“Our moral thinking is much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth.” – Jonathan Haidt
With the introduction of the Economic Inclusion for All Bill, the Democratic Alliance has at last crystalized a range of views and arguments either expanding the existing B-BBEE legislation and practices in certain respects, or seeking to replace it in others. It is a well-crafted piece of draft legislation well worth focused and sincere national debate.
This article will not be looking at the merits of the Bill, as that is a substantive argument that deserves its own space, and I have written elsewhere on my views on the B-BBEE debate. We will rather be investigating why a perfectly sound argument runs into the kind of rejection that it does, why it creates such strong reactions, and why, on its current trajectory, it is bound to underperform at best, and fail at worst.
The article is not biased against the Bill or the DA, and we could easily have the same discussion about the problems inherent in the DA’s current Johannesburg mayoral campaign, why certain parties struggle to gain meaningful electoral support despite years of hard work and seemingly good ideas, why people continue to vote against their apparent best interests and a long list of others apparent from our daily news cycles.
I see very little evidence that any political party or lobby group understands or applies this crucial modern conflict competency. Politically, why do objective facts and logical arguments, even those that are in the best interests of the recipient, so often fail to persuade, and what can be done to improve these conflict realities?
Of course, we do not always seek to persuade. At times, robust disagreement is normal, healthy and a desired outcome. But if the intention is to persuade across identity conflict lines, and the accompanying narrative would have it that persuasion is for the common good, then we need to know how to use modern best practices to achieve that goal.
Identity or value conflicts – a very brief introduction
Our study here ranges across multidisciplinary boundaries and contributions to conflict science, and it is a complex and nuanced understanding that, in practice, builds on, and requires a working knowledge of, advanced conflict principles. Small mistakes in planning or execution can have significant consequences in outcome. I would be satisfied if this article serves at least to convince some political leaders to consider doing the work necessary to allow us all to fully benefit from this important lever in human conflict engagement. For those who want to read more on the topic before starting the work, I have included a brief suggested reading section below.
Identity conflicts work with the modern, extended view of conflicts, where any important disagreement or a real or deemed clash of interests are involved. When we seek to change hearts and minds, this is exactly what is at stake: a conflict.
To know how to effectively understand and persuade people in identity conflicts, we need to understand the foundation upon which the rest of the system is built. In essence, we are made up of a range of interlocked views, opinions, beliefs and values. Some of these we carefully consider and craft over time, some we simply accept without much thought, as we will see later on. Some of these views and values are of relatively minor importance in our lives (for example our favourite football team, preferred food, music and so on), while others are absolutely crucial to how we view ourselves and our place in the world (our views on ethical behaviour, human life, religion, compassion, retribution and so on).
These interlocked values and views form, in a very real and even sometimes existential way, who we are, it determines our sense of self and how we respond to threats, benefits and other human interaction.
Feelings do not care about your facts
Recent internet debate wisdom would have it that “facts don’t care about your feelings”, but in identity conflicts that is completely incorrect. We are far more emotionally-driven than we would want to sometimes acknowledge, and wonderful work by people like Jonathan Haidt and Jay van Bavel has shown that our existing values, our identity, presuppose us towards certain biases, and we then search for more objective arguments to support our pre-existing conclusions. All of this happens largely subconsciously, and we are mostly unaware of it. We will return to the important consequences of this fact below.
The mechanics of identity conflicts
These values now steer us in many important ways. This powerful psychological and neurobiological internal system of ours now predisposes (“bias” is such an ugly word…) us to certain positions, and if they are important enough, we find rational, or seemingly rational, justifications for our values.
In this manner we form values and opinions on migration, abortion, same sex marriages, capital punishment, equality, communism, cultural issues and all of the rich strands woven into our human existence. Our values and our opinions become, in a very real sense, “us”. This is what good people believe about the ANC, this is what bad people believe about minimum wage, and so on.
We then have a superficial level where arguments and propositions are dealt with, and then a much deeper, often unexamined level where these arguments and propositions are judged and evaluated. That level is the realm where identity conflict persuasion needs to do its work.
