Sebastian Schmidt

“Given that our minds are the seat of all our beliefs and attitudes about politics, it is only reasonable that we make it a priority to understand the common function and pitfalls of our political minds, and that we seek to transcend these pitfalls rather than blindly allowing them to dictate our views.”
― Magnus Vinding, Reasoned Politics

“Politics is broken. To say that this is a cliché has itself become a cliché. But it is true nonetheless. Empty rhetoric, deceptive spin, and appeals to the lowest common denominator. These are standard premises in politics that we seem stuck with, and which many of us shake our heads at in disappointment.

Yet it is not only our politicians who fail to live up to their potential. The truth is that we all do. Our reasoning about politics tends to be biased by an unconscious commitment to tribalism and loyalty signaling — yay our team, boo their team. That is, our political behavior is often less about promoting good policies than it is about the desire to see our own team win, and to signal our loyalty to that team. As a result, our conversations about politics often go nowhere, and they frequently go worse than that.

The good news is that we have compelling reasons to think that we can do better. And it is critical that we do so, as our political decisions arguably represent the most consequential decisions of all, serving like a linchpin of human decision-making that constrains and influences just about every choice we make. This renders it uniquely important that we get our political decisions right, and that we advance our political discourse in general.”
― Magnus Vinding, Reasoned Politics

“This fact about human psychology may also be worth keeping in mind when others show a reflexively negative reaction toward us: they are not really reacting to us, but rather to their own negatively charged and unconsciously formed representation of us, which may indeed be an unpleasant cartoon figure to have to struggle with; a phantom struggle that merits both correction and compassion.”
― Magnus Vinding, Reasoned Politics

“We think with our culture. That is, we rarely think from first principles, even first principles we ourselves sincerely endorse, but rather from sentiments instilled in us by our culture. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of humanity’s moral attitudes toward non-human animals. Even most utilitarians, who by their own ideals ought to consider the suffering of all beings important, are still in fact exceptionally anthropocentric in their attitudes. The insights of Darwin have not yet trickled fully into our moral consciousness, not even among those whose moral views demand it. Such is the heavy momentum of culture, which is reflected in every facet of modern politics and political thought. The anthropocentrism of most political philosophy is, to put it mildly, a massive failure.”
― Magnus Vinding, Reasoned Politics