There’s hope for us (you) yet

Partisans, our hard-wiring for polarization, and the possible antidote.

Many of us are partisans. 

By my definition, a partisan is someone who believes (although few may admit) that they couldn’t possibly be wrong about a political issue. The partisan’s stance is unwavering; there is a right and a wrong, often framed in moral terms. And this denial of fallibility isn’t necessarily obnoxious or even conscious. Often, we don’t realize we’re thinking like a partisan.

Take Sarah, who believes abortion is murder. Her political tribe is militantly committed to this view, and she’s unlikely to reconsider, no matter new evidence. Or Bob, who supports DEI initiatives, believing rolling them back would be societal regression. Both hold moral framings that leave little room for doubt.

And the more polarized the issue, the more partisan someone likely is. In this way, partisanship is less of a status and more of a trait; we may be more partisan on some issues than others. 

So, yes, maybe you’re not always a partisan—just sometimes.

So what? What do you propose?

Partisanship, rooted in cognitive biases, is human nature. But with rising polarization, it’s clearly destabilizing societies. Political discourse today is rife with animosity and intolerance; folks across the spectrum recognize something needs to change.

Every year or so we see a new elite consensus on the path forward. Fact-checking, new systems of content moderation, “pre-bunking”, tackling the far-right, a focus on “information integrity”. In time there comes recognition that many of these efforts fell short, or worse, actually can polarize people more. Eventually when the hype dies down, there’s usually an acceptance that these solutions are not the panaceas initially proclaimed. 

Contrary to what it seems, however, hope is not lost. There is remarkable space to respond to partisanship and polarization on an individual level when we get outside threatening or tribal environments. 

The first step is just to take a step back. To take a breath. Heated political debate and moral grandstanding easily distract us from calm and collected reflection. 

In a calm state, it’s not hard for most of us to acknowledge that the vast majority of our so-called opponents want good too. The other side is not evil, nor uniquely stupid or naive (insert other partisan insults here). 

And we need way more intellectual humility. That means what it sounds like: an acceptance that you could be wrong, and that your understanding is limited. 

That includes increased awareness of human fallibility and biases. It also includes recognition that human biases apply to all of us, the political left and right. To be sure, cognitive biases can manifest differently across political groups. But it is a grave mistake to only catch the cognitive biases in action of one political side, as some academic work has. Nonetheless, there is growing recognition of intellectual humility’s potential in scholarly work as well.

Supplementary Solutions

Although intellectual humility seems to be the most promising and comprehensive, there are other supplementary solutions, stemming from an emphasis on empathy, and a byproduct of that, tolerance. 

It would take careful deliberation, but we probably should limit and disincentivize political or otherwise polarizing discourse online. Political discussion should be brought offline. Otherwise we need to humanize our online forums much more. Relatedly, we already see some platforms moving away from hosting political content. 

Likewise, concepts such as ‘Middle Ground’ by the popular YouTube Channel Jubilee (but definitely not the ‘Surrounded’ series), have the potential to humanize political opponents by providing a platform for calm exposition of the reasons behind our opinions. 

However, as with most online debates, these videos could do with a lot more nuance. One idea is to have capable persons on each political ‘side’ explain their stances on a scale from simple to complex, drawing from the media outlet  WIRED’s ‘5 levels’ YouTube series, where professors explain a concept like gravity to a kindergartner up through to a fellow expert. The idea here is not only exposure to different perspectives, but deeper explanations of why people believe what they believe, without opportunities for ‘gotcha’ retorts or debating. 

The Hard Part 

On an individual level, these solutions are highly effective. But America makes up nearly 350 million individuals. Change across society will be slow. It will also be hard.

It’s hard because as the majority among us, the partisan’s favoured mode of conversing, debating, is the default as well. Yet, forums that incentivize triumph instead of a greater common understanding, only polarize us more. 

Likewise, it’s hard, as most media, political movements and figures benefit from polarization. And that is a problem unto itself.

And it’s hard because it’s not our human nature; partisanship is sort of in our DNA.

Be that as it may, intellectual humility might just be the gene mutation we need. Evolution, after all, favours adaption.