You are wrong. So wrong that this issue is no longer debatable.

But fortunately, we agree about some other things, and it is this conflict between our agreement on X and our disagreement on Y that keeps us peaceable. Polarisation is when we either agree or disagree about everything, then there is us, or there is them, and the conflict is no longer internal, as I agree with you about some things and agree with your opponent about some things, but if i disagree with anything, I disagree with everything. The latter is a recipe for war. — unenlightened

I'd say that it is through trust and respect for you that makes me want to listen to you, even in disagreement -- so even if there is no debate I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts.

If we trust and respect one another then we can disagree on damn near everything; whereas if we do not then we can agree on a lot while still treating one another as enemies -- actually I'd say the current situation is a lot like my latter scenario. The amount of agreement between the two political identities is remarkable. The disagreement is over a few pet issues, with a heavy salve of double-standards that gives emphasis to the disagreement. If anything were to be sad about civil war in the United States right now it would be over how very little civil war erupted from.

But sometimes we have good reason to neither trust or respect a person. I'd also say that there are different kinds of respect. There is a general sort of respect for others that everyone is owed just by virtue of their humanity -- even our enemies. Then there is the kind of respect we feel for others because of who they are, what they have done -- a kind of admiration of sorts. It's the latter that prevents war. The former is the kind of respect we can hold for others even in war.

There are plenty of sad issues that make me lose the latter kind of respect but I think I'd prefer to stick with a hypothetical for now. Suppose negotiating with a bully. A bully is the sort of person who gains pleasure from the fear of others, and said fear is measured by concessions to their actions. A bully is generally insecure about themselves and it is the pleasure they receive from others pain that soothes said insecurity.

Some bullies don't go to a far enough extreme that you need to declare war. They can be appeased well enough without infringing on your dignity, and their insecurity is their own problem to deal with. But that's not always the case. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bully is to say no, after which the bully will attempt to follow through with the threat -- and while sometimes what they threaten isn't actually of much worth or worth the effort of war, sometimes it is; such as when violence against people you love is threatened, for instance.

I don't see how you come to a compromise when dealing with such a personality. And there are various other sorts of people who I lose respect and trust for that I would say merit treating distantly -- and, at lamentable times, with war.

I don't see how you come to a compromise when dealing with such a personality. And there are various other sorts of people who I lose respect and trust for that I would say merit treating distantly -- and, at lamentable times, with war. — Moliere

Sure, some people are impossible; there have always been such. But the topic is hyperinflation. It's as if half the world has become bullies, and the other half victims, but each half thinks they are the victims and the other lot are the bullies. That is polarisation.

Should we start talking about the archetypes? Mass psychology? Should we note the similarity between belief in God and belief in conspiracy? Is there even a way of talking about what's happening that doesn't participate in and partake of the polarisation?

But the topic is hyperinflation — unenlightened

Fair point. I'm a bit off.

Is there even a way of talking about what's happening that doesn't participate in and partake of the polarisation? — unenlightened

I think on a one-on-one or group basis that it's possible, sure. I don't feel more or less polarized, myself, having discussed it here for instance. I suppose we could do so if we wanted, but I'm not really here for that. I want to share my thoughts and hear the thoughts of others bounce off of them, and vice versa.

Though I don't know if there is a general way to talk about the phenomena that does not at the same time participate. I'm also not sure that inflation is exactly the right way to put it . . . polarisation, yes -- but a lack of trust and a clear enemy, moral certitude, and conviction seem closer to me than not believing in someone else's outrage just because it's over-used.

It's not that outrage has run out of purchasing power. It's who we pay attention to that matters -- these person's outrage makes sense, where these other person's outrage does not. The poor's outrage against the rich does not make sense because they could just work hard and obtain their dreams just like I did. Their outrage is the outrage of those who have not accepted my values, grown up, and taken responsibility.

The Republican outrage does not make sense because it's not based in scientific fact. They are trying to impose their religion upon the state, when the state and church should be separate.

Do you see what I mean?

I don't feel more or less polarized, myself, having discussed it here for instance — Moliere

It's not something one would feel, like an attack of radicalism or something, but something one sees out there - suddenly there seem to be a lot more people I cannot talk to, that I can't find the basis of agreement on which to disagree.

