This essay was my final project essay for Honors Seminar in Academic Inquiry during the first semester of 2020. I have chosen this essay because I feel it contains some of my strongest writing to date and it is an interesting topic that not many people are aware of, or at least are mindful of. Additionally, this paper was recently nominated for the Johnson Family Award for Outstanding First-Year Writing. (Please note that the essay is only seven pages while the extra pages are for my references)
Preference Falsification: Repressive Truth and Why it Matters
Everyday occupants of society cross paths with one another. Even more, occupants of society espouse ideologies that collide daily. Individuals express their ideas with one another and naturally come upon disagreements, hoping to solve those differences through civil dialogue and honest expression. But what happens to the expression of ideas when government becomes authoritarian, when polarization is prevalent, or when violence ensues? The answer lies in preference falsification, a concept that occurs when people become less confident in their beliefs and externalize beliefs that they do not internally hold; they worry about the consequences that accompany their convictions. This idea includes the juxtaposition of private preferences as well as public preference—a phenomenon that we all often encounter (whether we know it or not), sniff out in others, and even use ourselves. People continue to ponder on why election results are so often surprising and why the polls have been inaccurate, but while looking for conclusions seemingly ignore preference falsification hiding in plain sight. As it may have a role in elections, that is not the only arena it plays a part in. Preference falsification is very real and affects the birth, death, and transition of ideologies, the tenure and strategy of dictators, the mass following of cult personality and collectivization, and most importantly the free-flowing engagement of ideas that leads to compromise and mends the growing, threatening gap of polarized societies.
Since the start of the decade, the divide between the left and the right has become more significant. According to 5000 representative surveys recorded by PEW research, in the time from 2011 to 2017, the political divide became so large that by 2018, it reached the most notable division America has ever seen (Ghosh). The division is a matter of importance because included comes the fear of expressing ideas. Whereas in the 1990s The New York Times could issue a column on the front page of senators voting on bills and disagreeing with their party to vote for what they thought was right and still be welcomed in their party, now it is rarely seen that a Congress member will deviate from his own party’s majority (Weinstein, 45:00). The same goes for constituents of each party in the sense that the disagreements between the two have reached such extreme ends that people start to falsify their preferences to avoid dangers such as public humiliation, threats, and even the risk of losing employment. When this process undertakes a population, knowledge development discontinues, and the process of solving problems becomes distorted so that a system of real preferences is left underground in a black market of ideas (Weinstein, 8:35).
Take opinions regarding immigration as an example of preference falsification. It seems that the debate for immigration has become so radical that in some areas (not all) if a person opposes any aspect of immigration in the slightest, they are somehow xenophobic. Eric Weinstein coined the terminology “xenophobic restrictionism” (Weinstein, 2:16:30) for simplicity, highlighting the presence the media has on driving a narrative. What this does is prevent debates on workable strategies to actually foster productive immigration policy. It should not go unmentioned that the media in the United States is more one-sided than ever before. For political reasons and to keep their business model afloat, the media adopts stances so radical, choosing to publish these stances of extremism embraced by politicians so that they can maximize attention, leading to the curtailing of middle-ground stances (this rationale partly contributes to the heavy media coverage of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Congressmen Rand Paul in recent years). In this manner, the pick and choose a side nature of the issue becomes so deep that people see only two stances: pro-immigration or anti-immigration. The adoption of the pro-immigration position has become the majority—the safe route to take even when immigration might not benefit someone personally but hurt them. The purpose of this example is not to bash immigration; immigration plays a vital role in America. The point is that when people espouse opinions that they don’t believe, the market for preference falsification grows and authentic rationality is subtracted from public discourse, which is conducive to less disagreement (not in a good way). But when a contention does arise, the danger of speaking out becomes too risky. It is in this manner that doublethink forces us to believe what is contrary to our intuition. Put another way: “certain thoughts may eventually be unthought” (Sunstein 38).
