In case you missed it, my latest op-ed appeared in Wednesday’s Virginian-Pilot. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words, and the graphic to the left gets to the core of what I was trying to say. I realized, as I was working on the piece and talking to people, that many are not familiar with what a bell curve actually looks like; heck, some only relate the term “Bell Curve” to that book by the same name.
The Boston Globe piece I referenced in an earlier post is really a part of this conversation. By focusing on the extremes, we are less likely to even listen to the other side – and that does not bode well for our future. Somehow, we’ve got to bring the conversation back to the point of common agreement. Then we can try to solve the issues that separate us.
Silence nailed it in his comment:
Once we as a people come to acknowledge and respect the different cognitive frameworks each of us bring to try and understand the world around us, I suspect we’ll actually start to make great strides both in being able to understand complex issues and in respecting points of view which differ from our own.
Republicans and Democrats generally look at a problem from different angles. With few exceptions, neither side is inherently right or inherently wrong; they simply have, as Silence said, different cognitive frameworks. I’m convinced that if we start attacking a problem from the point of agreement, we can get to a resolution on the parts on which we disagree.
Once again, thanks for all the feedback on the op-ed. Whether you agree or disagree with me, the responses make me think. And that’s important to me.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
” I’m convinced that if we start attacking a problem from the point of agreement, we can get to a resolution on the parts on which we disagree. ”
This, which I’d always thought of as the entire point of politics and government, just happens so infrequently now. Partisans on both sides spend so much time demonizing the other side that no one seems to be focused on the underlying problems.
I don’t know that it was the point, but I agree it happens far too infrequently.
Vivian, I really enjoyed your op-ed. It was humorously timely since I’m currently taking statistics, and just learned more about the bell curve and the empirical rule, which is where you get 68% within one standard deviation from the mean.
Great combination of politics and statistics!
Well, I am a numbers gal 😉 Glad you liked it.
The assumption is that the political spectrum is one-dimensional and follows a Gaussian distribution. Neither assumption is correct. Abortion, for instance, does not have a lot of middle ground because there is no middle ground between dead and alive. It is difficult to reduce the n-dimensional space (where n is the number of political issues) into one dimension, because some “conservative” positions, such as those on illegal immigration and abortion, cry for more government power, while others, such as those on business activity and gun control, call for less.
Even if one could reduce the dimensionality of the problem to merely “conservative” and “liberal,” no bills are written to that artificial dimension, but to the dimension of the specific problem. More than likely, there is a double-hump distribution of opinion on that particular issue. So while a particular union member may be a “moderate” because he supports card-check and opposes gun control, he is moderate on neither issue.
Warren — Excellent points.
Vivian, with your editorial, you did two things. You oversimplified, and you catered to conventional wisdom.
Mathematics is a modeling tool. Mathematical predictions work only when we model the real world correctly. That is why Warren challenged your use of the bell-shaped curve. Without justification, you asserted that it correctly models the real world. Warren correctly pointed out that politics is not one-dimensional. People vote for many reasons. On some issues a person may be Conservative. On another that same person may vote as Liberal. And on another issue that person’s stance may defy labeling. Thus, to classify that person politics as one-dimensional is nonsense, rendering the use of a bell-shaped curve as a very rough approximation at best.
In addition, Warren pointed out that your assertion that the political spectrum (Try defining it as one dimensional.) follows a Gaussian distribution is incorrect. However, the assumption did serve an agenda. What the bell-shaped curve allowed you to do is to identify the “extremes” as extreme and to condemn extremists for dominating the discussion. Since you just assumed a Gaussian distribution, why not just assume who is in the extreme?
Anyway, I have no problem identifying myself a Conservative, and I have no problem with other people voicing their opinions. As far I am concerned, such people are just people who care enough to do so. The only problem is that none of us always knows what we are talking about.
For the most part, I see no problem with loud activists. The problem is what the news media chooses to cover. As any Tea Party activist can tell you, when they rally, the news media is missing in action. It seems that extreme behavior is the only thing many in the news media find fit to print or broadcast.
