Month: August 2026

Rules and Duties

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August 23, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

Last week I wrote about the role that media plays in our group formation. This week I want to look at the unwritten rules or norms that form the structure of social and political groups. In an interview with Ezra Klein on July 31, 2026, the author and journalist Maggie Haberman recalled, “A Democratic strategist said to me in 2016, right after Trump won, that the entire country was about to finally understand how much of our system is norms and not laws.” After three years in office, Trump was learning to push the boundaries of those norms when the pandemic got in the way.

“I’m back!” Trump might have announced at the start of Trump 2.0. Within months, he bulldozed a number of norms. These included tearing down part of the White House, enacting a punishing series of tariffs on allied nations like Canada, and attempts to rewrite the citizenship clause of the Constitution by Presidential edict. Trump voided a campaign promise to avoid forever foreign wars and joined an Israeli attack on Iran in June 2025. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to persuade Presidents Obama and Biden to conduct a war against Iran. They declined to join Netanyahu’s holy crusade. This past February, Netanyahu found his sucker, convincing Trump that a quick and decisive strike at Iran’s top leadership and nuclear sites would usher in a regime friendly to Israel and the U.S.

Common Rules

Psychologist Joshua Greene (2013) began his book Moral Tribes talking about the tragedy of common sense morality. For each tribe there is a set of common sense rules or norms. What makes common sense to the members of one group, though, may not make sense in another group. Naturally, this leads to conflict between groups. In 1992, Rodney King pleaded, “can we all get along?” (Source) That plea echoes in our ears. Why can’t we get along?

Greene cites several studies that show that both humans and monkeys have an in-group bias. White adults and children as young as six years old show a preference for white faces over black (p. 52). Monkeys associate tasty fruit with the faces of other members of their group. They associate unpleasant things like spiders with members who are not in their group. The neural responses come mainly from the amygdala, the region of our brain responsible for emotion and heightened vigilance. Green concludes that “our brains are wired for tribalism” (p. 54).

In his book Determined, neuroscientist and primatologist Robert Sapolsky identifies the hormone oxytocin, produced by the hypothalamus, which is responsible for this in-group bonding (p. 54). It is the Us and Them hormone that strengthens bonding with other members of our group but also makes us more aggressive toward those we perceive as opponents in other groups. The levels of oxytocin and the receptors for the hormone vary with each individual.

We are more likely to survive in a group with others like us because they are more likely to know and follow the norms of the group. I’ll remind readers of a theme that I’ve discussed in the past several weeks. We come in contact with the world through our senses, but we engage with the world through our errors. We favor any behavior or group that helps us achieve more accuracy in our predictions.

Fairness

If someone sues me and I win, I think that the person who sued me should have to pay my legal costs. That’s only fair. Greene references a 1995 survey by the magazine U.S. News and World Report in which respondents were asked the same question and 85% agreed with me. Some of the surveyed respondents were asked the opposite question. What if the shoe were on the other foot and you were the one who sued and lost? Only 44% thought they should have to pay the other person’s legal fees. Greene calls this biased fairness and numerous studies have confirmed this tendency. Our self-interest modifies our sense of fairness.

Cooperation

The survival of a group depends on collective action, a coordination between leaders and followers. A leader makes a decision. Others in the group follow. The followers may be loyal to the leader or loyal to the group as a matter of principle. In 1934, Germany’s President Paul von Hindenburg died. Members of the armed forces no longer swore a traditional oath to Germany’s constitution and the republic but to Adolph Hitler personally. The so-called Führer Oath was

“I swear by God this holy oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and People, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this oath.” (Source)

Strangely enough, it was not Hitler who created the oath but the top military brass.

Justification

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) formulated a categorical imperative to evaluate the moral motivations of any act. We should act according to a principle that we wish were universal law (Source). For Kant, the group was the entire community of rational human beings.

However, Kant’s moral imperative promotes greater conflict because people are not entirely rational. Greene, Sapolsky and others point out that the neurology of our brains is bimodal. We have an automatic mode that is instinctive and emotional, and a manual mode that is deliberative (p. 137 in Greene’s book, for instance). We need both modes to survive.

