Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide

"Keith Payne’s Good Reasonable People feels very timely: it’s a study of partisanship in contemporary America, from the perspective of a social psychologist from rural, Christian Kentucky whose own family splits along political lines. We have, he argues, “psychological immune systems” that swing into action to neutralise information that threatens our self-identity and beliefs. In this way, we may all believe our tribe to be the good, reasonable people of the title—and those who disagree with us to be reckless fools. In truth, he contends, most people don’t really abide by a particular ideology. They might hold conservative views on tax but liberal views on public spending; many hold actively contradictory views, or at least logically inconsistent ones. Most questions of belief—political, religious, moral—also come down to circumstance. He cites the example of two German twins, separated at birth: one grew up Christian in the Hitler Youth, the other was raised in a Jewish-American family. In adulthood they attempted to reunite, but could not overcome their differences in worldview, all of which was entirely down to chance. Next time you jump to debate, says Payne, ask yourself instead: Why do I believe what I think I believe? Why do they? In this way you might be able to walk yourselves backwards to a place of accord. Still, he warns, there’s no easy way out of the political division we find ourselves in."