Reagan's greatness? (spamfree)

[VonDondu]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]These are all emotional arguments. These arguments all go in the direction of Reagan making Americans feel good about themselves and their country.

Conclusion: Reagan made us feel good.

No matter the cost of other people's lives. Reagan made some Americans feel good and proud of their country in a patriotic way. Therein lies his "greatness".[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, I'm late in contributing to this thread, but I could have told you what you said above. But I think it needs some clarification.

First of all, Reagan was a divisive figure, and not all American's think that he was great. But as a rule, his supporters tend to think that he was great, and no factual arguments will change their minds. They have amnesia, but it goes beyond that. Reagan was their man, so he was a good man, and good people never do bad things, so everything he did was above reproach as far as they're concerned.

This goes back to what we were talking about in "A Nation Divided". George W. Bush appeals to people for some of the same reasons that Reagan appealed to people. To a Bush supporter or a Reagan supporter, "He's our man. He defeated the Democrats and gave our country back to us. This is how things should be. He makes us feel proud. We have the power now, and the Democrats can kiss our ass. Let them whimper. We will make our enemies weep. Don't bother us with facts; we have faith. We have the power, and that's all that counts. God, I love this country." It's as simple as that.

[C Elegans]

Unfortunately, I'm late in contributing to this thread, but I could have told you what you said above.

Yes, I suppose you are right...however, to draw the conclusion that an opinion is based on fantasies and not facts, is something I would not do until I had at least tried to penetrate the subject closer. There could for instance be some actual events that were of large domestic importance, that I was not aware of. The last couple of years of Reagan's president period was at the same time as I was spending a lot of time in very remote areas with no media contact, so I could have missed out on some specific details.

To a Bush supporter or a Reagan supporter, "He's our man. He defeated the Democrats and gave our country back to us. This is how things should be. He makes us feel proud. We have the power now, and the Democrats can kiss our ass. Let them whimper. We will make our enemies weep. Don't bother us with facts; we have faith. We have the power, and that's all that counts. God, I love this country." It's as simple as that.

I suppose I am still somewhat in denial, but I start to realise that the political views of this part of the US population, should be viewed more similar to religion that to how I am used to view politics. Politics in this case is part of personal identity in a way that I have never seen elsewhere in the world save a few theocracies and the former communist states China and Soviet, where some people identified with political ideology and made it part of their own mind that they would not reject no matter what happened.

In the former Soviet Union, a vast majority of people knew they were being manipulated by the government and the government controlled media. Those who didn't however, reacted with deep bitterness, regret and often depression, to the discovery that they and millions of others had been manipulated all these years. It is such a fundamental blow to your world view as well as to your person, so I totally understand that some people never recover fully from.

Those of you who read PIPA's report that half of the US population believe that Iraq had WMD:s and that Iraq provided substantial support to Al-Quaeda, may remember that the investigators thought the findings could be explained according to the cognitive dissonance theory.

Stanford social psychologist Leon Festinger introduced the cognitive dissonance theory in 1957, and very simplified, it says that when a person is experiencing conflicing cognitions (such as "I feel good on drugs" and "but drugs are dangerous"), the person will strive to decrease the internal conflict, ie the dissonance, by a variety of different "smoothing" operations that decrease contradictions.

To use a schematic example, ways to reduce dissonce and increase consonace, may look something like this:

Reagan did nothing wrong (eliminating the dissonant cognition by refusing to believe in some information)

Reagon did many great things such as making us feel good about ourselves and our country, forcing the downfall of Soviet Union (adding consonant cognitions whether they are correct or incorrect)

Reagan did some bad things, but hey, doesn't everybody? He was certainly not as bad as the communists (reducing the importance of the dissonant cognition by downplaying the bad things he actually did).

The great things Reagan did (like making the Soviet union fall and making US economy prosper) overshadows the bad things he did in Central America (increasing the importance of consonant cognitions by overvaluing the good things he did).

I think Reagan was great and that he contributed to Soviet's fall. You think Reagan was bad, and that he did not contribute to Sovient's fall. Well, those are just opinions, nobody knows the truth (introduction of third factor, ie "there is no truth, only opinion".)

I said elsewhere that I didn't believe cognitive dissonance theory could explain how people could avoid presented facts (such the Duelfer report) and instead believe in imagination (that the Duelfer report actually concluded Iraq had WMD:s), but I must review that. I think I am now finally starting to figure out how this is possible with the combination of high variability in the population, high variability in quality of education, a propagandistic media apparatues, polarisation from the authorities, the power of religion and cognitive dissonance paradigm. I wonder if this development is coming soon to a European near me? Part of is of course already here and part of it has been here always, but the entire package has some really dangerous synergy effects I think.

If so, I'd better prepare to build a PET-lab in Papa New Guinea.

[fable]

CE, I do think making citizens feel good about their nation isn't a bad thing. Depending on how it's done, it can reduce inter-cultural tensions and even calm violence. This doesn't make a "feel good" president a great president, by any standards I'm aware of, but it is a desireable quality in a leader along with other traits of leadership. Reagan was to an extent very fortunate in having a cowering press media, subdued by his second term results, which never questioned any Reagan decision. As a result, the "good times" seemed unbroken by the sharp edges of reality: the bungled international affairs, the homeless, borderline psychotics dying on the streets, the tax cuts that went to the wealthiest Americans, etc.

So it was a valuable quality Reagan possessed, but I don't think this "feel good" atmosphere was buttressed by any substantial measures to improve the actual condition of Americans along with their mood. To the contrary, if we look at America during the Reagan years, it was characterized by a spend-and-spend mentality, a disregard for those less fortunate, and the beginnings of a zealous unilateralism that would blossom under Dubya's administration with some of the same gore people.