Prejudice and Ignorance: The American Idiocracy

There are two kinds of polls about politics: the ones about which candidate we prefer and the ones about more fundamental underlying attitudes. The former are, at this point (relative to the 2012 election) somewhere south of useless. Want proof? Well, take a look at the Gallup poll taken on October 12-14, 2007: Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by a 50-21 margin; Rudy Giuliani led Fred Thompson 32-18, with John McCain at 14%. Importantly, neither Clinton nor Giuliani (nor Thompson, for that matter) made any enormous gaffes that made them instantly less popular with either major donors or the electorate: no Howard Dean screech, for example. Their only problem was that they didn’t attract enough support when it counted as the other guy did. So I really don’t care who won what straw poll or who is October’s flavor of the month on the Republican side: things won’t get interesting until after Thanksgiving, at least, even if the mad rush to move the primary season earlier continues unabated.

The other kind of poll, however, always interests me in that it gives us a glimpse of who we are. If the polling sample is broad-based enough, and most of the prominent pollsters know what they’re doing in that regard, at least, then any specific incident that would affect the results would be known by everyone and could be factored into the analysis. In other words, our collective view of Muslims changed significantly the second week of September, 2001, but everyone knew why. Some individual’s view may have been changed by a more local incident a couple of weeks earlier or later, but that single re-evaluation wouldn’t affect the overall poll numbers much.

So, let’s look at two polls I read about this week. The first was actually taken this summer, but I hadn’t seen it until reading about it in a piece by David Kopel at the Volokh Conspiracy. A Gallup poll taken in June shows attitudes towards hypothetical candidates. Here’s the question:

Between now and the 2012 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates—their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [black, a woman, etc.], would you vote for that person?

Lydia Saad, who wrote up the results, seems most interested in whether people would vote for a Mormon: reasonable enough, given the fact that Mitt Romney is a front-runner for the GOP nomination. I confess that I’m a little more intrigued by the remarkably low numbers, even now, for gays/lesbians and atheists. True, the trend line for those groups is heading in the right direction, but that 49% wouldn’t support a well-qualified atheist candidate of their own party is kind of scary. Of course, there is a not insignificant contingent in the Republican party in particular which clings to a pseudo-Christian dogma—justifying prejudice in the name of the Bible, declaring a desire to help the poor as “socialist”—so one suspects those numbers are skewed. Unfortunately, I can’t find any further break-outs of that information, although Saad does provide some with respect to Mormons… more on that in a moment.

The linked pdf file (alas, I can’t seem to link to it directly) shows trend lines—atheists were opposed 18-77 in 1958, and are 49-49 now; blacks were opposed 37-53 in 1958, and are 94-5 now; gays/lesbians weren’t part of the discussion until 1978, when they were opposed 26-66 as compared to 67-32 today. The trends are interesting. If we look at the numbers in plus-minus terms (50-40 is +10, 30-70 is -40, and so on), we see a more or less steady increase in acceptability for some groups. Blacks, for example, are -16 in 1958, +25 in 1965, +46 in 1971, +66 in 1987, +89 today. Women are at -31 in 1937, +8 in 1955, +50 in 1975, +70 in 1987, and +87 today.

Not all the trends look that way, however. Whereas gays/lesbians were at -40 in 1978 and are at +35 today, there was a huge jump from 1983 (-35) to 1999 (+22) and actual back-sliding from then until 2007 (+15) before another surge to the present. Atheists made good progress from 1958 (-57) to 1983 (-9), but then stalled, making it to +1 in 1999 and actually losing that margin-of-error point since then.

Of course, there are also glitches caused by individual candidates: a Democrat asked about female or African-American candidates in the last election cycle or a Republican asked about a Mormon would have been forgiven for transposing the question from the general to the specific: would you vote for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Mitt Romney if that person were nominated by your party? Hence the trend line for Mormons goes a little berserk four years ago. And, of course, the John Kennedy phenomenon with respect to Catholics causes its own set of ripples. Today, interestingly, although all of these groups tend to lean more to the Democrats than to the Republicans, there’s at least some chance that a woman (Michele Bachmann) or an African-American (Herman Cain) could be the GOP nominee, and of course Eric Cantor, who is Jewish, is likely to become a contender in years to come. We’ll see if people are lying, because, you know… they do, sometimes.

