Quote:
Originally Posted by PR_Glen
Your country is run on something a lot bigger than a sole political party. This is a good thing. Once you step away from the team sports mentality the bigger picture becomes more clear. One side does not differ much from the other and this good vs evil debate is purely imagined. Stop perpetuating the divide...
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You are very very right.
And completely wrong.
The "team sports" is an evolutionary trait. What your witnessing is how your brain itself functions when making decisions. If i introduce the idea of eating a piece of cake to you, your brain lights up with every possible argument for and against being made. You only then become consciously aware of the winning 1-2 arguments. It is that flurry of activity in looking at the 1,000,000 pros and cons that helps you arrive at a situation which does not directly jeopardize you or your genetic offspring. And of course, before you eat the cake, the voice that won saying "this is a great idea" is loudest. After you've eaten it, the voice that says "you're now going to pay for this" is loudest. It is this very thing that you are witnessing in politics.
It's often refereed by neuroscientists as the "team of rivals framework"
People might think that "Liberal vs Conservative" is a US Political thing... but it exists across all cultures and all socioeconomic strata and has been studied extensively in psychology. It's all rooted in a few basic moral values and what is valued by each side and to what extent.
Why two sides?
Evolution has led to a fantastic solution to a complex problem with it's usual elegance and simplicity. Two sides... define the center.
Why are both sides blind to the views of the other?
It requires furious debate of those two sides to define the center. You can't have this unending argument if both sides are capable of seeing and understanding the other. In fact, we have some built in biases which even tend to make the other appear as they have almost evil and immoral intentions, which in turn throws gas on the flame.
Why do we need this?
As animals, we cooperate like no other species. We are successful as a group like no other. For a group to survive, dissent, even when things are going great means that someone is always going to be sounding the alarm about something, which is then argued and debated. It is when we don't sound the alarm. When someone isn't raising there hand saying "this is a horrible idea, because..." is when entire groups march to their death.