Both of you simply prove my point. Seriously.
And how is that?
Warren: No middle ground on abortion- Not so. Some of us don’t like the idea of abortion. We think it’s wrong. But we also fear giving the government enough power to regulate every pregnancy. And, I suspect that most people in the country wish the poltical class would just shut up about because it’s not something they particularly care about or think about on a daily basis, unlike activists on both sides. So there’s a lot of ground between the poles on that issue.
And abortion actually proves my point. The fringes on both sides believe there is no middle ground – only because they refuse to see it.
That is not “middle ground,” but simply ignoring the truth of the issue.
Warren – From vjp’s point-of-view, it seems that we are extremists. At least it certainly seems that is what she meant when she said:
What most people demonstrate too well is the truth of an old Indian folk tale about six blind men and an elephant.
http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html
Like the blind men we each have limited powers of observation. So none of the blind men had any idea what the elephant was like. But that did not stop them from learning. They were more severely limited by their pride. If they had made a serious effort to compare their observation, they would have gained an understanding closer to the truth.
I really don’t appreciate you putting words in my mouth, Tom. You seem to never visit this blog except to do that kind of thing – in which case, I think you’d be much better off taking it elsewhere.
I feel sorry for both you and Warren, who both seem to think that you have a lock on what “truth” is.
vjp – You run a Democrat blog. I run a Republican blog. We are by your own definition, not mine, on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, on most issues, I expect we are in agreement.
However, politics being what it is, we debate our disagreements, not our agreements. In fact, given the people running the country right now, it is a wonder we have not started shooting each other.
If you want peace, don’t vote for people who insist on running absolutely everything and spending most of our paychecks.
Some truths are obvious. For example, when an abortion occurs, a life ends.
There is a “middle” arguement and preference.
Perhaps one side prefers no abortion in any case. The other extreme position may claim that women’s rights to their bodies and privacy say abortion for any reason or whim is perfectly justified.
A middle arguement may be that abortion is something to avoid, but rape, incest, severe defect, risk to the mother, immediatley following conception, is regrettable, yet understandable and should be legal.
HOWEVER, the fact that there is a “middle” arguement does not in and of itself indicate that it is correct nor incorrect. The only thing self-evident about a middle is that there is a middle that will likely be at least somewhat unpalatable to the extremes.
Safe, Legal and Rare.
There is no other way to get to a mutually agreed-upon policy. Religious folks and Conservatives don’t like it. Liberals and Independents don’t like it either, but recognize that there must be a way.
Safe, Legal and Rare.
Nice stuff on the bell curve Vivian. Stuff I don’t usually think about.
🙂
Thanks!
Really glad to see the Pilot giving you a shot! You are doing a great job. But all ways a guy to bring up the abortion thing, isn’t it?
I always liked and respected Mike Huckabee’s approach to discussing abortion — he always said that he believed life began at conception, but he was quick to point out that life doesn’t end at delivery. From there he would go on to talk about things like prenatal care, child healthcare, welfare and other programs that make it easier for single mothers to raise their children.
The frustrating thing for me about abortion as an issue is that a lot of people talk about the issue as if it exists in a vacuum — the folks waving pictures of dead fetuses on Tuesday are the same people complaining about tax dollars going towards welfare for single mothers on Thursday. I really appreciated that Huckabee wanted to focus instead on compassion and assistance for single mothers. I can’t see myself ever endorsing an end to all abortion (taking that choice away from rape victims is a line I can’t ever cross, as much as I dislike abortion), but I think Huckabee’s the sort of conservative anti-abortion advocate with whom I could find a lot of common ground.
Not sure how this moved from statistics to abortion. But maybe it proves Vivian’s point.
Extreme, “extending far beyond the norm”, seems to indicate there is some sort of statistical distribution. Which one would guess would fall into some sort of a curve. Statistics is valuable in that it trys to provide data, proof of the extremes, not a value placement on those extremes.