For instance, one might expect at least a proportion of Christians to be socialist seeing as Jesus fed the hungry, healed the sick hung about with prostitutes lepers and outcasts. But the perception at least is that Christians are all right wing. One might think that it would be natural, if one was against abortion, that one would be for child support, and support for single mothers. One might think that an ardent Zionist would not be allied with a neofascist, that regions suffering poverty and decline and receiving EU subsidies would be pro-Europe. This is polarisation, where one issue becomes all issues, where an orthodoxy becomes the whole religion. It's never something that the individual suffers from, it's not a change of view, what is polarised is alliances. Who would have thought that generosity to immigrants was UnAmerican?

In general, I have always been left wing, but I used to be able to find some virtue in conservative values, and have some criticism of labour policies. That doesn't seem tenable these days, but not because my views have changed - it's them, isn't it?

Hrmm, fair. I think you are right to say that polarization is found out there, and not in here. Alliances have solidified into mutually exclusive groups where there is a kind of generalizaed orthodoxy.

Although I am tempted to say not out, but up there -- because a lot of these sorts of alliances seem to me to be the result of an abstract system of identification rather than something which is mediated by personal relationships. I'd say I get along fine with everyone I got along with before, but I have some kind of connection to them -- whereas there is a sort of story over-and-above my day-to-day life in which the news and commentary and all this seems to take place. I am able to engage in political action, in the broader sense, by ignoring the abstracta that populate political dialogue, in the narrow sense of representative government.


So in this thread I've argued against the offered causes of polarization -- the internet, social media, and the inflation of outrage. I've done this by pointing out time periods where polarization has occurred without social media, and also by pointing out that outrage has plenty of purchasing power if you are the right kind of person talking to a person on your side -- hence why we see so much of it. I've also made the claim, at least, that this is not a necessary evil, but part of the process of doing politics.

So I guess that leaves me with the questions ,"why the polarization? How did we get here?" unanswered. History could be investigated, but there simply is not a point of view from which history can be written that would not favor this or that side. Further, I don't think there is a more accurate presentation for grasping at the events of human action than by the historical method. So if we indulge in a more abstract approach we will lose accuracy, though perhaps at the benefit of not deepening or participating in polarization.

My own bias inclines me to look at the system of government that we currently employ. But, then, it could just be that there are a few pet issues that are near and dear to both sides, where people have felt like they are not being heard or that enough is not being done, and enough is enough. It could be just as simple as having irreconcilable differences of opinion that are so important to both sides that war is seen as worth it.

Usually such deep political views do not arise organically -- usually there are people organizing people into groups when that happens; just like a strike doesn't "just happen", so too do people not just happen to draw a line in then sand to fight to the death, come what may.

I think you are right to say that polarization is found out there, and not in here. Alliances have solidified into mutually exclusive groups where there is a kind of generalizaed orthodoxy. — Moliere

Well I'm going for a social construct view. Along the lines of 'I don't personally believe in the value of money, but since everyone else does, I find it useful.' Which amounts to believing in the value of money. Similarly, the fact of polarisation means one has to choose sides, and there is no real outside from which to look at both sides. One sees it outside, but one is a participant.

I think I agree that social media does not explain anything. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that we have reached the age where the participants in the last global conflagration are no longer active in politics. Perhaps not having experience of how bad it can get and how it gets that bad allows a general upping the ante, exploitation of fear and resentment, that was previously confined to the lunatic fringe, and for the same reason makes it more effective.

Well I'm going for a social construct view. — unenlightened

Gotcha. I think I've been drawn to looking a politics through a sort of phenomenological lens -- hence my emphasis on the personal relationships I have. Obviously the ones I have aren't the ones you have, but everyone has these sorts of relationships. And together we can do things; which is quite similar to saying together we have power, and can effect change in the world through that power be it feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or what-have-you.

When I think in this manner it seems that a lot of the arguments that incense people become somewhat distant to me. Not that they won't have real effects -- they will. They are arguments about social constructs that, as you say, are a fact whether we believe in them or not. They seem outside ourselves though we are participants in their creation. Hence why people become incensed.

