One of the classes I'm taking this semester is on management. Each week my classmates and I read chapters from the textbook and post answers on the course Blackboard site to questions posed in the text.
Recently the topic of one of the chapters was on decision making, and one of my classmates made the following remark:
This topic makes me think of an interview I heard on NPR about how people arrive at their decision on what candidate to vote for on election day. The interviewee (he was a journalist) argued that people like to think that they arrive at their decisions because of facts they know about the candidate. However, most people, when it comes down to the moment of truth, will vote for the candidate they intuitively identify with the most. I thought this was pretty interesting.
I thought it was pretty interesting too. I really prefer to think that I do make my choices based on the issues, but maybe I just mean I choose the candidate whose stance on issues is similar to my own, in other words, the candidate I "intuitively identify with the most." Now perhaps there is some difference between intuitive identification and intellectual agreement, but it's a fine line.
I also recently heard Hilary Clinton refer to Barack Obama's campaign as a Cult of Personality, an assertion that is not entirely without merit. Take this report for instance. If we can accept these claims, then certainly there are some who are a little over-enthusiastic about the senator from Illinois, don't you think? However, I'm not sure that Clinton's followers are any less zealots; they just adhere to a different cult, the cult of the double X chromosomes. Oh, I'm not saying that there are not substantial, legitimate reasons to support her, but when I read an editorial or a letter to the editor in the paper that praises Clinton, 8 times out of 10 her gender is the primary selling point.
So, if we accept that we vote based on personality, perhaps we should look into the personalities of the candidates more. Check out this site. I'm not sure how scholarly it is, but you have to admit it's interesting.
My posts are mostly long, rambling attempts to deal with thoughts about my life and my world. If you are interested in coming along on my stream of consciousness, maybe we will eventually get somewhere...but maybe not.
About Me
If the world is right, if this music of the cafes, these mass enjoyments of these Americanized men who are pleased with so little are right, then I am wrong, I am crazy. I am in truth the Steppenwolf!
-Hermann Hesse
-Hermann Hesse
2 comments:
We really do like to think that we weigh all our decisions carefully after considering all the options (or issues). But I find Malcolm Gladwell's claim in _Blink_ that our quickest decisions are often the best ones quite convincing.
Having just voted on Monday, I might like to think that I carefully weighed all the options, but I think I mostly voted for the candidate who I'd like to have living next to me, or to have a drink with - which is pretty much the same as saying the person I would intuitively identify with.
The world would be a much better place if everyone chose their leaders the same way I do:
With a magic 8 ball.
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