Churchill's Cognitive and Rhetorical Style: The Debates over Nazi Intentions and Self-Government for India

Abstract

Many scholars view integratively complex reasoning as either cognitively or morally superior to integratively simple reasoning. This value is, however, too simple to capture the complex, subtle, and even paradoxical linkages between integrative complexity and good judgment in historical context. Our case studies add to the growing literature on this topic by assessing the integrative and cognitive complexity of policy statements that Winston Churchill and his political adversaries made during two key foreign policy debates of the 1930s-the appeasement of Nazi Germany (where contemporary opinion overwhelmingly favors Churchill) and the granting of self-government to India (where contemporary opinion overwhelmingly favors Churchill's opponents). In both private and public, Churchill expressed less integratively complex but more cognitively complex opinions than did his opponents on both Nazi Germany and self-government for India. The results illustrate (a) impressive consistency in Churchill's integrative but not cognitive complexity in both private and public communications over time and issue domains, and (b) the dependence of normative judgments of styles of thinking on speculative counterfactual reconstructions of history and on moral-political values. We close by arguing that, although integrative complexity can be maladaptive in specific decision-making settings, it can still be highly adaptive at the meta-decision-making level where leaders decide how to decide. Good requires the ability to shiftfrom simple to complex modes of processing in timely and appropriate ways.