But they are also, due to the abstract nature of what we are arguing over, sometimes disconnected from the the meaning of the words they use. I don't know if war is something anyone really wants, though we seem to be talking like we do.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that we have reached the age where the participants in the last global conflagration are no longer active in politics. Perhaps not having experience of how bad it can get and how it gets that bad allows a general upping the ante, exploitation of fear and resentment, that was previously confined to the lunatic fringe, and for the same reason makes it more effective. — unenlightened

I actually do think that's worth mentioning. Things have gotten bad, but they can get much, much worse -- I don't know if we'll actually escalate to civil war, but that kind of thinking that leads to civil war is in the air, so to speak.

People who say "privilege is why" are using this descriptive sense. They mean in the social context some people have been put in difficultly by an unstated material cause, which is producing a society with this relation of privilege. In making this point, they are only describing someone on difficultly in relation to this social order. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But how can this ever be useful? If we could, hypothetically, impartially randomize the wealth and social status of every individual in society, we would still likely have a situation where outcomes are not universally equal. You could make the same statements about privilege and associate them with the racial categories that happened to have better dice rolls, but you would not be offering anything useful in terms of understanding or remedying the problem. Via the association of privilege with race or gender, you're begging equivocation with cause rather than effect. I think you will agree that the unstated material causes of our disparate outcomes extend far and widely beyond race or gender, and that to comprehensively explore them requires we exchange artistic lenses for numerous scientific ones.

They'll just say "It's privilege" because they already know associated material caused nested with that outcome. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But what are the causes? Claiming authority in these matters is hubris.

The biggest issue is a lot of people just don't do description of people in the social context. One of the reasons people get confused by notions of privilege is they relate only in terms of a justification or causal state. They take everything about giving a reason for a state, social organisation or event. Description of an event, a person, how someone is treated, how someone understood, is a rejected catergory of inquiry.

The appeal to intentionally is a great example of this tendency. Supposedly, something will only count as discriminationatory if it's intended. Only if someone is rejected for being black can there be an issue with racism. Social inquiry gets reduced to reasons for rather than being descriptive of people in social relations. — TheWillowOfDarkness

By defining discrimination (presumably unfair?) as unequal outcomes in and of themselves, without giving thought to whether unfair discrimination occurred, you're exploding the term and courting misinterpretation. In a previous discussion of ours, you pointed out that if and when a cop shoots a civilian (be they armed, dangerous, innocent, whatever), it will be a discriminatory act depending on the race of the victim, and not the circumstances, judgment, and reasons which caused the cop to shoot in the first place (in our previous example, shooting a minorityeven if they're an active shooter amounts to discrimination, but it's not as if the police officer should not have done it, or should have paused to ask themselves if they should refrain from taking action because of the race of the perpetrator).

Should police only take action in so far as it is consistent with proportionally representative outcomes for given ethnic groups (a race based quota system?). That would definitely lead to equal outcomes in terms of police violence and incarceration, but something tells me this approach wouldn't actually result in increased social or economic equality (it wouldn't fix material causes).

Thinking in just terms of reasons or intention just doesn't make sense. It leaves out some of the most aspects of social relations. To do so is like trying to think about poverty only in terms of people who we've already employed. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But by hooking terms like privilege and discrimination (which used to have specific meanings) and using them as a pointer for all possible causes, you're over-blowing connotations of prejudice and racism while saying nothing at all about anything specific.

I don't think you're that far off from a usable lens, I mainly take issue with your choice of words. I do appreciate that you have always calmly and clearly tried to lay out good reasons for your positions, and while I disagree with some of them, your attitude and the actual position you occupy is not comparable to the brand of inter-sectional feminism that I have outlined in the course of this thread. Outrage might not be a part of your own school of thought, but it's a sufficient part of enough schools that it can come to dominate the subject matter.

There comes a time when an issue is no longer debatable -- where there isn't some compromise that will satisfy everyone involved enough to keep on getting along. There isn't some true belief with respect to how we should set up this or that law. There are convictions, and some of them cannot be reconciled. You either cross the picket line or you don't -- you either support the North or the South -- you either vote for Kavanaugh or you do not. — Moliere

You make humans sound like emotional sticks arbitrarily stuck in the muck (not wholly inaccurate). I think that when we are most vehemently and emotionally opposed is exactly when we should be debating; it means we have a significant difference about a significant issue. But thorough and unbiased debate in the midst of a controversial and emotional disagreement (especially where issues quickly break down into complex ethics, biology, economics, ecology, etc...) is asking to much. Grimly, thorough and unbiased debate, and some form of reconciliation and compromise is exactly what we're expected and required to do as the body politic. The more in-depth conversation we actually have, the less room I think we will have to disagree (on basically anything), the problem is in a world of tweets, headlines, and digital blinders, in-depth conversation is somewhat of a rare luxury.