Anyway, revenons à nos moutons. Attitudes towards Mormons are broken out further than for other groups in the article. Unsurprisingly, increased education also leads to increased tolerance for the Other, however that Other is defined. Thus, college graduates are at +74, those with some college are at +59, those with no college are at only +35. Significantly, there seems to be little if any difference between men and women, or among age groups or geographical locations. Everything is either within the margin of error or pretty close to it. It might be worth mentioning that Catholics give Mormons a +64 vs. a +51 from “Protestants and other Christians” [whatever that means]. Then again, it might not.

I was intrigued, however, by the fact that Republicans are a little more open-minded towards Mormons than Democrats are. That wouldn’t have been what I predicted, but it makes sense when I think about it. First off, with two prominent Republicans—Romney and Jon Huntsman—both in Presidential bids, anyone who supports either, and they are the two most mainstream candidates, is reminded that maybe they could support a Mormon. Conversely, name a prominent Mormon Democrat. (Yes, I know, Harry Reid, but that connection isn't made very often.) Mormons tend to be Republicans (see, for example, this poll in which President Obama’s approval ratings are shown to be about 20 points lower, in good times and bad, among Mormons than among the general population). And, of course, the LDS Church has figured prominently in the campaign against gay marriage, dumping literally millions of dollars (directly and indirectly) and thousands of volunteer hours on Proposition 8 in California, for example: enough so that a New York Times headline says that “Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage.” That might not be enough to win them friends among Republicans, but it isn’t difficult for a Democrat to be rather more disinclined to support a Mormon after that bitter (if transient) defeat.

Anyway, bottom line: I don’t think Mitt Romney (or, rather more hypothetically, John Huntsman) would be hurt significantly by religion. Only 18% of Republicans and 19% of Independents show reluctance to vote for a Mormon, and one suspects those numbers will drop, just as the numbers for a host of other groups have dropped with greater visibility and knowledge: especially for the not terribly well educated, it’s easier to fear the unknown than to fear Mitt Romney.

Besides, a fair number of voters won’t know he’s Mormon, anyway. The ignorance of the American electorate is terrifying. There’s a statement virtually everyone will agree with, as precious few folks voted for the winner in both of the last two Presidential elections… presumably somebody did, but Democrats are even more convinced that George W. Bush was the worst President in American history than Republicans are that Barack Obama is.

But it’s probably even worse than you thought. A recent Pew Research poll reveals that nearly half of Americans and fully a third of Republicans can’t name, unprompted, a single GOP candidate for President. Only three—Romney (27%), Rick Perry (28%), and Michele Bachmann (15%)—reached double-digits in the general population. Even among Republicans (and Independents who lean Republican), only Perry and Romney were named by 1 in 5 respondents. I guess the good news is that the magical 10% mark was passed by all the candidates currently given any real chance to win the nomination: the two front-runners, Bachmann, Cain, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich (not that anyone currently considers Gingrich a legitimate contender for the nomination). All of which makes for a bad day for the likes of Rick Santorum, who could be named by only 4% of Republicans as even being a candidate; Jon Huntsman did only half that well, despite a well-publicized roll-out. Even more frighteningly, if you add up all the numbers, you get an average of less than one candidate recognition per respondent among the general population: all the numbers add up to exactly 100%, but that figure includes Chris Christie and Sarah Palin, both of whom have said they’re not in the race.

Think about that. 46% can’t name anyone. That means the remaining 54% average (if we drop Palin and Christie) average less than 1.8 apiece. Let’s say there’s 1 in 100 who are the same kind of political junkie that I am (and I’m not exactly a fanatic) and could name eight candidates (I’m kicking myself that I had to be reminded of Gary Johnson’s name). And let’s say that another 5% can name the two front-runners and the three others who have won a straw poll already. That leaves only 64 identifications to split among 48 people. In other words, if another 8% of the population can name only Perry, Romney and Bachmann, then we get this:

1% can name 8 candidates.

