Public versus Private Convictions
Instincts, intuition, gut feelings, hunches, or whatever you call it, at times, is an appropriate methodology for thought or reflection. I have always suspected that many people are politically dishonest by virtue of wanting positive affiliation with a trendy issue or to fit in with a groupthink, echo chamber, or perceived social cluster.
Housed in Burlington, Massachusetts, Populace is a think tank that blends thought leadership and research. Relative to their study entitled “Populace Insights: Private Opinion in America” they write, “Social pressure to have the “right” opinion is pervasive in America today. In recent years, polls have consistently found that most Americans, across all demographics, feel they cannot share their honest opinions in public for fear of offending others or incurring retribution. This trend is concerning because of the threat that it poses to individual freedoms, community flourishing, and democratic self-government”
The act of “fitting in” by always professing trendy opinion, but not necessarily feeling that way, has been dubbed, “preference falsification.” In today’s apparent culture of intolerance, people truly fear sharing their genuine opinions if that opinion strays, ostensibly, from fashionable or woke perceptions. The fear of reprisal if one does includes cancel culture, censorship, outright neglect, and certainly, self-isolation. A subsequent apology seems to persistently make matters worse.
In most cases or issues, this study reports that there is at least a double-digit gap between public and private opinion and “can result in collective illusions that drive false polarization, erode trust, and hold back social progress.” False polarization is the dividing of people – just imagine, publicly the vast majority, or 65% of people say racism is prevalent in America, but privately that drops to 42%, an antithetical minority.
So what makes an issue trendy or one that intimates cultural virtue? The answer is an abundance of noise with a whimsical, imaginary, moral message attached. Issues, especially abstract issues, are marketed and the issue which is most heard, more often, and is the most boisterous, usually gets their message across. In the Populace study, they use the Napoleon Bonaparte quote, “Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”
In many situations, it’s akin to “große Lüge“ translated from German for the “Big Lie“ which is telling a huge, sometimes colossal, lie often enough that people begin to believe it or, more appropriately pretend to. It was an effective propaganda technique used during the Nazi era.
This, the contention of public versus private opinion, I am confident, extends to climate change. It is difficult to conceptualize that so many people believe in a hypothesis that has no empirical scientific proof. Despite this though, constant promotion supporting the condition and then suppression of science against it, makes it a modish issue to publicly believe in.
At times, I will put one of my commentaries on Facebook. Very few people comment or like the article and I suspect, with Facebook being a “measuring stick” on how woke or trendy one can be, that is to be fully expected. In the 1970’s Billy Joel’s song, Honesty crooned, “Honesty is such a lonely word, everyone is so untrue”, and it certainly hits home in the context of this study. While it may not be everyone, it’s certainly a “double-digit” many.