The problem is us

And not just with the health care debate. With virtually all political discussions.

Health care debate based on lack of logic

"Heated partisan debate over President Obama's health care plan, erupting at town hall meetings and in the blogosphere, has more to do with our illogical thought processes than reality, sociologists are finding.

The problem: People on both sides of the political aisle often work backward from a firm conclusion to find supporting facts, rather than letting evidence inform their views.

The result: A survey out this week finds voters split strongly along party lines regarding their beliefs about key parts of the plan. Example: About 91 percent of Republicans think the proposal would increase wait times for surgeries and other health services, while only 37 percent of Democrats think so.

Irrational thinking

A totally rational person would lay out - and evaluate objectively - the pros and cons of a health care overhaul before choosing to support or oppose a plan. But we humans are not so rational, according to Steve Hoffman, a visiting professor of sociology at the University of Buffalo.

'People get deeply attached to their beliefs,' Hoffman said. 'We form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.'

And to keep our sense of personal and social identity, Hoffman said, we tend to use a backward type of reasoning in order to justify such beliefs.

Similarly, past research by Dolores Albarracin, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shown in particular that people who are less confident in their beliefs are more reluctant than others to seek out opposing perspectives. So these people avoid counter evidence all together. The same could apply to the health care debate, Albarracin said.

'Even if you have free press, freedom of speech, it doesn't make people listen to all points of view,' she said.

Just about everybody is vulnerable to the phenomenon of holding onto our beliefs even in the face of iron-clad evidence to the contrary, Hoffman said. Why? Because it's hard to do otherwise. 'It's an amazing challenge to constantly break out the Nietzschean hammer and destroy your world view and belief system and evaluate others,' Hoffman said."

The truth is that most political discussions and debates are often seriously flawed and irrational and undermined by both this tendency of thought and, more importantly, our propensity to aggression in lieu of stronger thinking.

It is the heart of my work. And it is a tendency that once we and future generations recognize our failures, on this count, we will look back at such behavior as enormously foolish and counterproductive, very much as we look back at ancestors past engage in similar behavior, especially our most aggressive and least thoughtful and compassionate ancestors, and wonder why on earth we could create so much tragedy in the name of not a damn thing.

Much ado about nothing, as Shakespeare would say.

Or as he would say in Macbeth, and just as well could have said of the great bulk of humanity's more aggressive history "It is a tale...full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

And that is just as good a description as any of our current health care debate and so many our policy discussions that try to substitute aggression for reason, free will, and compassion, the three qualities that are more honestly resonsible for the long length of human progress. Often despite those in power, not because of them. Though that, too, is a complicated and useful tale to study.

Perhaps it is about time we all started studying and engaging it more honestly.