If a proposition fits with our values and existing opinions, it creates a comfortable interaction with that proposal, and not much persuasion is necessary. It is when the proposal clashes with one or more of our existing values that a range of spontaneous, unexamined and powerful internal reactions take place. These levers determine much of the course and outcomes of these conflicts. The cognitive dissonance resulting in trying to hold an idea itself opposed to the person’s values is psychologically and sometimes even physically uncomfortable. We work hard to align our views with our values.
In identity conflicts (and I would argue that in our political environment most of our disputes are in fact exactly that: identity conflicts) more than just objective facts and arguments come into play. The first important phase is that collision between our values and the proposal. Is the idea wrong, or is this particular value of mine wrong? I have always believed this, was I wrong all this time? In the next phase that person must now make an internal choice. Do they concede that the previously held value was wrong, or do they find a way to reject the proposition? It is a brave and internally aware person who makes the former concession. It is, on the other hand, effortless to accept the second possibility.
We should remember here that these are not simply choices between food items or the colour of a shirt, these are values, for most people the very building blocks of their sense of self.
External to these internal processes we find the frameworks and scaffolding for these processes. A person’s values and identity guides them to a place in the world, it makes sense for them of that world. If there is a “me”, then there is an “us”, people like me, who think like I do. If there is an “us”, there is a “them”, and this sets up the confrontation in identity conflicts. These are not political preferences, these are actual neurobiological and psychological realities. These mechanics now creates the in-group, the “us”, and this necessitates a “them, people not like me, not like us. These boundaries are drawn by what we are (a woman, a doctor, a jazz fan, a mother) and what we are not (a Christian, a sports fan, a graduate).
These in-groups now provide us, either by way of natural association, choice or manipulation, a place, a sense of belonging. We are rewarded for our continued membership of that in-group, and we are punished, sometimes severely, for dissent and even, as some modern studies show, vague approval or neutrality towards certain out-groups.
All of these important consequences run on the tracks of identity conflict. Here we now see the real limitations of objective facts, as we briefly considered earlier. The most impressive scientific study, the clearest logical argument must still get past these identity markers and boundaries in order to be accepted.
A few examples of these mechanics
Recent years have provided conflict studies with a few crystal clear examples of these dynamics. A few minutes spent on social media in the Covid-19 or Trump debates would have shown kilometres of arguments, each armed with its respective facts, studies and logic, and all of them proving essentially ineffective to persuade people. The studies, the experience, the logic may very well be unassailable, but the cost of accepting the argument is too high. And this hardly ever reaches the stage of a conscious rejection of the argument, it simply never rises that high. Logic and superior arguments are rejected, nearly instinctively, because of its internal and external costs to the decision maker. If we are not argued in to our views by logic alone, why would logic alone argue us out of those views?
The results of getting it wrong
Conflict case studies show an important further result when we get our identity conflict strategies wrong. In addition to merely being ineffective in persuading people to your point of view, your best work entrenches them in their previous view.
The mechanics here are rather simple, once we know where to look. A held view is placed under scrutiny, often by coming into contact with an alternative view, often debated energetically on social and other media. Being an identity value, this is experienced by most people as an actual attack on those values, on their self. Aided and abetted by social media and other forms of debate and discussion, that previously held view is supported by the in-group, dissent is discouraged in all sorts of ways, and the in-group view is upheld. There are rewards for supporting and holding to the view. Likes, belonging, a sense of purpose – the brand new idea is defeated. Obviously, our view was superior. The “attack” failed, and we now hold the previous view in even higher regard, making the next “attack” even more likely to fail.
Your shiny new argument, backed by studies, experience and YouTube videos, have failed and served to make the in-group even more secure – regardless of the merits of your argument.
The role of face-saving
While traditionally not necessarily a component of identity conflicts, I always work with the concept of face-saving as forming an intrinsic part of these identity persuasion challenges. Face saving is a simple but powerful motivating factor in communities that value and prioritize questions of community, honour and respect above the more individualized approaches found in especially the West. This adds a crucial building block to conflict strategies and persuasion requirements. Case studies show quite clearly how communities and individuals are prepared to prejudice their own interests, or to punish perceived offenders, where such face-saving protocols are breached. Again, we see here an important conflict component that operates powerfully outside the boundaries of so-called objective fact, rationality or logic.