In some cases these two processes work in tandem to justify our actions. Consider the case of an abortion protestor who detonates an explosive in or near a clinic. The aim of his automatic brain process is a visceral desire to close the clinic. Enter Kant doing a voice over like Rod Serling on the Twilight Zone. How should we evaluate this protestor’s actions? Should we make a universal law that we can bomb any institution that we consider evil or whose aims we disagree with? The protestor might respond that he is engaged in a war against evil and war justifies the bending of universal laws. After all, we permit killing during war in violation of the commandment not to kill.

Common Duties

Duties are behaviors that demonstrate loyalty to a group. They acknowledge and respect the rules and the group. Some duties are enforceable with punishment. A soldier in the military has duties to his group, his company or platoon. Failure to abide by those duties can ultimately mean court martial. A doctor has certain professional duties, chiefly among them a duty to care. Any lapse in care on his part might cause a patient or family to start a lawsuit. Punishments help enforce adherence to duty and loyalty to the group.

Some duties are enforceable only by ostracization. The Amish community practices Meidung, a shunning of a member who violates the rules of the community or disrespects the elders (Source). Members of the community should restrict eating with the shunned member, conducting business, or certain forms of social interaction with that person.

This year, the Vatican excommunicated Catholics who continue to practice in services by a conservative Catholic splinter group called the Society of Saint Pius X (Source). Excommunication in the Catholic Church does not void a person’s baptism but forbids and voids any participation in the other sacramental ceremonies like Communion.

Here Come The Judge!

We judge others and are conscious of being judged by others. We want to avoid blame. Next week I want to continue to explore these aspects of group dynamics. I hope to see you then!

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Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash

Greene, J. D. (2013). Moral tribes: Emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them. Penguin Press.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2023). Determined: A science of life without free will. Penguin Press.

The Media is the Mirror

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August 16, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

Last week I discussed how we deceive ourselves. This week I want to explore how we define ourselves through our affiliation with and membership in groups. Growing up we are part of a family, a group of students in school, congregants at church, players on a team, members of our local community. Many of these group affiliations are endowed to us by our parents, by our circumstances and the institutions within our local community. Later we associate with others of the same profession or job, who have similar political sympathies, or similar interests and hobbies. Are we passive victims of group psychology or do we actively, perhaps unconsciously, seek out groups that will confirm our opinions, values and perspectives? How does the development of different media change the composition of our social groups?

In 1956, the sociologist C. Wright Mills (1956, p. 304) argued that the country was developing from a community of publics into a mass society. What’s the difference? In her book These Truths, historian Jill Lepore explained what Mills meant by the two terms. “A community of publics is a population of people who talk to one another; a mass society receives information from the mass media. In a mass society, elites, not the people, make most decisions, long before the people even know there is a decision to be made” (2018, p. 566). In a community of publics, communication is a two way street. People communicate with their governing institutions and with each other. In a mass society, communication is a one-way street. Centralized organizations communicate to large populations who have little opportunity to respond.

Mass Media

Until the last decades of the 19th century, newspapers, magazines and books did not have a circulation wide enough to be considered mass media. Shortly after the Constitution was drafted, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison published a series of 85 essays arguing for the ratification of the new Constitution. The essays were first published in two New York City newspapers. They were reprinted by a few newspapers in other cities but many Americans would not have read those arguments (Source).They might have heard about them from neighbors or at local meetings where a state legislator revealed those arguments. America was a jigsaw puzzle of communities without any unifying identity.

It wasn’t until the late 19th century that newspapers had a role in shaping public opinion and identity. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer built media empires that competed with each other for readership in several prominent cities (Source). Through their influence on public opinion, they had some indirect influence on public policy. In 1898, the U.S. sent the battleship Maine to Havana to show support for Cuba’s fight for independence from Spain. When the battleship blew up, the Navy initially determined that the cause was a mine, an act of aggression by Spain (Source).

