RED GENES BLUE GENES

PRESS RELEASE: RED GENES, BLUE GENES: EXPOSING POLITICAL IRRATIONALITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 10, 2009
New Book Predicts Increasing Partisan Polarization Worldwide

Humans are Hard-Wired for "Political Irrationality" says SUNY Professor Guillermo C. Jimenez.  Partisan Bias is Rooted in Biology and Reinforced by Culture. 
The Result is an Angry and Polarized Electorate, Exploited by Self-Serving Politicians.

NEW YORK, NY, June 10, 2009 -- "Post-partisanship is currently biologically and culturally impossible," SUNY Professor Guillermo C. Jimenez said in a statement released in New York today to accompany the release of his new book, "Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality."

     "President Barack Obama is right to attack irrational partisanship," said Jimenez, "But partisanship is likely to persist anyway because human beings have innate partisan predispositions which are aggravated in times of economic stress." According to Jimenez, most people are genetically-predisposed toward liberalism or conservatism, and this innate bias is further reinforced by years of cultural programming. Jimenez said that since the syndrome is based on biological and cultural universals, it is found in all countries.

     "People everywhere are incredibly stubborn and opinionated when it comes to politics, but their opinions are almost never based on logic or facts," Jimenez said in the statement, which is posted on the book's companion blog-site, redgenesbluegenes.com.

     Red Genes, Blue Genes argues that society's most troublesome political problems can be traced to an innate human tendency toward "political irrationality." Using recent scientific evidence from psychology,neuroscience and economics, Jimenez's book seeks to provide the first comprehensive and multi-disciplinary look at political irrationality. Jimenez said the concept of political irrationality helped explain a number of current events and controversies, for example: 1) Irrational Democratic triumphalism after Obama's 2008 victory; 2) The irrationalities underlying the current financial crisis; 3) Irrational U.S. over-confidence in Afghanistan and Iraq; 4) Continued government support of irrational drug policies, and 5) Irrational denial of judicial bias, as in the case of judges nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Jimenez said that his purpose in writing Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality was to make use of modern science in order to unravel ancient political mysteries:
     Why does it seem that liberals and conservatives are different kinds of people? Why are political arguments so hostile and impervious to reason? Why are partisans and political figures so certain they are right all the time? Why are citizens everywhere unsatisfied with systems of government that are supposedly "democratic"?

     Guillermo C. Jimenez teaches international law and business at the State University of New York (SUNY), Iona College and the International School of Management (Paris). A graduate of Harvard University and the University of California-Berkeley, he has lectured in over 35 countries and addressed a number of international organizations and bodies including the United Nations and European Commission. Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality is his fourth book.
    For additional information about Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality, to set up interviews with the author or receive review copies, please visit the book's companion blog-site at 

www.redgenesbluegenes.com 

and/or contact Ms. Yuliya Shapirshteyn, publicity@redgenesbluegenes.com (718 387 6471).

Book Details:
 
Book Title:                   Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality

Author:                        Guillermo C. Jimenez

ISBN:                          978-1-57027-203-5

Cover price:                     16.95  USD

Dimensions:                   Trade paperback (6" x 9"), 304 pp.

Pub. Date                    Nov. 4, 2009

Review materials available at:  www.redgenesbluegenes.com

 

To order books directly from publisher, contact Jim Fleming, Autonomedia, P.O.B. 568 Williamsburgh Station, Brooklyn, New York 11211-0568, tel. (718) 387 6471, info@autonomedia.org

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 10, 2009
New Book Predicts Increasing Partisan Polarization Worldwide

Humans are Hard-Wired for "Political Irrationality" says SUNY Professor Guillermo C. Jimenez.  Partisan Bias is Rooted in Biology and Reinforced by Culture. 
The Result is an Angry and Polarized Electorate, Exploited by Self-Serving Politicians.

NEW YORK, NY, June 10, 2009 -- "Post-partisanship is currently biologically and culturally impossible," SUNY Professor Guillermo C. Jimenez said in a statement released in New York today to accompany the release of his new book, "Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality."

     "President Barack Obama is right to attack irrational partisanship," said Jimenez, "But partisanship is likely to persist anyway because human beings have innate partisan predispositions which are aggravated in times of economic stress." According to Jimenez, most people are genetically-predisposed toward liberalism or conservatism, and this innate bias is further reinforced by years of cultural programming. Jimenez said that since the syndrome is based on biological and cultural universals, it is found in all countries.

     "People everywhere are incredibly stubborn and opinionated when it comes to politics, but their opinions are almost never based on logic or facts," Jimenez said in the statement, which is posted on the book's companion blog-site, redgenesbluegenes.com.

     Red Genes, Blue Genes argues that society's most troublesome political problems can be traced to an innate human tendency toward "political irrationality." Using recent scientific evidence from psychology,neuroscience and economics, Jimenez's book seeks to provide the first comprehensive and multi-disciplinary look at political irrationality. Jimenez said the concept of political irrationality helped explain a number of current events and controversies, for example: 1) Irrational Democratic triumphalism after Obama's 2008 victory; 2) The irrationalities underlying the current financial crisis; 3) Irrational U.S. over-confidence in Afghanistan and Iraq; 4) Continued government support of irrational drug policies, and 5) Irrational denial of judicial bias, as in the case of judges nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Jimenez said that his purpose in writing Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality was to make use of modern science in order to unravel ancient political mysteries:
     Why does it seem that liberals and conservatives are different kinds of people? Why are political arguments so hostile and impervious to reason? Why are partisans and political figures so certain they are right all the time? Why are citizens everywhere unsatisfied with systems of government that are supposedly "democratic"?

