How to Form a POLITICAL OPINION—AP Government Review

hi everybody welcome back to homeless history US government edition now in case you hadn't noticed people tend to have strong opinions on political matters and in this video I want to try to explain where political opinions come from well when a daddy political opinion really loves a mommy political opinion they get together nope shut that down now the reason why we need to talk about where political opinions come from is because if we understand where they come from and how they form then we are better able to understand how to form our own political opinions and here's why this is really important the way things are today like if you find yourself in a social situation if people start talking politics there is an expectation that you will have a fully formed political opinion on every issue no matter how obscure hey man how do you feel about America's policy about 4 and a 2 News Becca stands oh man how do you think I feel I mean I really feel something it we'll see you later what's Uzbekistan is that a restaurant so we're expected to have a fully formed opinion on every issue but here's the dirty little secret that we carry around with us we don't but since that pressure is there and it's very real we end up fighting people about things that we don't even know about and frankly don't even care about and that is crazy so I'd like to do in this videos to try to bring a little sanity to this whole realm and to do that we need to first consider why people's political opinions matter second we're gonna look at the two different kinds of political opinions and then third we're gonna try to apply all of this so first in the realm of politics do people's opinions really matter and the answer is yes and here's why reason number one whether people's opinions are based in reality or not those opinions drive people's political actions number two politicians and parties actually change their behavior based on the opinions of people reason number three people's opinions can explain policy outcome so in general if people want more government intervention government spending increases and vice versa so no matter how ill formed people's political opinions are they are powerful and therefore important precisely because they inspire action by second let's look at the two kinds of political opinions so the political scientists who study these things basically classify opinions into two camps there are pre opinions and there are opinions formed on the spot and I'll tell you real quick what the first one is and then we'll spend some more time on the second pre formed opinions are rooted in broad values that apply to big issues and usually these opinions fall along the spectrum from liberal to conservative so preformed opinions maybe won't help you answer the very specific question about four and a 2news bukistan but preformed opinions will answer the broader philosophical questions like to what degree should the government be involved in the lives of its citizens if you're on the more conservative side you'll say the less the better if you're on the more liberal side you'll say more government people's lives can be a very good thing okay so that's what we mean by preformed opinions what about opinions formed on the spot these are the opinions that come out at a party when someone asks you a political question or these are the opinions that come out when somebody asks you a question on a survey and you have to say something you don't want to look like a fool and say nothing and most political opinions fall into this category for example what if I asked you your opinion on climate change you could probably actually give me some kind of answer which would line up with the Republican platform or the Democratic platform but come on I mean let's just have a moment here like hey can y'all I need y'all oh yeah go ahead and go I need the room for a second can y'all clear out for just a second all right I think people are gone so it's just you me it's just let's just hey let's just be honest have you really done the research on climate change like how many hours have you actually devoted to really studying this topic and how far have you looked into the data of the climate science and how qualified are you to make sense of that data I mean come on let's just admit it this is a very complex and complicated issue and if you're like most people in America me included you haven't done the research you're not qualified to interpret the scientific data but you have an opinion on it nonetheless that's a really fascinating question is okay if you don't know about it if you haven't learned about it then how is it that you've formed that opinion like when somebody asks you to have an opinion on something and you haven't learned about it you haven't studied it you're not drawing on you're learning to have that opinion so where is it that you're drawing from what political scientists say is that we basically draw from five different Wells and I want to talk about all five of them now first well that you draw from in order to form a political opinion is socialization we tend to learn our political beliefs from our parents so in general Republicans beget Republicans and Democrats begin Temma Kratz additionally we learn our views from pastors and friends and neighbors and teachers so when someone asks us to form an opinion on the spot the first well we draw from is what have I been taught about this the second well we draw from is events when terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers on September 11th 2001 citizens were more willing to yield their civil liberties in order to prevent another attack or another example a lot of people don't have deeply formed opinions on gun ownership for example but when a tragic event happens like a school shooting that tends to arouse public sentiment against gun ownership the third well from which we draw to form opinions on the spot is group identity for example upper middle class suburbanite tend to have similar opinions on issues and if one of those suburban Heights is asked to form an opinion on which she knows nothing about then she's likely to think what if I heard my friend say about this the fourth well from which we draw to form opinions on the spot is politicians now the practical truth is this there are so many issues and they are so complicated every single one of them that we cannot possibly devote all of our time to understanding each of them and that's fine that's why we elect representatives to go to Washington in our place and devote their whole energy and their whole attention to these things and we listen to what they say so for example during his campaign for president Donald Trump continually claimed that the electoral process was rigged against him and polls consistently show that Trump's base has a high degree of mistrust for the government so most of his followers likely didn't put in the hours upon hours of research to validate this claim they simply believed him and now we come to the fifth well which in my opinion is probably the most intriguing of all the wells we go to to draw from in order to form an opinion on the spot and that well is biology this argument comes from a guy named John hemming in a book called predisposed his argument is that genetics play a significant role in the kinds of political opinions that we form now let me show you one of the experiments he performed now look at this image I now pay attention to how you responded internally to that image like were you disgusted where you repulse or did you look at and say it's kind of gross but it's alright what Hibbing argues in his book is that the reason you had the reaction you have is that because you are genetically wired to have that reaction some people say it's disgusting other people go that's re okay who cares that what does this have to do with political opinions so glad you asked the people who were disgusted or at a strong emotional reaction to the picture were far more likely to be politically conservative