Newspapers published by Hearst and Pulitzer featured hyperbolic headlines designed to stoke animosity against Spain. Did those alarmist headlines, known as yellow journalism, light a fire of public anger so hot that politicians in Washington declared war on Spain? In grade school I was taught that, but the truth is that there were several issues that accelerated tensions between the U.S. and Spain. It is unlikely that the newspaper coverage prompted the war (Source). However, it became clear that large media organizations were willing to shape their reporting of events to amplify public sentiment and attract more readers.

Thousands of newspaper readers riding a New York City subway car to work might be reading the same newspaper. Without being conscious of it, they were part of a group, bundled together and sold to advertisers as part of the newspapers’ circulation numbers. The small amount that readers paid for the newspaper had never been enough to offset the printing and distributing costs.

Broadcasting

On November 2, 1920, a station in Pittsburgh broadcast the election returns. Within two years, there were over 500 licensed radio stations (Source). In 1931, a CBS station in New York City became the first broadcast TV station (Source). By the end of World War 2, the three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC dominated the medium and competed with each other for listeners and viewers. In the 1920s, the Nielsen company began to sample the audience for radio stations. In 1950, they began measuring the viewership for TV programming (Source).

In the 1960s, a popular Top-40 radio station like WABC in New York might broadcast a variety of music that appealed to a wide range of people and musical tastes. Higher audience numbers led to higher advertising revenue.

There were songs from popular musicals, as well as American song book classics performed by artists like Frank Sinatra. There was a mix of rock and roll from bands like the Beatles, some R&B by Ray Charles and the soul music of James Brown. Mom and Dad tolerated the sound of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Who. The kids tolerated old fogey artists like Sinatra and Bing Crosby. People were exposed to a diverse collection of musical tastes played over and over again in rotation. Maybe a 12-year-old mentally tuned out Eydie Gorme’s song Blame It on the Bossa Nova, but if someone mentioned the song or sang a couple of bars, they would be somewhat familiar with the song. The exposure and repetition of this variety led songwriters to incorporate elements from a diverse collection of musical styles. That was AM broadcasting.

Narrowcasting

The rise of FM radio stations tailored a selection of music to a smaller audience. Until 1965, FM radio stations in larger cities simply simulcast what their affiliated AM Radio station played. In 1965, the FCC instituted a rule change that required the owners of AM and FM stations in large markets to broadcast distinct programming on their FM stations. Some FM stations became independent and adopted innovative programming to appeal to a narrower audience. WNEW in New York City played jazz, poetry readings and progressive rock (Source). A person no longer had to tolerate the music that they didn’t like. In fact, a popular artist or song from another genre might be unfamiliar.

Getting Choosy

In the late 1960s, 8-track players for cars became available. Music lovers took one step further to crafting a unique listening experience in their car (Source). People could be less tolerant of what they didn’t like and more in control of listening to what they did like. In the 1980s, people could create an intimate and unique listening experience with the newly introduced Sony Walkman, headphones and compact cassette.

The Internet

In the 1990s, the development of the internet allowed users to explore and share common interests, opinions and perspectives with strangers. By 2000, AOL Online had 20 million users and hundreds of forums, chat rooms and message boards (Source). Users were known to AOL by their real names and addresses but users could hide behind screen names and creative profiles with other users. As consumers of print, radio and TV media, we were anonymous. Through social media we could interact directly with other human beings and preserve our anonymity. Without anonymity, we might be reluctant to express our frank opinion. Behind the curtain of digital anonymity, we became like the wizard of Oz.

Shared Errors

Two weeks ago I wrote that “we come in contact with the world through our senses but we engage with the world through our errors.” As wizards in the digital realm, our anonymity meant that our errors might have little cost. In direct contact with others, we had to learn some restraint. Now we could try out controversial religious, political and social claims without worrying about social ostracization or physical harm.

We could hang out in groups of people who made similar claims. Vaccines were a government conspiracy. The Trilateral Commission controlled the leaders of powerful countries through extortion or mind control. Most of the extraordinary technological and scientific discoveries in the second half of the 20th Century had come from aliens who had landed near Roswell, New Mexico after World War 2. Democratic politicians were sponsored by Communist sleeper cells intent on imposing socialism on America. They were part of a secret cabal of pedophiles. Republican politicians were puppets of big business and the military industrial complex. They would rather spend your taxes on war than health care and social programs.

