The selection mentality of making decisions, is it a real thing in politics?

Political Philosophy
1

The “selection mentality” refers to the mentality of people who conceive of choosing in terms of it being a process of selection of options, especially selection of the best option. Thereby people become emotionally dependent on feelings of doing their best. As distinct from people who correctly conceive of choosing in terms of spontaneity, which means in terms of that a decision can turn out one way or another in the moment that the decision is made.

The selection mentality causes policies to shift towards policies that generate feelings of doing your best for people, away from common sense judgments about happiness.

The covid policy, the ukraine policy, the climate policy, the immigration policy, the lbgtq policy, I believe these are examples of policies that are exaggerated, just for the sake of generating feelings for people of doing their best, in disregard of happiness.

This would all be solely based on people incorrectly conceiving of choosing in terms of selection of options, instead of defining it correctly in terms of spontaneity. The reason that the definition in terms of spontaneity is correct, is because the spontaneity is required for the concept of subjectivity to function.

The selection mentality is mainly occasioned by the psychological pressure to do your best. Pressure from the economy, and all sorts of other factors. This pscyhological pressure tends to push people towards conceiving of choosing in terms of selection of the best option, away from spontaneity.

Another thing which I guess promotes the selection mentality, is the increased education, in length of time of the education, the intensity of the education, and the percentage of people educated. The education conditions the mind towards the logic of fact, away from the logic of opinion, which then promotes the selection mentality. (because there are no essential subjective elements in a selection procedure). And because so many people get educated nowadays, the educated constitute a more significant culture, so from that you get a whole selectionist culture.

Lastly there are also philosophies / ideologies which explicitly define choosing in terms of selection of options, which is for example compatibilism, and also some type of racist ideology, although racism is much surpressed now. But I don’t believe these philosophies currently have much of any influence. They are more symptoms of a selectionist mentality, than a driver of it.

I believe we now have a large constituent of the population who have the selectionist mentality, and whatever issue they pick, no matter what the issue is, I know beforehand they are going to exaggerate the policy for it out of all proportion, in order to generate feelings of doing their best for themselves. These are of course mainly the highly educated people.

So what do you think, is this selection-mentality a real thing in politics by which policy gets to be exaggerated out of all proportion? Last they picked Palestine, to exaggerate it out of all proportion. I’m afraid of whatever they will pick next.

This could all be solved relatively easily by students learning the logic of fact and opinion in school. Because the logic of opinion shows clearly that choosing must be defined in terms of spontaneity. Philosophy could make a big difference here.

2

What you’re hinting appears to be selection pressures when it comes to making different choices as way of choosing the best option out of all possible options.

You then apply this type of choice making to political ideas that the electorate chooses to represent them best and you’ve outlined a few recent geopolitical themes which appear to be tangential to your main thesis and point regarding of selection pressures in terms of making choices whether they are trivial or important and favour spontaneity above calculated decision making.

I do not think there is an issue with deliberating over a choice because by considering all factors and consequences when it comes to choosing do we ensure that such a choice or decision benefits us over others in the short or long term so I’d like to know how you justify making a spontaneous choice when, if not given enough thought can turn out to be wrong.

3

You misunderstand, I’m not saying that it’s a good thing to be spontaneous, I am saying it is a fact that decisions are spontaneous, and it is an error to define choosing in terms of selection of the best option.

Among other things, as I have already said, you don’t have a functioning concept of subjectivity anymore if you define choosing in terms of selection of options. So then in respons you would have to explain how the concept of subjectivity works with choosing defined in terms of selection of options.

But mainly what defining choosing in terms of selection of options does, is that it locks people into this selection mentality, making people emotionally dependent on the feelings of doing their best. The feelings of doing their best are associated to the idea of selection of the best option.

4

But that’s what choosing is (making a selection), we hope to make the best choice when we choose something over a plethora of other options. And we certainly wouldn’t make a bad choice deliberately, so we always choose what’s best for us.

how do you propose to solve what appears to you to be a dilemma ?

5

Very obviously the selection-mentality is dissolved by correctly conceiving of choosing in terms of it being spontaneous.

And that you assert, that choosing is defined in terms of selection, no that is wrong. And the thing that determines whether choosing must be defined in terms of spontaneity, or selection of optins, is investigation of the logic that is used with the word choosing in conversation.

And in conversation we use subjective terminology, a lot, saying things are beautiful and such, and it is very clear upon investigation, that choosing must be defined in terms of spontaneity, in order for that logic of subjectivity to function.

6

Alright, so how do you apply spontaneity into decision making without making the wrong choice.

What do you mean by spontaneity?

Let’s say you have 3 prizes in front of you with different amount of money 5,10,15 dollars ,.. it seems to me you’d prefer a spontaneous choice rather than a thought out choice which guarantee to yield the biggest prize rather than left to luck which would be what a spontaneous choice essentially is.

7

Spontaneity means that a decision can turn out one way or another in the moment that the decision is made.

You don’t have to do anything to apply spontaneity, because it is just a fact that decisions are spontaneous.

Behavior of people is both by selection and choosing. Tasks that are learned, repeated tasks, tasks that are automated, like driving the same route home all the time, they determine behavior by selection much. So of course you can decide to choose a little more, and select a little less, that would make you more spontaneous. But this is just only about the definition of the word choosing, and not about that it would be a good thing or a bad thing, to be more spontaneous.

8

I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make from the op to subsequent posts perhaps you’re able to clarify.