those who had little or no reaction were far more likely to be politically liberal now why well his explanation is that conservatives are more neurologically affected by things that are outside of the ordinary things that break traditional boundaries liberals on the other hand are more biologically suited for things that are outside the normal traditional experience and this reaction is at the level of our dang genomes now that doesn't mean that one set of genes is wrong and one set of genes is right it means that we need both positions to fully flourish in this world like we need each other conservatives in general are more biologically sensitive to threats they believe this world is full of threats which would help explain the conservative love of the second amendment like at a biological level they believe that this is a really ugly and threatening world and therefore we better arm ourselves to keep us safe and those whom we love safe on the other hand liberals genetically speaking are less sensitive to threats liberals tend to see a world of possibility instead of a world of threats that's why they look at the Conservatives bewildered and say why do you beat the drum of the second amendment so hard like it's not as bad as all that but you will never be able to explain that to each other because biologically we see the world and experience the world in fundamentally different ways and in this way liberals and conservatives need each other I mean if the world is all threats then we're just gonna hunker down and never get anything done but if we see the world is having no threats were likely to relax and become vulnerable to the threats that actually do exist okay let's stop for a second have I offended you yet okay I can imagine somebody objecting to all this and saying oh so you're just saying that all my political opinions are pre-programmed into my genes and I actually can't do anything about them and I'm not even a thinking person who's capable of coming to my own opinion and my answer is no I'm not saying you're less than a thinking person I'm saying that you're more than a thinking person you can absolutely form a political opinion that opposes your natural biology but it takes work what I'm trying to say is that we don't form our political opinions in a vacuum without any outside influences there are so many things that influence our political opinions we just have to be aware of them all right now let's move to the third part I want to try to apply some of this and listen very carefully to this because I feel like if you get what I'm about to say here then a lot of our arguments over political issues will cease or at least be eased and lesson application number one can we just make friends with not having a fully formed political opinion on every issue can we just have some grace toward each other could we just make friends with this simple phrase I don't know like I don't know how many times my students asked me for an opinion on a political issue and they expect me to have an answer because I'm their government teacher for crying out loud but probably more than half the time and my students can testify to this I say yeah I don't know anything about that I would need to research that a lot more to have anything decisive to say about it and frankly four and a the news Beca stand is not that interesting to me so I'm not likely to do the research so I don't know so when we're asked about opinions about something we genuinely don't know how about we just start saying I don't know all right application number two has to do with the issues that we actually do know something about in case you haven't been alive for more than like seven minutes you should know that when people start talking about politics it can get ugly very quick and here's why when most people share their political opinion with me and you tell me if this is your experience as well there's the opinion but then there's the thing that's underneath the opinion and the thing that's underneath the opinion is this no thinking person could disagree with what I'm saying that's actually very offensive and demeaning to the person you're talking to because it assumes that if I disagree with you that I'm some kind of unthinking rube so no wonder people get offended so I would like to submit a remedy for this situation let us adopt a magical phrase that could neutralize the offense and here it is it seems to me if you attach those four words to any of your political discourse it will communicate the humility that ought to be with our political opinions like the person I'm talking to really is a thinking person it might have very good reasons for thinking the way that they do and when I say it seems to me that insert political opinion it at least upholds their dignity as a thinking person and upholds my humility as somebody who doesn't actually know everything okay third application what if you actually want to develop a fully formed opinion on something by doing research well here the steps I would take suppose you want to develop an opinion on climate change step one go to the Republican and Democratic Party websites and read each of their platforms on this issue the Republicans say that the climate is important but we shouldn't overly regulate businesses in consideration of the environment the Democrats on the other hand say that the rising temperature of the planet is our fault and we have to do whatever possible to change that outcome okay nicely the two major arguments there may be more than that but just start with those two the second thing you would do is just ask which of these do you most naturally agree with and if it's neither just choose one of them I mean you have to travel in some direction so if there's no apparent difference between the paths well just take one you may find that by researching one position you actually have sympathy for the other and the third step is actually doing the research and the best place to research is books the reason I say that is because books are a long-form treatment of whatever issue you're looking into and because they're so long they can tease out the implications of the data and they can answer potential objections if you're wondering how much you have to read to have a truly informed opinion well I guess that's subjective but I once had a PhD tell me that it takes about 10,000 pages of reading to consider yourself an amateur in any subject so get comfortable it will take years and look that's why most people don't have fully formed opinions on most issues it is hard work that takes years so we have other things that legitimately demand our attention like school and work and our families but on the other hand if there's an issue that means something to you then all the effort that you have to put in to understand it is worth this hopefully this video brought some sanity into your life and provides the occasion for some more civil discourse between people and if it did that I'm a happy man I'll see you next time alright thanks for watching now it seems to me that it would be a good thing to do to to this channel because if you do I'll make you more videos like this one also if you think more people could stand to have some humility in their political discourse didn't hit that like button and YouTube will serve it up to him and finally the subject is entirely fascinating to me and so I'd really like to know what you think so let me know down in the comments below I'll see you on the flip-flop

Channel: Heimler's History

Views: 9,902

Keywords: Political opinion ap gov, Political opinion, Political opinion definition, Do political opinions matter in a relationship, Political opinions are like, Do political opinions matter, Public opinion political science, Public opinion, Politics 101, Political debate, politics, ap government, ap gov, ap gov unit 4, ap government review, ap government explained, understanding politics, religion and politics, politics and religion, arguing about politics

Id: ialvsCFTMXs

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019