5% can name 5 candidates

8% can name 3 candidates

40% can name 1 candidate

46% can’t name any candidates

This strikes me as a reasonable breakdown, given the numbers we have to work with… which means that 86% of the American population can’t name more than a single Republican Presidential candidate. Wow.

Republicans, of course, do a little better—it’s their party’s candidates we’re talking about, after all. They came up with 132 identifications per 100 respondents, with “only” (shudder) 34% who couldn’t name anyone. That works out to exactly two identifications per Republican who could name a candidate. Again, figure 1% at 8, 5% at 5, and we’re still at only about 13% at 3, and another 13% at 2, leaving 34% at 1. In other words, roughly two-thirds of Republicans can’t name more than one GOP contender.

So before anyone in any of the candidates’ camps starts crowing about leading in this or that poll, or winning this or that straw poll, or scoring points in this or that debate, there’s this to consider: the American electorate’s ignorance of the field is mind-boggling in its scope. If they can’t even name a couple of options, how can they hope to know whose policies they like (or don’t)? The answer is obvious: they can’t. The manifold failures of the media are partially responsible for all this, of course, but, in the words of the great sage Pogo, we have met the enemy and he is us.

I have a fond hope that the situation may change by the time votes actually count for something in the primary season, or at least by the general election. I get that way sometimes… it’s probably indigestion.

I didn't ace this survey because I'm agnostic; I aced it because I'm educated

The recently-released Pew Research Center U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey yields some fascinating results, most notably the most headline-grabbing finding, that “Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.”

Still, it’s difficult to be surprised, for two reasons. First, those whose belief systems are outside the boundaries of normative cultural Christianity are more likely to know why they occupy that space than do those who are content to worship as their parents did, without much need for evidence or argumentation. Second, and probably more importantly, while the survey does ask a few questions about specific theological matters, it seems much more designed to test respondents’ general knowledge about religious elements in historical and cultural contexts.

To be sure, it’s pretty embarrassing that over half of Christians and nearly half of Catholics got wrong what amounts to a true-false question about transubstantiation, or that 81% of Protestants and 91% of Catholics don’t know that the former but not the latter believe that salvation is achieved through faith alone. And that fewer than half of Protestants could identify Martin Luther from a list of three choices (the others being Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley) as the driving force of the Reformation is pretty sad. Even stuff any 2nd-grader should know seems to boggle the minds of a lot of people: on a multiple-choice question (!), over a quarter of Christians couldn’t identify the town where Jesus was born. Apparently they sang “O, Little Town of Jerusalem” in Sunday School.

Still, on questions about Christianity, Christians (barely) outscored the general population, averaging 6.2 correct answers out of 12 questions. White evangelicals averaged 7.3, beaten only by Mormons (7.9). But both Atheists/Agnostics (6.7) and Jews outperformed Christians in general on questions relating directly to Christian teachings, history, and world view.

It’s on the questions about world religions, especially those with relatively few US adherents, where Christians in particular fared poorly. Whereas Jews (7.9) and Atheists/Agnostics (7.5) both got over two-thirds of the 11 world religions questions correct, Protestants and Catholics alike managed well under half, both averaging 4.7. Similarly, the leaders in understanding of the role of religion in American public life (1st Amendment provisions, for example) were once again Atheists/Agnostics and Jews, at 2.8 and 2.7, respectively, out of 4 questions; Protestants and Catholics both averaged 2.1, or over 20% lower.

Overall, the bottom line here isn’t that there’s really a huge difference. To the extent that we can generalize at all, the conclusion is that American self-identified Christians know slightly more about the tenets and historical figures of their own religion than do non-believers, whereas those same Christians under-perform the norm by an even wider margin in areas like basic knowledge of world religions and the relationship between religion and, for example, free expression. Importantly, the level of sophistication required here is pretty low. Respondents are asked some pretty easy stuff: the Dalai Lama’s religion, the name of Islam’s holy book, the basic text of the 1st Amendment. In fact, anyone who gets more than a handful of wrong answers is either really stupid or purposefully ignorant… alas, that’s a whole lot of folks.

