Contrary to popular belief, lawyers
don’t always get out of jury duty. Last fall, after spending three days on a
criminal trial, I finally figured out why the Assistant District Attorney didn’t
even consider excusing me. His closing argument included a legal theory that he
wanted the jury to apply to our case. This theory allowed
us to make assumptions based on circumstantial evidence rather than requiring
the usual proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Having me (and another attorney) on
the panel ensured that there were at least two people among those deliberating who
accepted – and would apply – the idea as needed.
Even so, as I sat in the jury room, I
had a hard time grappling with the fact that someone’s fate depended on a shortcut.
Life doesn't take place in a jury room. Having
weathered the campaigns for and against Amendment One, North Carolinians need
no reminding that most of life’s deliberations do not take place behind closed
doors – nor amid people with a range of backgrounds and
worldviews, with cell phones and social media turned off, until we reach unanimity.
As busy citizens, we don’t
have time for that. Nor does it sound like a very pleasant way to make tough decisions. (If it did, we would
line up for jury duty rather than being summoned.) And so we struggle alone with
unfamiliar and complex ideas. We absorb
information on the fly. We look for shortcuts.
When
arguments challenge our beliefs, we find it easier to ignore, eliminate, or
subconsciously devalue the opposition. We seek comfort in those who share our
existing attitudes. (By the way, it took Leon Festinger two decades to develop
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, a complex psychological premise that I just
attempted to simplify into two dozen words.)
In the
debate about the constitutional amendment on Tuesday’s ballot, we were aided in
this process by campaign slogans and games of semantics. On the one side, "Holy
Matrimony" and VoteforMarriageNC.com. On the other, "Amendment One Harms
Children" and ProtectNCFamilies.org. These make for better bumper stickers,
yard signs, t-shirts and URLs than “I support/oppose marriage between one man
and one woman being the only valid and recognized domestic legal union in this
State.”
But
campaigns – political, ideological and otherwise – don’t deal in complexity. People
who design them understand that every word they say / publish / post must pass
through myriad filters of personal experience. Therefore, the fewer words the
better. Instead of giving audiences all the information (even though that is
what we claim to want), campaigns establish associations in the audience’s minds
that are short-cut dependent, e.g., "Marriage is under attack" or "Domestic
violence protections will disappear." Then as they develop, they build on that
association, inviting the audience to participate – in material or virtual ways
– by tying identity to outcome.
The goal of a campaign is to make us feel as if we are no longer struggling alone.
And we, as
audience members with sensitive psyches averse to conflict, join willingly,
closing ourselves off to the other side. In the end, we persuade ourselves as
much as we are persuaded.
This
process also transforms the world into us vs. them. Those on our side, or those
attempting to defeat us. FOR the Marriage Amendment, or AGAINST Amendment One.
Victorious, or devastated.
And that’s
a problem, because as one Queens colleague tells first-year students in her
Modern Citizenship class, “We do not live in an either-or world. We live in an
and-also world.” No matter what the Republican and Democratic National
Committees would have us believe, there are more than two sides to every debate.
But we
have to look for the third, fourth, fifth point of view. It isn’t handed to us,
and it’s never simple.
Reporter and
media critic Brooke Gladstone recommends that audiences look beyond just conservative and liberal when identifying predisposition or prejudice. She writes this of
what she calls status quo bias:
“Human beings tend to oppose change unless the benefits are guaranteed to be huge
– and the risks miniscule.”
The
campaign that led to the passing of Amendment One on May 8 demonstrated how
difficult it is to guarantee the unknown. The appeal of an unfamiliar and
complex future pales in comparison to that of the effortless sound bite. We
aren’t programmed to accept anything more without a struggle.
In
communication – as in the courtroom – the side with the simplest story always has the
advantage.