The DA example as case study
The DA’s Bill presents itself as logic and rationality, built on the further benefits of recent experiences with the B-BBEE systems and legislation. That it may well be. There may be merit in the proposal as a body of law or applied redress. As a strategy in conflict persuasion it is, however, a disaster.
It directly and indirectly presents and defines itself as a superior system, built on the failures of the current government. Its main proponents speak publicly of “looting” and a range of criminal acts perpetrated by named individuals and departments. It all but sneers at any reasoned dissent, and both the held values of the majority of South Africans and their face-saving concerns are all but ignored, including directly by the messaging and language used.
By design or by accident, it has been cast as a black vs white set of solutions, the incumbent government having presided over a corrupt, criminal enterprise and failure, and the solution being offered by the DA. It is not presented as a joint place arrived at by South Africans after past mistakes, it is proudly displayed as a partisan achievement, one where only the slow or malicious would disagree with. In the way that the narrative has been cast, for South Africans to accept this system, they would have to accept a major DA proposal, with all that this means for the identities, values and perceptions of those involved.
Some of the DA narratives in convincing South Africans to accept the Bill is crafted closer to the mark. In seeking to divide the “ANC elite” from “ordinary South Africans” it is less divisive, more inclusive, but it still misses the dynamics we briefly looked at, and the intricate process that should be followed, even in campaigns such as these, if effective persuasion is to be achieved.
Even where it offers perfectly plausible and common good results such as efficiency, job creation and economic inclusion, it assumes the result without doing the work necessary to persuade its audience in an effective and sustainable manner. In its present form, and using the narrative strategies that it has chosen, it is still asking ordinary South Africans to accept too much, regardless of the merits that the proposal may have. In doing so, it enables the rest of the GNU to easily reject the proposal, at no real political cost.
Effective persuasion in identity conflicts
How do we then persuade effectively and sustainably across identity conflict lines? Are objective facts and logic of no use? Is it all a partisan game, where the numbers must always have the last say? No, thankfully not. But persuasion across identity conflict lines is a difficult, complex process, requiring a high level of skill. People are not argued out of their views by arrogance, confidence or pure logic. The very mechanics that build and sustain the identity must be used, in the right sequence and with the correct timing, in persuading people to move from those views, to create either safe space for change, or to show them that it is not really a change that is asked for, that the proposed change already aligns with their existing values. When done successfully it is a slow and inclusive process, one requiring effective communication, respect and then, in its right place and at the right time, objective facts and logic, to a limited extent. I have provided a link to one of these proposed sequential methods of approaching this, a nine-step process, in the recommended reading section.
Conclusion
Good intentions, “obvious truths” and logic are important aspects of human interaction, but they are extremely limited in their efficacy as conflict persuasion tools. If the “truth” or logic could dictate the correct solution in all conflicts we would not have so many intractable conflicts across the ages. Persuading people, especially in a divided, traumatised society such as the current South African one, with so many unresolved and enduring conflicts still influencing our lives, is a complex challenge. It comes at great cost to those who are asked to accept the new proposition, a fact not always understood or acknowledged.
To insist on the “obvious logic” of a proposition is to play into so much of those fears and perceptions that form such an important part of so many identities, it simply, and in its own words, confirms the worst of those expectations, it demands a cost that it does not understand.
Much of the transformation that will be necessary for South Africa, if we are ever going to escape our self-imposed limitations and reach the goals we believe that we deserve, will need effective persuasion across those identity conflict lines. So far, we have not begun to understand what it will take to get there in a constructive and efficient manner. Good intentions and logical plans are important, but the alchemy happens when we know how to persuade people to accept ideas that may serve us all in the common good.
Suggested reading
1. For introductory, popular level work on identity conflicts, from a multidisciplinary perspective, I cannot recommend highly enough the work of people like Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind), Jay Van Bavel (The Power of Us) and Yascha Mounk (The Identity Trap), as well as their ongoing work available on social media.
2. As a simplified framework for the nine-step process recommended in persuasion with identity conflict, my article at https://www.conflict-conversations.co.za/conversations/difficult-conversations-part-2-3
3. Chapter 4 of my book Dangerous Magic: essays on conflict resolution in South Africa (Paradigm, 2023) has a focused and more in-depth discussion about identity conflicts.
(For any further information, contact me at andre@conflict1.co.za)
[Image: Nino Souza Nino from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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