Indeed, for all the fact that the Pew folks themselves lead with the whole atheists-know-more-about-religion-than-religious-people-do thing, the real bottom line here is the stolidity and/or downright laziness of the average respondent. OK, so I’m probably not the typical American on this—whereas the average score was 16 out of 32, I got them all right (I confess that I wasn’t entirely confident of two responses). Of course, I fit a good deal of the profile of someone who, according to Pew’s analysis, would get a high score: I’m white, male, US-born, well-educated (including a single college-level religion course some 36 years ago), middle-aged and childless (why a couple of these criteria matter, I have no idea, but there you go). I have an on-line identity named for a bodhisattva. And, of course, I’m agnostic. I’ve also taught elements of both Hinduism and Buddhism in Asian theatre courses, so questions about who Vishnu and Shiva are, or what religion espouses the concept of nirvana aren’t likely to trip me up. But, of course, I knew the answers to those questions long before I contemplated taking, let alone teaching, anything about Asian culture.

There are some interesting seeming contradictions—for example, Republicans outscore Democrats in raw numbers but, all other criteria being equal, it’s the other way around. In other words, the Republicans polled may have been, for example, better educated than the Democratic respondents. Thus the average Republican score was higher, whereas college-educated Dems did marginally better than college-educated GOPsters, etc.

And that distinction is really the one that matters. It doesn’t make headlines because it’s simply to be expected: education makes a difference. Respondents who participated in religious education as children scored marginally better than those who didn’t (and we can assume the difference came in questions about their own religion). Those who have a high level of commitment to their own religion score slightly better than those who don’t. Those who discuss religion with family and friends do a little better than those who don’t. But the big distinction is also the most predictable: people with graduate degrees got over twice as many answers correct as those who didn’t finish high school (22.2 to 10.7). Those who took a religion course in college average more than four more correct answers than college-attendees who didn’t take a religion course, who in turn got five more right than those who never went to college. Well, duh.

In short, while there are some intriguing “gotchas” here, the most fundamental lesson is remarkably simple: if you want to learn about a topic—any topic—you’ll gain a little knowledge from someone trying to influence your opinion. You’ll learn more, though, from someone who wants to provide you with the facts with which to make up your own mind. Religious instruction vs. religious studies courses. My blog vs. my classroom. Fox News vs. real journalism.

But something else is clear, too. These scores are awful. Any reasonably intelligent, reasonably curious, and reasonably attentive high school graduate ought to be able to get a score in the mid-20s on this test. I’m frankly a little embarrassed that I knew only 30 answers with absolute confidence. And yet a 26, or a little over 81% (a B- in my grade book), qualifies as “top 10%.” A 23, less than 72%, i.e., a C-, would be better than the mean for people with graduate degrees. The average Christian got fewer than half of the questions right (I started to write “more than half the questions wrong,” which would have been inaccurate: “I don’t know” accounted for about half of the responses that weren’t the correct answer. If this were Jeopardy, those folks would have kept their money on those questions; they just wouldn’t have won any. So we could presumably add another couple of points onto lower scores if we wanted to give people credit for good guesses and not penalize them for incorrect answers—the way most Scantron tests work today, for example.)

Any way you slice it, though, these scores are deplorable, especially given how easy most of these questions are. Americans are consciously, unabashedly, willfully ignorant. And it’s getting worse. That’s how Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Sharron Angle have any suasion in our public life. It’s why the modern GOP is fast modeling itself on the Know Nothing Party of the mid-19th century: secretive (e.g. major funding of the Tea Party by the just-folks billionaire Koch brothers), rabidly chauvinistic (in the 19th century, the enemy was Catholics; now it’s Mexicans/gays/Muslims/blacks/single parents/teachers/unions/fill-in-the-damned-blank), and ultimately driven more by paranoia than by evidence. They probably think I’m equating their transcendent quest for ignorance with the phrase “know nothing.” That’s because they don’t know American history any better than they know the religion they purport to espouse.