How to Decode Trump’s Vileness and Biden’s Hollowness

You’re supposed to be shallow for judging a book by its cover. But that’s because a book’s author isn’t usually the same as the artist or editor who chooses the cover to sell the book. Thus, there needn’t be a common vision that unites the book’s contents and the cover’s design. Nevertheless, as a species we evolved the ability to think heuristically or intuitively, a penchant for stereotyping so we could make snap decisions to resolve crises. One such snap decision is the infamous “<a href="https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/11/first-impressions" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">first impression</a>.” Our clothing style and posture, for instance, contribute to the first impression we make on others. Similarly, we intuit that we shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees. It’s possible, we expect, to bury our more logical thinking in overanalyses of details so we fail to see “the big picture,” the holistic upshot of what’s happening. An ecology of symbols thrives in this space of snap judgments. Think of corporate logos and of iconic images such as memes. Or think of religious and literary symbols, including metaphorical associations that stand in for endless background information. We hold events guilty by association, as it were, if they’re easily encapsulated by established symbols or rhetorical frames. <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/how-to-decode-trumps-vileness-and-biden-s-hollowness-6b046888766a">Website</a>