And you may ask yourself: are we too dumb for democracy?
Psychologists Daniel Khaneman and Amos Tversky made a career of examining the poor decisions we make and why we make them. From drafting professional athletes, to calculating simple probabilities and risk, humans are bad at making good decisions because we are vulnerable to a wide array of flaws in the way we think.
We are especially bad at making good political decisions. In his debut book, Too Dumb for Democracy?, David Moscrop tell us why. He adds important layers to the work of Khaneman and Tversky, discussing the cognitive shortcomings we are susceptible to, and that ultimately make us very poor decision-makers in the sphere of politics.
For all the challenges we’ve conquered as a species, our evolutionary biology can be a roadblock to effectively, efficiently, and equitably organizing our societies. Our brains just aren’t designed to achieve political success because the stock model comes with a full tank of implicit biases, relies on hardware that was designed for long-passed eras, is predisposed to taking mental short cuts, and is easily swayed by “media effects” like priming and framing.
It’s not just our brains that are the challenge – we make bad political decisions because of what Moscrop calls our milieu – the conditions we are subject to that shape our lives. Today, our milieu as it relates to politics and decision making includes the ever increasing speed and volume of information available to us (can we really effectively filter through it all?), the immense number of choices we have in front of us, the diversity of views we need to account for and make sense of, and the sheer complexity of the decisions we are tasked with making.
If all this weren’t enough, the institutions that our political life is comprised of, like legislatures, political parties, and the free market, each come with their own set of challenges that serve to impede our ability to make good political decisions. Institutions can be built (or evolve) in ways that concentrate power in places that are inaccessible to those they are ultimately designed to serve – citizens. Therefore political institutions themselves can hamstring the political decision making process by leaving us out in the cold, the levers of power far out of reach.
When it comes to making good political decisions, our brains, our bodies, the internet, advertisers, elections, and partisanship have stacked the deck against us. As Moscrop notes, “the natural order of political life is not progress, it is decay.”
There are ways to avoid decay, and thankfully, Moscrop has a roadmap back to a place where democracy can flourish. The roadmap largely includes promoting ways for citizens to enhance their own awareness and ways to more fully participate in democracy, because, as he notes “those who are significantly affected by a political decision ought to have a chance to influence its outcome.” Enhancing citizen participation is not an easy road and includes changing the way we think about equality and the distribution of resources – participation isn’t free and not all citizens can participate as fully as others.
Staving off democratic decay also includes remedying challenges related to our milieu and our political institutions – for example, slowing down the pace at which we make political decisions and ensuring that media dedicates significant resources to covering specific issues, so as to provide a nuanced understanding of an issue, as opposed to a soundbite.
One of the best solutions offered by Moscrop to make better political decisions and include more people in the process, is to use citizens’ assemblies. Essentially, the idea is to bring together a random sample of citizens to create solutions to a public policy challenge. Government would provide the group with information and access to resources, and time to deliberate and create recommendations which would ultimately be delivered back to government, or to citizens directly for referendum.
Though the system (and our brains) might have flaws, Moscrop reminds us that the onus for change is ultimately on each of us: “Making good political decisions starts with wanting to make good political decisions.”
Not only is Too Dumb for Democracy? a timely read ahead of the upcoming federal election, Moscrop makes it particularly fun as well: describing personified cognitive models that engage with each other at a dinner party, weaving in wry humour that keeps the mood light on heavy topics, and humanizing it all by giving us insight into what makes him tick (the Talking Heads, coffee, and video games, to name a few). Political science literature isn’t known for its ability to inform, excite, inspire, and make us laugh – but Moscrop achieves it all.
Growth requires knowing where your blind spots are. So if you’re interested in Canada, the health of our democracy, and improving the society we currently live in, give this book a read and learn about our collective blind spots so we can fix them together.
Spoiler alert: we aren’t too dumb for democracy, but building a better, more inclusive democracy, where power and resources are shared more equitably, is going to take a bit of work. So as Moscrop challenges his readers, “let’s get to it.”
