Daniel

“The political scientists Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage studied twenty countries, exploring the question of when, over the course of their histories, the countries imposed heavy taxes on the rich. They concluded that inequality was not sufficient on its own to cause countries to impose high taxes. Instead, they found that raising taxes on the rich happened only when the public believed that the state had unfairly privileged the wealthy, such that higher taxes on the rich were necessary to compensate for that unfair advantage. These perceptions of unfairness were more likely in times of war, when working classes faced conscription while capital owners benefited from increased demand for their products. Scheve and Stasavage argued that the reason progressive taxation saw its heyday in the United States in the twentieth century was because of these frequent conscriptions—first to fight two world wars, and then again to fight the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It is notable that the United States began cutting taxes on the rich only after the draft was eliminated in 1973.”
― Ray D. Madoff, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy

“In some cases, those who express extreme views start believing the things they share even if their initial goal was only to increase their standing within a group. And then there are cases where the theories being shared are so outlandish or unlikely that we have to wonder: Do they really believe these things? If we were to sit the person down for a polygraph test and quiz them about whether they truly think the earth is flat, the grieving parents who lost their children to gun violence are just actors, or Hillary Clinton is a pedophile, what would we find? Would they (or the lie detector machine) reveal that perhaps their beliefs are not quite so literal? If so, why are they spreading such lies? Understanding the mechanics of social groups—especially those connected by shared beliefs, such as religious groups, sects, and cults—can help shed light on this question. As Jonathan Haidt suggested, the deliberate sharing of a lie can act as a shibboleth—a kind of linguistic password that identifies people within a group. “Many who study religion have noted that it’s the very impossibility of a claim that makes it a good signal of one’s commitment to the faith,” he wrote. “You don’t need faith to believe obvious things. Proclaiming that the election was stolen surely does play an identity-advertising role in today’s America.”
― Dan Ariely, Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things

“Putting it all together, we define populism as a political style that sets ‘sacred’ people against two enemies: ‘elites’ and ‘others’. In this special issue, our contributors do not necessarily take up this definition and, in some cases, they may critically depart from it. Even so, our contributors do, in different ways, reflect on the roles of religion in the stylistic inflections of populism. It is worth underlining that the definition of populism that we present here is intentionally broader than cases that involve religion. Furthermore, it points to the quasi-religious connotations of populism. It, therefore, can be used in the analysis of any kind of populism, potentially foregrounding how even the most secular styles of populist politics will inevitably instantiate distinctions between the ‘profane’ and the ‘sacred’.”
― Daniel Nilsson Dehanas, Religion and the Rise of Populism

“Because so many of our beliefs depend upon the culture we share with others, diagnosing patients from other cultures raises many problems. If hearing voices talking to you is a widely shared experience within a culture, then this experience cannot be treated as a sign of schizophrenia. On the other hand, people from within the same culture can easily recognize the kind of experiences that would be considered signs of madness.

In Northwick Park Hospital there were many patients who were adherents of religions with which the staff were not familiar – fundamental Christian sects as well as branches of oriental faiths. We could not be sure if it was reasonable for a man belonging to a Christian sect founded in California in 1962 to believe that by wearing a half-pound cross on a wire round his neck he pleased God, who would then pass him messages by directing his eyes to particular biblical texts. We could not be sure if it was reasonable for a devout Hindu to interpret individuals and animals in the local setting as manifestations of Krishna reborn. Reading accounts of the beliefs of adherents to these sects did not help us, but the relevant spiritual leaders, on the basis of a few moments’ conversation, could state with confidence that these ideas were due to illness. We therefore made a practice of always consulting them. Typically they considered that the patient believed literally in what was intended as a metaphor. The patients’ ideas were much too concrete.”
― Christopher D. Frith, Schizophrenia: A Very Short Introduction