In a Christmas-time post here at WFTC, I alluded to hyper-partisan people not having much tolerance for ambiguity. My theory is that these dullards can’t entertain — even in a brief, hypothetical sense — thoughts that stray from their specific cluster of swarm “intelligence.”

The usual suspects are Sean Hannity, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, Rush Limbaugh, Rosie O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann and Sarah Palin. Opposing viewpoints are so repugnant to these braying jackasses and chirping pipsqueaks that their minds will not even explore the possibility of a “bad” idea’s hidden or obscured merit.

To be clear, I don’t deny that much of life can be delineated as “right” or “wrong.” And I would hate it if discourse became a relativistic crapshoot…a safe house for political androgyny. That would diminish the quality and effectiveness of a constitutional republic.

Still, doesn’t it seem like a lot of far-right and far-left types have glaring cognitive deficiencies? A 1985 paper by Herbert McClosky and Dennis Chong called “Similarities and Differences Between Left-Wing and Right-Wing Radicals” noted:

Although the conventional view holds that the two camps diverge sharply and belong at opposite ends of the continuum, some observers believe that they resemble each other so closely in certain crucial political and psychological characteristics that to classify them at opposite poles is grossly misleading.

Recently, at a blog called the Monkey Cage, John Sides gave a nice synopsis of McClosky and Chong’s work. He mined this relevant quote:

Both camps possess an inflexible psychological and political style characterized by the tendency to view social and political affairs in crude, unambiguous and stereotypical terms. They see political life as a conflict between “us” and ‘them,” a struggle between good and evil played out on a battleground where compromise amounts to capitulation and the goal is total victory.

While the McClosky/Chong study seems motivated by truth rather than bias, current studies may not be so objective. In a 2008 article at Slate, Daniel Engber wrote about new alliances of scientific researchers and political strategists. These goons, dubbed “neuropundits” by Engber, deliberately arrive at unflattering conclusions about their political nemeses. They then market their propaganda to the world’s most gullible people — professional journalists. Note:

The most industrious among them have already begun to spin off private consulting firms, like Drew Westen’s Westen Strategies, that hawk spurious science back to the party establishment. Consider high-powered Democratic strategist Bill Knapp, who joined up with former Clinton aide Tom Freedman to create FKF Applied Science, a neuromarketing firm that’s already managed to get its bogus electoral brain-scans into the New York Times and the Atlantic.

These guys are selling junk. And it looks like the Democrats are their customers.

From where I sit, this is an absolute abomination, a betrayal of science. And I’m not the only who is disturbed. Gary Ruskin, co-founder of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit watchdog, warned the Associated Press in 2004 about the perverse misuse of brain-scan technologies:

This is the story of the corruption of medical research. It’s a technology that should be used to ease human suffering, not making political propaganda more effective.

Ugly stuff, for sure. And I have lots more to say about it. But let’s stroll back to the notion of ambiguity.

I’ll posit that a low ambiguity tolerance reveals a flaw in one’s ability to think critically.  I’ll posit further that a high ambiguity tolerance can be a sign of genius. Perhaps such genius can extend to all spheres of life — all vocations.

Take the late Jaco Pastorius, one of the greatest bass players of all time. In the book This Is Your Brain On Music: the Science of a Human Obsession, author Daniel J. Levitin describes Jaco’s greatness in the context of recording sessions with Joni Mitchell. An excerpt (emphases mine):

The brilliance of Jaco, Joni said, is that he instinctively knew to wander around the possibility space, reinforcing the different chord interpretations with equal emphasis, sublimely holding the ambiguity in a delicate, suspended balance. Jaco allowed Joni to have bass guitar on her songs without destroying one of their most expansive qualities. This, then…was one of the secrets of why Joni’s music sounds unlike anyone else’s — its harmonic complexity born out of her strict insistence that the music not be anchored to a single harmonic interpretation.

Maybe I’m reaching with this, but I think a lot of people need to stop anchoring themselves to completely static positions, to “single harmonic interpretations.”

Finally, I’ll argue that one other tool unused by partisans is the initial, important assumption that one’s own viewpoint is incorrect. Christopher Hitchens recently unleashed this bit of counterintuitiveness on some academics here in Portland.  While sparring over dinner, Hitchens said (again, emphasis mine):

…take the risk of thinking for yourself and making the first assumption that you’re probably wrong. More pleasure, more innovation, every innovation, every discovery, every humanistic emancipation has come from that.

Bingo! I couldn’t agree more.

Hitchens then rescued a homeless cat:

After three hours of battle, the dinner party dispersed. Hitchens, fortified by bourbon and still gyroscopically cradling a glass of wine, took a cab to his hotel. But as he finished a cigarette outside the Heathman, one Portlander managed to find a way into the pundit’s heart.

“I love tabbies!‚” Hitchens exclaimed as an orange feline wound figure eights through his legs. “It doesn’t have a collar—what are we to do?”

And with that, cigarette still smoldering, wine glass not yet empty, Christopher Hitchens scooped up the cat and strolled into the hotel lobby.

That cat is fortunate in many ways. For one thing, it will never have to contemplate the objectivity of Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, whose recent findings will embolden lefty motormouths all over the globe.

Thanks, Doc. The world really needed that.

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