Confirmation bias, confirmation blindness
"Well, East Coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the Southern girls with the way they talk
They knock me out when I'm down there
The Midwest farmer's daughters. . . ."
The Beach Boys, California Girls, 1965
Sometimes the smallest things can make a political point.
We hear what we want to hear.
Today's Guest Post makes a point about confirmation bias. We translate what we hear into our own frames of reference. In our information silos the medium edits and filters for us, but in fact we also do it by ourselves and for ourselves. We take a word like "east" or "south" and put it into our context.
Gerald Murphy encountered this political reality by accident. He is a prolific content creator. He had dashed off a ditty for one of the scores of plays, songs, and musicals he has written. His shows have been performed in over 20 countries. He is a retired high school English teacher. He tells his story below.
Guest Post by Gerald Murphy
Nobody Knows Everything
I’ve written a lot of songs in my life. At least two hundred. My best song was written for a musical I put together for the Siskiyou Performing Arts Center in Yreka. The show was called “The Sex King of Siskiyou County,” and it was an unqualified success for a few 1978 weekends in my small California mountain town. The best song was called “Nobody Knows Everything.”
Here are the lyrics:I think the people from way back east are the people I love the least.
They think they know everything; they think they know everything.[Chorus:
Nobody knows everything like why the birdies sing.
Like why the sky is blue, and why I love you!]And the people from way down south, they kinda suffer from motor mouth/
They think they know everything; they think they know everything. – [repeat chorus]
But the people I love the best are the ones from the great northwest.
You can give them any test; they don’t know anything.[repeat chorus to end]
The song was meant as a filler, and it was written, like almost every successful song I’ve ever written, with lightning speed – maybe fifteen minutes.
Notice that I began with the geographical themes of east and south but failed to find suitable rhymes for “north” and “west,” so I combined north and west. Pure songwriting laziness. Also, the verse on the south suggests southerners have motor mouths. A fitting description of New Yorkers maybe, but I have met very few fast-talking southerners. Also, do I really dislike everyone from "back east"? I was born and raised in Philly, for God’s sake!
The chorus for this song is so insipid and brainless that it deserves no mention.
Yet, despite all these obvious flaws, the song received prolonged laughter and applause each night.
I think I know why now. Friends who heard the song assumed I meant “Los Angeles” or “San Francisco” when my song mentions "way down south.” And they assumed I meant the whole country east of the Sierras when I write “back east.” Also, they knew that the last line was a put down of people living in the city of Yreka (and other people from "the great northwest,”) but they laughed to show what great sports they were. “We can even take it when you mock us because we know you couldn’t possible mean it.”
They gave me a free ride. Heck, they lauded my shallow efforts, some even suggesting my song was "pure genius." How could someone so brilliant write a stupid song?
Likewise, I suspect that some of Trump’s admirers give him a free ride because he couldn’t possibly be as stupid as he sounds. After all, he graduated from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He has his name on all those buildings and wrote that best seller. How could he be stupid? Can’t you see the simple truth? He’s a genius.
His admirers forgive even his most moronic statements and outrageous lies, like when he claims to have a great relationship with African Americans: “I just have great respect for them. And they like me."
Or when he claims he loves women and then says this about Arianna Huffington: [She] “is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man. He made a good decision."
Here is Donald discussing his own bodily pulchritude: “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
I could go on and on here, of course, but nothing he says, no matter how moronic, will dissuade his admirers from their confirmation bias. Is there any hope here? Is there some magic series of events which will help his followers see the light?
I doubt it. Not only do I doubt it, but I know I have my own liberal confirmation biases. I dismiss problems with our southern border. I accept doubtful slogans like "defund the police." I spend hours each day watching MSNBC and CNN, while mocking Fox viewers.
But I do have one saving grace. Unlike conservatives and MAGA extremists, I am right. I am right and I know I am right. The other guys are intellectually lacking, racist, bigoted. But I am warm and sweet and loving. You can go to the east, to the south, and even the great northwest and you will never meet such a wonderfully unbiased soul.