The most extreme systems of communism throughout history have been oppressive and cruel. Communism has been a highly inefficient economic system and instills repressive social techniques. It is for this reason why people ponder on its long tenure in certain societies throughout history. Under Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union, Russia used force to subdue people to collectivize agriculture and manufacturing to stimulate the economy, and the violent tactics used meant people publicly held communist beliefs. In “Private Truths, Public Lies,” Timur Kuran details numerous anecdotes to show that force was not the only acting factor on why they held such beliefs; preference falsification contributed to the long-lasting state of communism too. There is a fair argument in refuting this point by stating that under a communist regime people were heavily threatened by the government and coerced into work, but that was not always the case, especially in some Satellite States in Eastern Europe. Anecdotes from the book show proof in people that joined “organizations they abhorred, followed orders they considered nonsensical, cheered speakers they despised and ostracized dissidents they greatly admired. How could this have been? Kuran shows that all this could not have been the consequence of terror—state resources were often far too limited for that—and that it was largely a product of widespread perceptions of what other people thought, or thought normal” (Sunstein, 39). Kuran points out that in some satellite states there was “no gulag, and the prison population was smaller in proportion to the prison population in the United States” (Weinstein, 14:40). This was the case in Czechoslovakia where the communist regime was not oppressive and brute. So, what kept it communistic? An epidemic of preference falsification arose but not because of a conflict of internal and external beliefs, but because people held identical public beliefs and thought that their true intentions contrasted. What this means is that person A and B each despised communism, but both expressed approval for it because the other was doing so. With a silent majority of endogenously held preferences, one person spoke out and a cascade effect set in where more and more Eastern Europeans started to express their true discontent with the system (Kuran, 123). This same idea is one of the reasons that the recent protests in Hong Kong have been such a problem for the CCP.
The Eastern European revolution was also partly due to Gorbachev’s taking the reins. Once he became the Russian leader, it was easier for the Satellite States to escape the grasp of the Soviet Union because of the looser reforms, but that is not to say there was no risk and danger of speaking out. After the Czechoslovakian revolution, the New York Times sent one of their best reporters, R.W. Apple, to Prague to interview communists about the collapse of the system. When Apple got there and started to look for communists, he wrote that he could not find any (Apple). What was odd was that some people still would have benefited handsomely off of the old regime. The communist ideologues were curbed to the side in terms of ideology, but they were not repressed, so why did they hold back their truths? In fairness, although not being oppressed at the time, there was a high chance they were scared and playing it cautious lest a McCarthy like inquisition was to take form under the new authority. Preference falsification lived on, but in a reversal of the original form. If a dictum to describe the Eastern European revolution should be used to teach us anything, it should be that “truth prevails.” What this communist regime and its downfall shows us is that our preferences must be expressed in truth, and we must accept each other’s differing convictions. If living a lie overshadows expressing our truths, we can’t combat successful change; we won’t be able to put up a fight against tyranny, and we won’t be able to see that we might hold beliefs more similar to each other than we realize.
The downfall of communism shows how preference falsification can contribute to an ongoing system that is so unpopular on the end of the people, but it does not show the responsibility that authoritarian dictators play—besides threats of violence—in maintaining their powerful regimes. For example, in 1979 Saddam Hussein took over as leader of Iraq and during a speech in front of the party leaders in a large theater, sat down, lit his cigar, and surveyed the crowd as a member of the Baath party (leadership before Saddam) admitted to his plans of overthrowing the new leadership. As the man spoke, he let the theater know which people in his ilk were co-conspirators amongst the crowd. Suddenly the guards started to take people out of the room and as more and more people were forced out of the room, the cameras directed at the audience showed a strange pattern. Numerous people in the room stood up and denounced the old regime, screaming statements like “all hail Saddam” and praising his new leadership (Hitchens, 1:30). The sudden acts of praise came out of fear, showing the private preferences being suppressed deeper and deeper, while the public preferences became more outspoken. What happened next was of the people who were left in the crowd, Saddam forced them to execute the others (Hitchens). Quite ingeniously Saddam sealed in the preference falsification by making what was left of them complicit in the act. The preference falsification resided in people suppressing their real views so they could live. What this method capitalizes on is a mechanism that ensured people’s continuing loyalty to Saddam.