     Guillermo C. Jimenez teaches international law and business at the State University of New York (SUNY), Iona College and the International School of Management (Paris). A graduate of Harvard University and the University of California-Berkeley, he has lectured in over 35 countries and addressed a number of international organizations and bodies including the United Nations and European Commission. Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality is his fourth book.
    For additional information about Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality, to set up interviews with the author or receive review copies, please visit the book's companion blog-site at 

www.redgenesbluegenes.com 

and/or contact Ms. Yuliya Shapirshteyn, publicity@redgenesbluegenes.com (718 387 6471).

Book Details:
 
Book Title:                   Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality

Author:                        Guillermo C. Jimenez

ISBN:                          978-1-57027-203-5

Cover price:                     16.95  USD

Dimensions:                   Trade paperback (6" x 9"), 304 pp.

Pub. Date                    Nov. 4, 2009

Review materials available at:  www.redgenesbluegenes.com

 

To order books directly from publisher, contact Jim Fleming, Autonomedia, P.O.B. 568 Williamsburgh Station, Brooklyn, New York 11211-0568, tel. (718) 387 6471, info@autonomedia.org

 

Lessons from Behavioral Politics: Let's Try Democracy

June 2009 STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY RELEASE

OF “RED GENES BLUE GENES: EXPOSING POLITICAL IRRATIONALITY”

 

 

Lessons from Behavioral Politics:

Why It’s Time to Try Democracy

 

Guillermo C. Jimenez[*]

 

I.  The Emerging Science of Political Irrationality

 

            A survey of recent research from over a dozen different academic disciplines now allows us to assert, with a good deal of confidence, that humans are systematically irrational in their political thinking.  Although it is widely-accepted that humans are frequently irrational in the management of their economic and emotional affairs, it now appears that humans are also especially and acutely subject to irrationality in the political sphere.

My book “Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality,” (“RGBG”) provides the first book-length, cross-disciplinary analysis of human political irrationality. I not only introduce and review the evidence for political irrationality, I also review suggestions for antidotes and correctives, new ways of working toward rational democracy in the future.

Coping with political irrationality is arguably the world’s most important challenge. All attempts to manage humanity’s other problems (war, disease, environmental degradation, poverty, etc.) will be hampered by ineffective government. Government failure is an inevitable by-product of political irrationality.

Perhaps the biggest cost of our irrational group-bias is that it sustains an inefficient two-party duopoly.   The elites of both parties are able to perennially escape scrutiny by provoking hostility against the other party. Democrats exploit hostility toward Republicans in order to monopolize liberals, while Republicans exploit hatred of liberals to monopolize conservatives. Americans become like the citizens of two parallel, Soviet states, with most voters turning out at every election to vote for the same party as in the previous election.  Consequently, our Congressional incumbents are re-elected at the Soviet-style rate of 95%.

However, though we continue to vote our politicians into office, we have recently been reminded that we cannot trust political elites to look out for the public interest.  This was demonstrated in the 2008-2009 financial crisis, which occurred when politicians from both parties were bribed by Wall Street to look the other way.   Regrettably, most citizens are so blinded by partisan bias that they habitually blame all social ills on the other political party, limiting their political hopes to fantasies of permanent electoral victory.   There is a better way.

An understanding of political irrationality provides us with a fresh perspective on the illogic of our current political landscape.  Consider the following brief examples, each of which is explored further below (or at length in RGBG):

INTERVIEW WITH GUILLERMO C. JIMENEZ

Q:                What brought you to write Red Genes Blue Genes?

 

JIMENEZ:       I wanted to try to understand why people are so crazy when it comes to politics.  There are few areas of life where people talk as much nonsense as they do in politics.  Human beings have a well-known penchant for irrationality, but it seems strangely and particularly acute in politics.  Surveys repeatedly confirm that people know virtually nothing about political issues, and yet people are extremely confident and even arrogant in their political views.  If you watch political talk shows on TV, you become accustomed to the lowest kinds of prejudice and sloppy thinking.  Sometimes, it’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out.  Since I’m starting to lose a little too much hair for that, I decided to try to understand why people are so crazy when it comes to politics, and I think I’ve come up with a pretty good explanation.

 

Q:                You say that most people’s political thinking is characterized by “political irrationality.”  What exactly do you mean by political irrationality?

 

JIMENEZ:       Well, there are lots of different kinds of irrationality that we can witness in politics, but I focus above all on what I call our “characteristic mode” of political thinking. When the average person hears political news, how does that person react?  Political irrationality is the tendency to arrive at political opinions emotionally and instinctively while attributing those opinions to logic and reason.  Most people blindly follow the party line as determined by their friends and family, but if pressed will pretend that they hold political opinions because those opinions are somehow more logical or sensible than the opinions held by their political rivals.

            Thus, most people deceive themselves continually in politics.  We don’t really analyze issues, we just try to figure out what “people like us” are saying, and then we adopt and repeat those views.  For most people, politics is tribal rather than logical.  The art of political development is merely of learning which tribe we wish to belong to, and how obedient we want to be to that tribe.