This column was originally published on Sheila Kennedy’s blog, A Jaundiced Look at the World We Live In.
By Sheila Kennedy
February 28, 2025
Bingo!
That was my reaction when I read the title of this opinion essay in the Washington Post: “Can we find common ground without a shared reality?” The author, Kate Cohen, identified the fallacy at the heart of multiple liberal admonitions to “listen to” and “try to understand” the grievances motivating MAGA Trump supporters. She began by reporting on one such
well-meaning example, in a recent book, Kurt Gray’s “Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground.”
According to Gray,
Liberals and conservatives arrive at different moral conclusions because we weigh
harms differently based on whom we believe to be vulnerable. Take the issue of
abortion: I am more concerned for the pregnant person; a pro-lifer is more
concerned for the fetus. But we both want to prevent harm.
Gray calls harm “the master key of morality”; it unlocks our understanding of
moral judgments. “When someone has an opinion we find immoral, we can ask
ourselves, ‘What harm do they see?’”
Cohen says she can try to understand that her neighbor isn’t purposely voting to harm her gay son and teenage daughter, but rather to prevent harms that the neighbor believes are posed by acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks and a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions. But then she asks the “bingo” question: “what if the harm she sees … isn’t real?”
Thus Gray points out that antigay crusader Anita Bryant “saw gay rights as a
threat to her children” — he’s not saying she was right, just that she was acting
from sincere concern. His research similarly refrains from privileging what I would
call “fact.” One study he designed flip-flopped gun control statistics to see if
people were worse at math when they didn’t like the answer; another, measuring
how online outrage is built, included tweets about “the dangers of critical race
theory.” It’s the perception of harm that matters…
I think we’re in this mess because one side’s perception of harm is increasingly
disconnected from reality. I’d happily live in a world where my neighbor and I
could discuss which harms concerned us more: the suffering of refugee children
or the burdens on border-town citizens. The livelihood of coal miners or the
warming of the globe. But in the world we live in — the world that reelected
President Donald Trump — there’s a strong chance she believes that immigrants
are eating pets and that climate change is a hoax.
And that –the refusal of millions of people to accept facts, evidence and demonstrable reality and opting to reside in a fantasy universe–is the crux of our current problem.
On this blog, I have repeatedly argued that the information environment we inhabit enables a large percentage of the population to indulge in confirmation bias. Granted, there have always been sources of disinformation, but never before in history has it been so easy to access “evidence” that confirms one’s desired beliefs and prejudices.
Has your life failed to unfold as you hoped? Are you convinced that some “other” is to blame for your disappointments? There are literally hundreds–probably thousands–of websites that explain that the Black person or woman got the promotion because of “wokism,” and why the elevation of that non-Christian is evidence that “DEI hires” have replaced merit.
Is your livelihood or comfort level connected to the prospects of fossil fuels? There are plenty of “sources” that will confirm the perfidy of scientists who are “in on” the “global warming hoax.”
Are you suspicious of all science–especially when it is based on empirical data that conflicts with your “biblical” understandings? “Bible-believing” websites will explain why the doctors trying to explain why abortion bans threaten women’s health and lives are just anti-religious liberals intent on killing babies and allowing women to ignore their God-ordained submissive roles.
Are you uncomfortable around gay folks? Lots of “religious” sites will confirm that they are “ungodly groomers,” (and that all those mainstream media reports implicating youth pastors and other pious church folks are exaggerated).
I could go on. And on.
We live in a world where technology–and yes, free speech–facilitates the construction of fantasy realities. And as Cohen accurately notes, finding “common ground” with folks who live in alternate universes simply isn’t possible.
Thanks to well-meaning liberals trying to reach that “common ground,” we are now inhabiting a country that–as Paul Krugman recently wrote– is being ruled by a mad king living in an alternate reality and a erratic, ketamine-fueled oligarch — and it’s not clear which is the other’s sidekick.
Finding “common ground” with madmen is suicidal.
Sheila Suess Kennedy is Emerita Professor of Law and Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. As an attorney, she practiced real estate, administrative and business law in Indianapolis before becoming corporation counsel for the City of Indianapolis in 1977. In 1980, she was the Republican candidate for Indiana’s then 1th Congressional District and in 1992, she became executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. She joined the faculty of the School of Public and Environment al Affairs in 1998.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