Another popular dictatorial notion is that autocrats make leadership decisions based on a loyalty-competence trade-off, but this is not necessarily true. To recognize preference falsification, leaders use cults of personality— the mass following, admiration, and praise of a leader due to wide-scale propaganda and charisma. Hafez El Assad used this methodology to measure the cost of preference falsification in subordinates. He aimed for leaders with low costs of preference falsification because they generally tended to be more ruthless and loyal, whereas a high cost of preference falsification would be riskier in terms of loyalty (Crabtree, 26). This system is proof that leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Assad did not only employ cults of personality out of narcissism and glory but as logic for choosing regime leaders via evaluating preference falsification. These two examples show that preference falsification can drive narratives of power and successfully make longer the tenure of autocrats.
As autocrats scope out preference falsification by employing cults of personality, some would argue that our current president takes advantage of this method with his own ardent mass following by inciting people with satirical jokes about liberal policy or elected democratic officials. As it relates to American democracy, the area preference falsification might impact the most is our American elections. It seems that people are blindsided by election results from the past four years and how misleading the polls have been. Why is it that Hillary Clinton was projected a landslide victory and lost? It can’t be stated for certain, but the answer once again lies in preference falsification. Recent research indicates that 11.7% of Republicans as opposed to 5% of Democrats are reluctant to tell the truth of who they are voting for. Additionally, 10.5% of independents are also hesitant (Litman). The same 10% margin persists in data that shows while 28% of employed Democrats fear expressing their opinion, 38% of Republicans do. Another set of data shows that 60% of people with post-graduate degrees worry about their political preferences (Ekins). It is known that institutions are predominantly liberal, but are these numbers skewed? In the same token, are the polls wrong because people are lying? Surely one can make a case for preference falsification being a reason that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, but that is certainly not the only answer; there is not one sole explanation. There is a multitude of reasons including but not limited to the unfavorable opinions of Hillary Clinton amongst liberals, or voter turnout being low. If people are falsifying their preferences even by margins such as 10%, it makes for thinner margins in battleground states that matter and tells us lots about how uncomfortable Americans are sharing their opinions in a climate of unrest.
For a phenomenon that goes so under the radar, preference falsification has so much hidden value. It can be useful to autocrats in maintaining power, collectivizing groups—forcing people into extremist values, but it is most useful for birthing and transitioning to new ideologies in the wake of old ones. Preference falsification is a problem at large and history shows that when we speak truth to our ideas, we can let old habits die hard. With courage and truth our society can progress and potentially learn to come together whereas now, compromise is so hard to come by because people don’t know where their differences even begin.
Works Cited
Apple, R. W. “Clamor in the East; MILLIONS OF CZECHOSLOVAKS INCREASE PRESSURE ON PARTY WITH 2-HOUR GENERAL STRIKE.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Nov. 1989, www.nytimes.com/1989/11/28/world/clamor-east-millions-czechoslovaks-increase-pressure-party-with-2-hour-general.html.
Crabtree, Charles, et al. “Cults of Personality, Preference Falsification, and the Dictator’s Dilemma.” SocArXiv, 12 Aug. 2018. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/pt94c/.
Ekins, Emily. “Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share.” Cato Institute, 20 Oct. 2020, www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share.
Ghosh, Iman. “Charts: America’s Political Divide, 1994–2017.” Visual Capitalist, 25 Sept. 2019, www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-divide-1994-2017/.
Hitchens, Christopher. “Iraq’s 1979 Fascist Coup, Narrated by Christopher Hitchens …” YouTube, Neestle, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR1X3zV6X5Y.
Kuran, Timur. “The East European Revolution of 1989: Is It Surprising That We Were Surprised?” The American Economic Review, vol. 81, no. 2, 1991, pp. 121–125. JSTOR, https://fbaum.unc.edu/teaching/PLSC541_Fall06/Kuran%20AER%201991.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020.
Litman, Leib. “Study: Are Election 2020 Poll Respondents Honest About Their Vote? Study: Are Election 2020 Poll Respondents Honest About Their Vote?” CloudResearch, 10 Nov. 2020, www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/election-2020-poll-respondent-honesty/.
Sunstein, Cass R. “True Lies.” New Republic, vol. 213, no. 26, Dec. 1995, pp.37-41. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9512212322&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Weinstein, Eric. “The Portal, Episode #004: The Economics of Revolution and Mass Deception.” YouTube, Commentary by Eric Weinstein, Timur Kuran, 26 Aug. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA
Wikipedia contributors. “Preference falsification.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Nov. 2020. Web. 21 Nov. 2020.