What I took from Vivian’s opinion was that knowing the extremes exist, and accepting that more of us are centrists than extremists, should help us work with extremists, and, we hope, help extremists work with centrists to accomplish the goals of all, doing what is best for our community, whether the community is local, state, national, or global.
You got it.
Except that there is no evidence that there are more centrists than extremists. In fact, Vivian recently posted another article about how we are getting more polarized.
Gaussian distributions cannot be fit to all phenomena.
Actually there is evidence. Take a look at the polling data on self-identified Rs and Ds, if you have a subscription to Rasmussen.
Just because you don’t have the evidence doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
And the “more polarized” relates to the self-identification by party as opposed to identifying as an independent.
35.4% Democrats, and 33.0% Republicans.
“Independents” are 31.6%.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/partisan_trends
_IF_ your Gaussian assertion is correct, then the party identification starts at only 0.38 sigma.
If I could interject a sigh of relief into my writing, I would be doing it right now while I type this: not every self-identifying Republican or Democrat represents an extremist. Partisan ID by itself isn’t a reliable way to find the silent moderate majority.
I’d suspect a better way would be a two-dimension graph where the X axis ran from strongly opposed to abortion rights to strongly in favor of abortion rights. The X axis ranks how important abortion is an an issue when deciding between Presidential candidates. Poll from among a universe of eligible voters, and you’ll find the results look something like a bell curve (the people at both ends of the X axis with the strongest opinions are more likely to rank it as one of their top three issues, while it might not make break the top ten for people who don’t believe that 100% of abortions should be outlawed by might favor some restrictions on the proceedure, like a ban on elective partial birth abortions, as well as those who think that a more important discussion is how to limit the number of unplanned pregnancies).
You can do this with a lot of so-called hot-button social issues.
Er, Y axis represents issue weight.
What you are talking about is a histogram, and the y-axis is the count (or percentage) of people who fall within the x-axis bounds each histogram bar.
However, your assertion that the result would look Gaussian is questionable. A survey of girls from several countries gave a bi-modal distribution, with the modes at the extremes: http://www.smartgirl.org/speakout/archives/abort/abortreport.html
And that right there tells me you never read my article.
And there’s no such thing as a “Democrat” blog.
If you want to be taken seriously, start by learning the difference between an adjective and a noun.
No such thing as a Democrat blog? I can only wish.
And goodbye Tom. I will not tolerate people being disrespectful on this blog.
Thanks for the link to http://vapoliticalblogs.com, Vivian.
I enjoy reading your blog, as well as Citizen Tom, among many others.
Some of the reasons that your blog is really worth reading is that you produce good LOCAL content and that, in general, you have kept the comments free of censorship.
The free exchange of ideas, even when the input is something along the lines of, “That position sucks!” is useful, as long as you are showing a fair representation of your actual feedback.
If you go about banning people like Citizen Tom and others who SOMETIMES take a position you don’t like, then you run the real risk of having the blog appear to be just a partisan production.
I am sure that most of your readers can discern the difference between a BS comment and one that has real substance. Don’t ban contributors because they say things that you deem “disrespectful.” Instead, let other readers counter their points with a logical, fact-based counter-argument.
We should invite all ideas into the public square and let the bright light of public examination reveal the merits of each idea, regardless of the source.
Although I am on the Democratic side, I have previously worked for Republicans, Libertarians, Constitution Party candidates and some independents. While none of these sides has a lock on the truth, my experience has taught me that some truths are indeed absolute, while others are quite time and place dependent. For example, an issue where deliberation and compromise would seem the likely solution in time of peace, might call for a quick and decisive action during time of war.
I also find that ban to be disconcerting. Tom may have been a bit rough and both of you took the arguement to the person. I’ve seen far worse.
One of the things I like about your blog in addition to what Mr. Ballance above states, is the realative civility during debate here. I think you are correct in asking people to tone down and stick to the arguement. Being overly partisan and insulting the other party or person hardly makes room for an exchange of real ideas.