We found groups and media channels that believed the same facts and came to the same conclusions we did. We could stand firmly on the principle that people should not be forced to buy healthcare insurance. But what about a 25-year-old without health insurance who got injured somehow? Should the emergency room refuse to treat her? We could believe that churches and civic organizations would voluntarily contribute to charitable funds that would pay for that expense. We could believe that and no one would challenge us with facts because we all had libertarian sensibilities and resisted most government programs.

Social media has helped us untie the restraints on our opinions, impulses and emotions. Next week I want to look at how we form and share common rules of morality in groups. I hope to see you next week.

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Photo by Ramon Kagie on Unsplash

Lepore, J. (2018). These truths: A history of the United States. W. W. Norton & Company.

Mills, C. W. (1956). The power elite. Oxford University Press.

Deception and Dreamweavers

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August 9, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

Over the past several weeks I have explored our predictive ability. Last week, I ended with an observation that we tend to look away from the mistakes in our predictions. At first glance, this does not seem to be a successful survival strategy. A student doesn’t submit assignments for the first few weeks of class, then asks how they can make up the work and get a good grade. We must reconcile the reality of our circumstances with a constructed fantasy future. Shouldn’t we be learning from our mistakes? Why are we so good at self-deception?

Dreamweavers

We are the most creative of social animals. Deception is the creation of an illusion. If we want the world to be a certain way, why shouldn’t we construct a reality that conforms to our desires? We have little control over our instinctual responses to sense data. We pull back our hand from the hot burner on a stove, for example. But we must interpret most of our sense data, and that interpretation depends on our ability to filter out data which is non-essential to our needs. We apply our own unique weighting system to the events around us.

Because of that, eyewitness testimony has been shown to be fallible. We do not record events and place them into memory like the footage of a surveillance camera. We use our perception,  our previous knowledge and beliefs as well as our expectations to construct a narrative. In her 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony, Elizabeth Loftus recounted several examples of the errors in our perception and memory. Erroneous eyewitness testimony accounts for two-thirds of all DNA exonerations, according to the Innocence Project.

Social Animals

Robert Trivers is an evolutionary biologist whose 2011 book The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life argued that we practice self-deception to become more effective at deceiving others. Natural selection would favor individuals who are good at self-deception. I think Trivers might have it backwards. Self-deception is an incidental effect of our need to deceive others. Our survival in a social group depends on camouflage. We get so good at it that we sometimes delude ourselves.

In his 1982 book, Chimpanzee Politics, Frans de Waal examined the strategic social interactions between chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands. Subgroups within a colony form alliances in support of a particular leader who uses aggressive displays to enforce dominance. Sexual relations promote social cohesion. Diplomacy helps reconciliation after fights break out. Chimps practice concealment to make it difficult for another member of the group to predict what is going to happen. Hiding signs of aggression before launching an attack is one example. Chimps hide food, or hide their excitement at finding a food source to protect it for themselves.

Conspiracy Theories

Human beings use concealment as well, but also practice intentional deception designed to create a false belief in others. Concealment is a cloaking action. Deception is a creative act, the construction of an illusion. Conspiracy theories involve both concealment and deception.

Alex Jones, the former owner of the web site Infowars, promoted a conspiracy theory that the shooting of twenty first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut was a hoax, a government conspiracy designed to arouse public anger and enact more gun control legislation. Jones’ accusations prompted some listeners to harass the parents of the slain children.

The parents sued Jones for defamation. A jury found Jones guilty and awarded the parents over a billion dollars in damages. Jones declared bankruptcy and was forced to auction Infowars to pay the damages (Source and Source). Jones’ deception fostered a belief in his listeners that the parents and the government were concealing the real events of the school massacre.

