Political Feedback Loops

There is a concept in sociology (as well as in other disciplines) known as the “feedback loop” that skeptic Michael Shermer has gone to great lengths to describe and apply to his rationale for Why People Believe Weird Things (a title of one of his books). In a very rough nutshell, a feedback loop is a scenario where a group of people, relatively insulated from others, tends to congregate and tell each other their special takes on things. Within a feedback loop, there is a tendency to avoid contradictory input while anything contributed that reinforces what is being promoted is accepted. The result is a group of people tending to believe in things that the society as a whole may find extreme, deviant, or just plain weird. This phenomenon is very common within religious groups, but it can extend to politics as well.

And now we come to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his feedback loop. The main problem with Wright, as I see it, is that he has surrounded himself with like-minded people who either echo his sentiments or contribute more input that confirms his opinions, while shunning and even condemning those who hold different opinions. So, as a result, you see this individual giving speeches condemning America or tastelessly ridiculing the Clintons while those around him are both emotionally and intellectually completely in sync with whatever he says. The danger with a feedback loop is that, once you step out of it, you stand a very good chance of being heavily criticized (or even worse, thoroughly ridiculed) for your expressed idiosyncratic views. And this is what has happened with Reverend Wright, to the detriment of Barack Obama’s campaign.

A similar thing happened earlier this year on conservative talk radio. The hosts of these shows have continually highlighted their special pet issues with their own special spins on them. They welcome compliant, agreeing callers while dismissing dissenting callers with insults and name-calling. They also tend to chum around with each other a lot. This is another feedback loop, although in fairness, it must be said that they are not even remotely as insulated as, say---Reverend Wright and his circle. So when it began to look as if John McCain was going to obtain the Republican nomination for President, some of these talk show folks made a spectacle of themselves putting down McCain, even to the point of saying that they would support a Democrat over him. Once they stepped outside of their feedback loop, which was their talk-show circuit, and into the general media, they too, became the object of great criticism and ridicule.

But going back to Reverend Wright, I must say that some of the things that he has been saying tend to mesh with a take on the United States and its behavior in the world arena that their more conservative critics call the “Blame America First” movement. You may have heard some of the names of folks who "line up" this way: Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Cynthia McKinney, and abroad, led by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. In essence this political philosophy, which is reinforced among its adherents through a sort of loose feedback-loop, claims that many, if not most of the world’s problems can be laid at the doorstep of the United States. Also, they tend to claim that the mainstream media has become nothing more than a compliant arm of the government, and that only through “alternative” media can the truth come out. Of course, the idea of promoting a reinforcing source of information to the feedback loop, while discouraging the use of sources that may tend to mitigate any harm that America is doing in the world, just strengthens the loop among those inside it. And separates them more as extremist from the population at-large. Unfortunately, it appears that some close to Barack Obama, including possibly his own wife, may be within this particular loop.

As I have previously written on this blog, I tend to be center-left on the political spectrum. But I watch, listen, and read material from a wide range of viewpoints. I’ve seen how people are seduced by political feedback loops and I want nothing to do with them (except to point them out to others). And if Obama is “in sync” with Hugo Chavez regarding America’s proper role in the world, then I need to know it now rather than later, when it might be too late.