Wishful thinking makes for bad policy

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, June 28, 2006

America’s founders established a republic, with representatives to do the people’s business. Perhaps this was to forestall two unfortunate voter tendencies: seizing on wishful thinking, and shooting the messenger instead of listening to bad news. Representatives can safeguard against these shortcomings, even adopting unpopular measures if needed. But office seekers who deliberately pander to wishful thinking (or worse, believe it) sabotage this safeguard.

Wishful thinking is everywhere. Lottery ticket buyers dream of instant wealth. Dope addicts buy a temporary high. Con artists prosper by diverting people’s attention with unrealistic dreams while picking their pockets.

The antidote to wishful thinking is critical thought and logic. Unfortunately, those are desperate measures for most people, resorted to only when dreams collide with hard reality. Mostly, we’re guided through life by habit, emotion and rote learning, not logic. But in politics, letting your hopes become your expectations is dangerous. And, since attaining office requires different skills than governing, this leads to dangerous visions.

Dangerous visions – wishful rationalizations for taking or avoiding action – come in many seductive flavors. Here’s a tiny sampling: Why diet, they’ll invent a pill to fix that. Other smokers may get cancer; I won’t. If not for taxes, I’d be rich. The government will take care of me. Regulation’s unnecessary, free markets take care of everything. All would be fine if everybody believed and behaved as I do, and laws should make it so. They’ll dance in the streets when we liberate them. We’ll pay for the war with their oil. Global warming is a hoax. There’s lots of oil, we just have to drill for it. She’s not really brain dead. God is on our side. If we give up some civil rights, we’ll be protected. There’s a simple painless solution. Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away. And so on.

Politicians avoid asking us to lower our expectations, instead seeking support of agendas with flimsy plausibility that appeal to special interest group wishes. We are asked to support marriage amendments but not to tax ourselves for better education, balance the budget or drive more fuel-efficient cars, though the latter three make good sense.

So long as politicians can invent reasons for action plausible enough to say with a straight face, those who want to believe will vote for them. But what if hard times come? How will hard choices get made? Maybe they won’t – and that makes hard times much harder.

Pogo said, ”we have met the enemy – and he is us.” Like the Afghan people – reverting to a strict fundamentalist Islamic state – we make the choices that comfort us, consistent with our desires and beliefs, no matter how wishful. The Afghans ignore the fact that the only enduring democracy in the Muslim world is Turkey – a constitutionally secular state. And while we wonder how could the Afghans possibly re-embrace the Taliban, we can’t see the same problems with our own political choices.

When politicians tell us they have a simple, painless solution, we ought to ask what’s the catch, is this too good to be true? Instead, uncritical voters, by consistently voting for wishful thinking, make it impossible for honorable office seekers to compete with those who unscrupulously promote dangerous visions.

So we muddle along, waiting for disaster – the collision of hard reality with wishful thinking – before we do politically difficult things. Trouble is, some disasters become irreversible before they become obvious to the majority (e.g. Iraq, global warming). And while awaiting an engaged, vigilant electorate and politicians with integrity, our debate gives top priority to a national anti-gay marriage amendment and raising the Oregon speed limit. Icebergs? What icebergs? Let’s rearrange those deck chairs!

Rooting out corruption and special interests isn’t enough. We also have to get real. I hope we’ll act before disaster strikes. But hope is not a plan, unless we fundamentally change the system. Few politicians recognize the need for such change, despite polls showing abysmal confidence in our Nation’s direction, our Congress and our leaders. As I recently discovered, getting anything resembling ”bitter medicine” into a political platform is highly unlikely. And too many voters regularly demonstrate they’ll forgo critical thinking in favor of believing things they desperately wish to be true. Twice, when we faced intractable problems, there were revolutions. Must we go through that again?

I don’t have the answer. So I propose a contest. Quick, how do we change the rules, candidates or voters to remedy this problem? I doubt that depending on a majority of engaged, realistic voters, or on all politicians having integrity, will work. When realistic ideas are not just ignored but ridiculed to promote wishful ones, we’re in trouble. But the grand prize is a chance to save our environment – and our democracy.