We don't have to agree on everything, but we should at least be capable of understanding each other's perspectives (let alone willing!), and if and when mutual compromise seems necessary, it won't be for lack of trying.

I think that the favoring is more because this is how we feel now. I mentioned the civil war because that was clearly a violent political moment where there could not be compromise, but it happened without social media or the internet or even very fast communication. — Moliere

But it did, critically, coincide with a rise in the ubiquity of new forms of (social) communication. Printing presses were being made smaller and cheaper, literacy was rising, and the social-political machine was revving up. Leaflets, letters, pamphlets, posters, newspapers and speaking events. Dues collecting unions, clubs, and political parties churned out propaganda with quickening pace and a diversifying body of literature. Compelling reform movements included the women's rights, the emancipation and abolition of slaves and slavery, healthcare, and the general reform/Christian perfection of mankind in the face industrial decadence and socio-moral decay (Millenialism, temperance, utopian communes, etc...).

They may have lived in a snail's world compared to the pace of our own, but they were still living in a time of increasing communication and were like us being overrun with new information they weren't prepared to process. Perhaps when a technological change finally stabilizes we can have a chance at predicting and adapting to its effects, but when the environment itself is changing unpredictably, we might be wholly unprepared to confront the new and hitherto unseen consequences (uncertainty of the future lads to fear, and that fear to leads violence). The expanded and newly segmented world of post Jacksonian politics in the 1850's was marked by division over an influx of new issues. When Minnesota became a state in 1858, it gave the north a clear majority in the electoral college, and the perception of their impending loss (and therefore loss over all those intractable disagreements) caused the southern states to declare succession, and war ensued. Environmental forces of the 1820's-1850's caused the body politic of the era to segment and divide faster than it could homogenize through democratic debate and reconciliation.

One problem, at least, is that if we continue to segment deeper into our divided and emotionally committed trenches, violence will be inevitable. I'm not hoping to reignite the Luddite movement by laying so much blame at the feet of digital communication, but I am hoping that we get around to maturing (learning how to use it responsibly, healthily, and sensibly) sooner rather than later (though, as long as technological change keeps accelerating, I don't think we can necessarily control ourselves).

Some bullies don't go to a far enough extreme that you need to declare war. They can be appeased well enough without infringing on your dignity, and their insecurity is their own problem to deal with. But that's not always the case. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bully is to say no, after which the bully will attempt to follow through with the threat -- and while sometimes what they threaten isn't actually of much worth or worth the effort of war, sometimes it is; such as when violence against people you love is threatened, for instance. — Moliere

I agree in principle that sometimes reconciliation or cooperation is not an option (I personally refer to it as a breakdown of morality) but I don't think everyone's interests are so fundamentally opposed that we must necessarily differ or allow ourselves to come to violence. I guess it will come down to whether we engage in politics with our heads or our hearts, or perhaps some ideal mix of both...

You make humans sound like emotional sticks arbitrarily stuck in the muck (not wholly inaccurate). I think that when we are most vehemently and emotionally opposed is exactly when we should be debating; it means we have a significant difference about a significant issue. But thorough and unbiased debate in the midst of a controversial and emotional disagreement (especially where issues quickly break down into complex ethics, biology, economics, ecology, etc...) is asking to much. Grimly, thorough and unbiased debate, and some form of reconciliation and compromise is exactly what we're expected and required to do as the body politic. The more in-depth conversation we actually have, the less room I think we will have to disagree (on basically anything), the problem is in a world of tweets, headlines, and digital blinders, in-depth conversation is somewhat of a rare luxury.

We don't have to agree on everything, but we should at least be capable of understanding each other's perspectives (let alone willing!), and if and when mutual compromise seems necessary, it won't be for lack of trying. — VagabondSpectre

I agree in principle that sometimes reconciliation or cooperation is not an option (I personally refer to it as a breakdown of morality) but I don't think everyone's interests are so fundamentally opposed that we must necessarily differ or allow ourselves to come to violence. I guess it will come down to whether we engage in politics with our heads or our hearts, or perhaps some ideal mix of both...

