The Importance of Curious Attitude in Democracy

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"I just think we sort of have these ideas in our head that uh well you you can't raise taxes because it's going to be disastrous for the economy," he says. "It goes back to that false polarization stuff we started with I mean I am an optimistic person you know by nature but I'm worried about if if we raise taxes to try to have these social programs the whole economy is going to tank and those people are going to be worse off" He adds: "There should just be more of an attitude of who cares whose idea it was let's just see if it works and if it works it works great then let's move on to the next problem"

The democratic ideal demands that the citizenry think critically about matters of public import. Yet many Democrats and Republicans in the United States have fallen short of that standard because political tribalism motivates them to acquire, perceive and evaluate political information in a biased manner. The result is an electorate that is more extreme, hostile and willing to reject unfavorable democratic outcomes.

Shermer and Redmond discuss: why we have political duopoly (Duverger’s law) • parties vs. policies • Are we living in a post-truth, fake-news, alternative facts world? • How do we know political polarization is worse now than in the past? • acquiring, perceiving, and evaluating political information • evaluating: false political information, political numbers and arguments, claims of rigged election • whataboutism • cognitive responsibilities of citizenship • cognitive biases • political polarization • myside bias • numeracy vs. innumeracy • solutions to the polarization problem.

Timothy J. Redmond received his PhD in political science from the University at Buffalo. He is an award-winning educator and author of over one hundred articles on critical thinking and politics. He is a professor at Daemen University where he teaches a political science and history course for education students.