Nothing to See Here

A chimpanzee learns to act noncommittal to avoid suspicion from a dominant member of the troop. In 2005, John Roberts was nominated first for associate justice then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At a Senate confirmation hearing he said, “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat” (Source). As a lawyer in the Reagan Administration, both Roberts and Samuel Alito had supported the unitary executive theory. This was a controversial reinterpretation of Article 2 of the Constitution that expanded the power of the president beyond the bounds of any Congressional checks (Source). Once confirmed, Roberts would no doubt pursue this and other conservative theories that aimed to overthrow established court precedents regarding abortion, gun control, campaign finance and the limits of free speech. To get confirmed, however, he skillfully concealed that agenda (Source).

In 1987 the Senate, led by Democrats, voted down the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Because the confirmation hearings were broadcast, the Senators were apt to strike performative poses much as they do now. Senator Ted Kennedy, brother of the assassinated John F. Kennedy, issued a vituperative public statement that predicted an undoing of all the liberal reforms of the past 50 years if Bork were confirmed. Decades of Bork’s past writing were introduced at the Judiciary Committee headed by Senator Joseph Biden (Source). Bork’s supporters felt that they had little opportunity for rebuttal in the public arena.

Since then nominees to the court undergo extensive preparation for the confirmation hearings (Source). They are taught to adopt a noncommittal attitude when answering questions from Senators. To avoid prejudicing future cases, they elect not to comment on any issues that might come before them. Within this institutionalized and ritualized confirmation process, concealment is a survival strategy.

Groupthink

Self-deception exists both at the individual and group level. In the 1970s and 1980s, Psychologist Irving Janis published several books on groupthink, a term he coined in 1971. In a group of individuals, loyalty and consensus take priority over a dispassionate evaluation of evidence (Source). A case familiar to many of us is the justification that the Bush administration used to initiate a war against Iraq. Based on hearsay and sketchy evidence, President Bush and a key group of advisors became convinced that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction. They ignored and concealed any evidence to the contrary as they presented their justification for war to the international community (Source).

President Trump surrounds himself only with those who agree and submit to his ideas, values and theories. Like a troop of chimpanzees, loyalty to the leader is paramount. In February 2026, Trump became convinced that a “shock and awe” strike on Iran’s leadership would cripple the Iranian military and perhaps usher in a more compliant regime (Haberman & Swan, 2026, p. 396) Vice-President Vance was one of the few in the cabinet to question the viability and success of such a plan. He is the only member of the cabinet that Trump cannot fire.

Conclusion

Last week I made the distinction between how we come in contact with the world around us through our senses and how we engage with the world through our errors. We want to avoid harsh judgment from ourselves and those around us. We deceive ourselves because we must live with ourselves. Next week I want to explore how we engage in self-deception as groups. I hope to see you next week.

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Haberman, M., & Swan, J. (2026). Regime change: Inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. Simon & Schuster.

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

The Errors of Our Ways

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August 2, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

Last week I asked how we cope with the errors of our voting predictions. Do voters, in fact, make such errors? In 2024, 97% of House incumbents were reelected (Source). Voters overwhelmingly confirmed their choice of House member to represent their interests. On the other hand, a Gallup poll this past April showed that 86% of those polled disapproved of the House, a record high.

If voters are so loyal to their House members, then why the thumbs down on the institution? Is it the House’s institutional rules that disgusts everyone? The Constitution specifically states that each house of Congress will determine its own rules, and the rules reward tenure. The House is a majoritarian institution, meaning that the number of elected party members determines which party’s priorities will dominate the agenda for the next two years. In an evenly divided House like we have had for several terms, half of the country’s voters are marginalized. Constituents vote yeah, whatever and reelect incumbents.

How we engage

We come in contact with the world through our senses but we engage with the world through our errors. Before electronic bookkeeping, accountants used pencils, making it easier to correct errors. We learn to walk by propelling our body forward in a series of interrupted falls. To catch a ball, a child learns how to predict the flight of the ball through trial and error. We drive a car by predicting how it will respond to our steering, and the pressure of our foot on the brake and gas pedals. We learn to predict the actions of other drivers, although sometimes we make critical errors.

