talking politics

I am always intrigued when I hear someone who is either staunchly conservative or staunchly liberal. To hear them talk either Hillary Clinton or Dick Cheney are the physical incarnations of Satan himself.

I am not going to act like I am perfectly objective or that I don't have some strong political opinions. I do have strong opinions about specific things. What I don't understand is the assumption that anyone who agrees with me on issue x is great and anyone who doesn't is the scum of the earth or at least a blathering moron. How selfish or selfless, honest or dishonest, smart or stupid a person is has absolutely nothing to do with political party.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't usually like talking politics on my blog or in life. Such conversations are very rarely constructive because people simply don't often have open minds about politics.

Ignoring the wisdom of avoiding politics, though, I noticed a blurb in the Kansas City Star earlier this week about a study that tested how an extremely partisan person's brain works. Essentially, people who labeled themselves as staunch Republicans or staunch Democrats were shown to have reduced activity in rational portions of the brain when presented with evidence that contradicted their love for a specific candidate. The blurb was interesting enough that I searched around the Internet to find more information about the study online. This article is hilarious to me just because I know that I have seen this behavior in action. The thought that the politically polarized are simply shutting down part of their brains so they don't have to think about something they disagree with really fits.

What I love about this study, though, was that it was not slanted either toward the Republican or the Democrat. The partisans from one party aren't somehow more open-minded or smarter than the partisans from the other party. In fact, based on what I read, I would say that a person who holds that view is probably exercising the same brain activity as the people in the study.

So, next time you are in an argument with someone about whether Dubya Bush is an idiot or whether Bill Clinton is a shyster just call it a draw. Your opponent is probably very literally a dead-head at that moment. You probably are too. There's no point in proving it.