Politics is sometimes personal and even though I try not get too heated, you can sometimes read emotion in my posts. Not a bad thing necessarily in moderation. Sometimes we all need to be reminded to resist those natural emotional urges to lash out personally. Sometimes on my part, I get so into several debates and looking for ways to explain my position, that I take on too much and tire. I get a bit cranky and eventually figure out that I need a break from one of my favorite hobbies.
Tom’s point that we debate our disagreements and not agreements is spot on. Put a bunch of Libertarians or Christians in a room and sometimes allies end up in angry fits over who is most pure. Democrats also look like this during primary season.
I would hope that you would rethink that ban. If we all agreed on everything and there was no passion, we’d be left with boredom and a loss of learning opportunities.
“I would hope that you would rethink that ban. If we all agreed on everything and there was no passion, we’d be left with boredom and a loss of learning opportunities.”
The second sentence strikes me as non-sequitur to the first, considering the individual in question; moreover, the second sentence is well-intentioned, but it is also, I feel, overly simplistic. It’s like an accidental perversion of the Hegelian dialectic wherein all that’s necessary to validate an argument is that it be (a) contradictory and (b) passionately held.
Not so; the argument needs to have some merits of its own. Trivial example: the individual in question apparently believes that because some nouns are spelled the same way as corresponding adjectives, all nouns can also function as adjectives. This is demonstrably untrue: the adjective to describe an entrepreneur isn’t “entrepreneur,” it’s “entrepreneurial.” Likewise, the adjective to describe a Democrat isn’t “democrat,” it’s “democratic.”
I don’t understand what the rest of us are supposed to learn just because someone passionately refuses to acknowledge a simple fact of grammar. Likewise, I’m not sure what we’re all supposed to learn from someone who says it would be justifiable and understandable if Americans started trying to kill other Americans on account of who received more votes in 2008. Other than learning that Citizen Tom isn’t qualified to hold a security clearance, I mean.
Personally, I support Vivian’s right to enforce a certain level of civility on her blog by refusing to publish the comments of those who would suggest that it’s appropriate to use violence against other Americans. Indeed, that still seems to be setting the bar awfully low.
Just giving my opinion Silence. I wasn’t trying to prove anything.
To me it would be boring if we did all agree. I do think disagreement can spur one to do more research or soul searching. So, I do think debating disagreements can be educational. Just opinion.
Too be fair, he did make more points than just his use of the word Democrat. I guess that particular comment of his just fueled an already burning fire?
I didn’t see Tom advocate violence. That due to something deleted maybe? On another post?
If so, that’s deplorable. In the Libertarian Party we don’t take any oaths of party loyalty no matter what, like the Republicans do. The only pledge I took stated that I agreed that violence(force) is not acceptable to acheive a political end. Advocating violence is not something that I would find acceptable. That is far more reason to ban than an exchange that got a little heated. So, we agree there then.
Vivian has a right to do whatever she wishes. It is her blog. I simply voiced my opinion which appears to have been made not knowing all of the facts. If he in fact advocated violence, then I withdraw my suggestion for letting him post. I agree that there have been quite a bit of ad hominem exchanges – Open name calling, insulting another’s intelligence, or someone’s psychological health, etc. Sometimes blogs have to be policed by their owners/contributors.
Seriously, I admire Vivian. It is NOT easy running a blog. Especially if you’re the only person adding content. That takes some serious stamina. I only rarely look at other left leaning blogs. Content here is pretty darn good. A very strong Norfolk perspective. I again reiterate what Balance said about some of the highlights of this blog. It is a shame that things get ugly at times. Seems to be a common pit fall of political debate. I guess that is why many suggest not speaking of politics, religion etc. at certain times. Hard to avoid in a political blog. 🙂
I think I’ll take a short break from debating, lol. Cleanse the palate, so to speak.
“I didn’t see Tom advocate violence. That due to something deleted maybe? On another post?”
“However, politics being what it is, we debate our disagreements, not our agreements. In fact, given the people running the country right now, it is a wonder we have not started shooting each other.
If you want peace, don’t vote for people who insist on running absolutely everything and spending most of our paychecks.