Conservatives, moreso than others, worry that to be exposed to even a skin-deep “inoculation” or gloss on a movie or book’s greater purpose, however manifestly opposite that cover story is to the author’s creative intent, is to risk terminal moral infection.
It’s probably worth pointing out that recent discoveries about the mind suggest not only that the mind notices every single one of these “skin-deep inoculations” and converts them into feelings and changes to our perceptions, but that we also know from decision science and marketing studies that the effect can actually be more pronounced & effective when it is too subtle for our rational minds to notice.
So, I actually haven’t seen the movie either – and am now a bit more intrigued – but I base my own reactions to these sorts of claims on how the mind actually works. At the level of inferring behaviors & thoughts amongst conservatives and liberals, what we are doing is applying the standard of “associative coherence” (aka internal consistency) in order to formulate a judgment. That is not actually a “rational” process itself, because it is not a process that is actually based upon evidence. Associative coherence benefits from fewer observations: We are more certain, the less we know. If I see somebody driving around town with a confederate flag in one window and a gay rainbow flag in the other, notice that your mind starts to ask all sorts of questions about what is going on. You only know two things about this person – and not a shred of actual evidence – and your mind is already trying to create a narrative about that person. But, the fact that there is no internal consistency between the two things which you can observe interferes with your ability to do that in this example.
So, even if you have trained your rational mind to be rational, there still exists this irrational mind which pops stories into your head all of the time. Those stories are pre-formed. You don’t have to do anything in order to create them. It requires NO mental effort – very unlike the rational mind, which is extremely slow and effortful – and accordingly, LAZY.
I highly recommend that people learn Daniel Kahneman’s model for the mind (Thinking, Fast and Slow). The mind does not work as we like to imagine, and that applies to both conservatives AND liberals.