Don’t Blame the Gods

At the beginning of the Odyssey, Zeus, the “father of gods and men,” says “Look you now, how ready mortals are to blame the gods. It is from us, they say, that evils come, but they even of themselves, through their own blind folly, have sorrows beyond that which is ordained” (Source).

When we vote, we predict the character and behavior of a candidate. In a 30 minute video, author Yuval Harari notes that we often mistake confidence for competence in our leaders (Source). We may be drawn to a candidate who promises a simple solution to a complex problem. Who doesn’t like simple? We may turn away from a candidate who has a deeper knowledge of the problem because they cannot express the problem in a short sound bite.

“Drill, baby, drill!” and “Lock ‘em up” are political slogans that fit on a postcard. Even politicians who understand the complexities of a problem know that they will lose the attention of many voters, so they choose the overly simplistic slogan. Modern political campaigns use the association of beliefs and identity to brand political opponents with short negative epithets. Campaigns throw labels like communist, socialist, authoritarian, tax and spend, big government, oligarchs, and see what sticks with voters. Coupled with that negativity is an appeal to the nobel side of voters on our side.  A vote for our candidate, or our side of an issue is a defense of goodness, virtue, and American principles against the barbarians from the other party.

The Mote in Your Eye

We are attentive to the errors in other people’s opinions, yet we dislike other people offering to correct our opinions. Substack author Kati Rae points out that a belief or opinion may support a person’s identity. Offering to correct that belief or opinion is perceived as an attack on the person (Source). Our reluctance to perceive or admit the errors in our predictions contributes to the inaccuracy of those predictions.

In his book Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb tells the story of George Soros, one of the most successful investors of all time. His accuracy rate? About 53%, just a bit better than random chance. What’s the secret? A prediction is an outcome, but every outcome has a story. When the narrative does not unfold as Soros predicted, he admits his error, unwinds his position and minimizes his losses. The secret to winning is acknowledging error. Why then is that so hard for many of us?

Divided by Interest

At the founding of the country, two groups emerged to represent different regional economies and interests. The Democrat-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, served the priorities of farmers and others who worked the land. The Federalists, led by Hamilton and Adams, were the party of choice for those who lived in the urban areas. The economies of North and South were very different. The north relied on value added manufacturing and trade businesses. The economy of the southern states was based on agriculture.

The Constitutional structure was built on hard fought compromise. In the decades following the ratification of the Constitution, the non-compromisers in the northern and southern states took over the political machine. Most states adopted the practice of awarding all of their Presidential electors as a state block. This “winner-take-all” policy hardened the divisions among voters in each state. Why don’t moderates of both parties separate themselves from the extremists? Because extremists in each of the two dominant parties have structured state and national politics to lessen the influence of moderate voters. When will moderates take back the country?

Memory

There is no identity without memory, a vital tool in shaping our predictions. We remember economic shocks and misbegotten wars when the other side was in power. High inflation, a housing crisis, a recession, high gas prices, and major tax increases. We may excuse such incidents when our side was in charge. It couldn’t be helped. Circumstances beyond control. Or we blame the “establishment” of the party. Factions form within the two dominant parties, trying to wrest control of the party’s direction from the party’s leaders. The media, mainstream or not, plays to our selective memory.

In many areas of our lives, we learn to correct our predictions through trial and error. However, some choices like voting are infrequent and are more difficult to correct. People may misremember a past voting choice so that their remembered choice aligns more closely with their current sentiments (Source). In panel studies, survey participants are asked shortly before an election which candidate they intend to vote for. Just after the election, they are asked which candidate they voted for. A year later, they are asked again who they voted for and sometimes their answer conflicts with the answer they gave shortly after the election.

Putting It All Together

Our predictions depend on the data we sample, our memory and identity. We look away from the mistakes in our predictions. We blame it on the candidate we voted for. He or she tricked us. We blame it on the party. They tricked us. We rarely look at the real trickster, the one in the mirror. Next week I want to look at why we are so good at self-deceit. And with that, I hope to see you next week.

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Photo by LATIKA SARKER on Unsplash