Recently, (financial import tax). The criticism was technical, without hostility or political breakup. Even so, it picked up on both sides. To the right, it was a contradiction: how does someone sympathetic to the government dare to criticize it? To the left, he became a traitor, economist at Faria Lima. The content mattered little. The only question was if he was still on the right side.
This kind of reaction helps to understand what is expected today of political behavior. Coherence became proof of loyalty. A surveillance criterion. What is at stake is not the merit of the idea, but the alignment with the group.
Jonathan Haidt starts from the observation that people with distinct political guidelines organize their opinions based on different moral intuitions. It identifies five recurring moral foundations and applies questionnaires to thousands of participants to measure their strength.
The conclusion is that progressives tend to prioritize care and justice, while conservatives also activate loyalty, authority and purity. This helps to explain why positions that seem contradictory in the light of logic are lived as coherent within certain groups. What holds the package is not the connection between ideas, but the value they drive.
Geoffrey Layman and Thomas Carsey analyze the consolidation of closed ideological packages over the last few decades. In a study based on legislative data and surveys, they identify a process called the extension of conflict, in which parties began to associate various themes in the same alignment block.
Matters such as abortion, environment, foreign policy and public safety, which could be debated separately, began to operate as ideological marks. The voter does not adhere to each of these positions after long reflection. He adheres to the package, because that was the format offered by the elites.
This logic is repeated in different topics. How is it possible to defend rights while expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people? On the other hand, how can someone who says a Christian support the mass deportations made by Trump? Coherence is charged not to promote understanding, but to disbelief the opponent. “Look like so -and -so is hypocritical!”
However, leaving this trap is possible if there is disposition. In a recent episode of conversation with Bial, two evangelical leaders agreed to talk about the excesses of the field itself. Gutierres Siqueira, conservative, criticized the cult of violence and aggressive rhetoric of the right. Already Ava Santiago, feminist councilor, pointed to moral arrogance and the difficulty of recognizing legitimacy in the other. Neither tried to look flawless. They were open to the dialogue.
It is part of the task. But it is not enough. The public debate does not improve in the denunciation of the hypocrisy of others. You have to keep trying to advance on merit. Convince with data, with appeal to reality, with sensitivity to the values of the other. If I advocate commercial opening, for example, I get nothing accusing the interlocutor of ideological inconsistency.
What can work is to show how it affects your life, your income, your community. Connect the argument with something that makes sense in its identity. Because, in the end, the conversation has only a chance when politics is again dispute with ideas capable of improving people’s lives.
Submitting the other is easy. It is difficult to build an argument that tells those who think differently. But it’s worth it, even if no one applauds.
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