look towards past experiences for guidance during times of crisis. We would like to consider the empirical evidence for this assumption by analysing the public discourse regarding the reactions to crises, which includes general reporting, statements from politicians or discussions in the media. The outbreak of the Corona pandemic in Germany, starting in March 2020, opens the possibility to collect several preliminary findings by analysing relevant press coverage in the newspapers. Articles from different sections of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) and from the Handelsblatt were evaluated. As our main interest focuses on economic historical (not e. g. medical historical) research questions, we chose the F.A.Z. First, because its business reporting is important within the German newspaper environment in general. Second, because its reporting on the Corona pandemic was award-winning. Additionally, we focused on the Handelsblatt because the newspaper provides press coverage explicitly on financial, business, and political issues – all subjects directly affected by the Corona crisis. The analysis concluded that there was a rise in articles with historical references in general while the number of articles linked to businesses did not increase at the same time which can be linked to the absence of expert business history opinions on offer.

scholarly journals ‘Embarrassing the State’: The ‘Ordinary’ Prisoner Rights Movement in Ireland, 1972–6

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 388-410
Author(s):  
Oisín Wall
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Penal System ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Prisoner Rights ◽  
Penal Reform ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Emerging Issues

This article explores the early years of the campaign for ‘ordinary’, not politically-aligned, prisoners’ rights in Ireland. It argues that this campaign has often been overshadowed by the activities of ‘political prisoners’, who only constituted a small minority of prisoners in the period. The article follows the development and changing tactics of the ordinary prisoners’ movement, through the rise and fall of the Prisoners’ Union (PU) (1972–3) and into the early years of the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation (PRO) (1973–6), which would become the longest-lasting and most vocal penal reform organisation in Ireland, until the formation of the Irish Penal Reform Trust in 1994. It argues that the movement constantly adapted its tactics to address emerging issues and opportunities. Ultimately, it contends that by 1976 the PRO was an increasingly legitimate voice in Ireland’s public discourse on prisons. It shows that, although the campaign did not achieve any major penal reforms in this period, it had a significant impact on public debates about prisons, prisoners’ mental health, the failures of the penal system, and prisoners’ entitlement to human rights.

Toward a Methodology and Public Discourse of Christological Concreteness: Lessons from a Discussion of Health Care Rationing in the United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-364
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Health Care Rationing ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Care Rationing ◽  
Public Health Expenditures

Abstract A recent passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has once again sparked fierce public debates within the United States over the permissibility of health care rationing. Unfortunately only a handful of public theologians have addressed this issue, and those who have often fail to draw upon Jesus’ ethical praxis. This article corrects this lacuna by offering a clarifying theological analysis and defence of one form of rationing, known as Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), through a proposed method of Christological concreteness. The article begins by outlining which CER provisions are included in the ACA, and then discusses how they will re-shape US public health expenditures in the future. An examination of Richard Land’s and Jim Wallis’s theological evaluations of rationing is used to demonstrate that, while each is helpful in some respects, both omit the moral saliency of Jesus. To correct these shortcomings, the article draws upon some recent methodological trends within Christian ethics and devises a Christological method based upon a synthesis of integrative, canonical, reiterative, embodied and incarnational variables. Finally, a critical analysis of Allen Verhey’s discussion of health care rationing explains why his approach not only provides a compelling justification for using CER but also a preferable approach for public theology.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document