I think people's interests are opposed fundamentally within our society. I think there are people committed to principles which cannot simultaneously be realized, too. And, if that be the case, then dialogue will lead us to realize that we are not ignorant of facts, but rather that we are, in fact, opposed. One such material interest I would say is that between the boss and the worker -- bosses' and workers' interests just aren't the same. An individual worker and an individual boss may cross lines, but their social position creates a hierarchy of conflicting interests. With respect to principles I'd say that the abortion issue is a good example of mutually exclusive principles. And with respect to both of these examples violence has already been used -- even recently. What's more the issue would not have changed without violence. Violence is a part of political action. Even those who move peacefully benefit from violence -- as alternatives to a conflict people tire of living with.

In the long run I take it on faith that it's possible for humanity, as a whole, to work out our interests so that they align and so that our principles can harmonize. But the journey there will have wars, and conflict, and the end product will look different than anything we're living with now. I also think it naive to take politics on faith.

But it did, critically, coincide with a rise in the ubiquity of new forms of (social) communication. Printing presses were being made smaller and cheaper, literacy was rising, and the social-political machine was revving up. Leaflets, letters, pamphlets, posters, newspapers and speaking events. Dues collecting unions, clubs, and political parties churned out propaganda with quickening pace and a diversifying body of literature. Compelling reform movements included the women's rights, the emancipation and abolition of slaves and slavery, healthcare, and the general reform/Christian perfection of mankind in the face industrial decadence and socio-moral decay (Millenialism, temperance, utopian communes, etc...).

They may have lived in a snail's world compared to the pace of our own, but they were still living in a time of increasing communication and were like us being overrun with new information they weren't prepared to process. Perhaps when a technological change finally stabilizes we can have a chance at predicting and adapting to its effects, but when the environment itself is changing unpredictably, we might be wholly unprepared to confront the new and hitherto unseen consequences (uncertainty of the future lads to fear, and that fear to leads violence). The expanded and newly segmented world of post Jacksonian politics in the 1850's was marked by division over an influx of new issues. When Minnesota became a state in 1858, it gave the north a clear majority in the electoral college, and the perception of their impending loss (and therefore loss over all those intractable disagreements) caused the southern states to declare succession, and war ensued. Environmental forces of the 1820's-1850's caused the body politic of the era to segment and divide faster than it could homogenize through democratic debate and reconciliation.

One problem, at least, is that if we continue to segment deeper into our divided and emotionally committed trenches, violence will be inevitable. I'm not hoping to reignite the Luddite movement by laying so much blame at the feet of digital communication, but I am hoping that we get around to maturing (learning how to use it responsibly, healthily, and sensibly) sooner rather than later (though, as long as technological change keeps accelerating, I don't think we can necessarily control ourselves). — VagabondSpectre

This is an interesting line of inquiry, I think.

What I hear is it's is not the rate of communication, but rather the relative rate of change of communication from one point to another -- the rate of the rate of change.

I think there's something to that -- a cause of civil unrest being technological change in nature, and in this case, the technological change in the rate of communication. However I don't think it's a matter of being ready to withstand such a difference in communicative power.

Media production in a commercially motivated society is a mirror of the personalities involved. The media production doesn't dictate desire as much as desire, and the ability to make financial flows (be it collectively, individually, through taxation, whatever), dictates what media is distributed. So I'd say that I think that a change in the production of media, in the rate of the rate of change, allows for disruptions of already existing tensions within a society. Whereas in prior technological hierarchies the powers that be had established means for controlling the production of opinion, the change in technology allows others to step in because even the powers that be are learning just what exactly this new beast is and how it works.

I see this as a different from an explanation for conflict through inflation, though. I'd say the tensions are already present, and its the change in technology which allows stratified power to be disrupted, which in turn brings out polarization as those previously silenced gain a voice and begin to restratify power in a new arrangement.

"The hyper-inflation of outrage and victimhood" --I'm against it. ;-)

I'm a free speech absolutist with the view that free speech isn't merely a legal issue.

I think that we've become ridiculous re just what physical transgressions we consider criminal and re just how seriously we punish those things.

I think that we've made a huge mistake in that we've allowed things to be structured so that money/business is such a behavioral determinant. People consider just about any action towards others justified just in case a business or organization made the decision to avoid having their financial bottom line negatively affected.

I think it's ridiculous that we ever prosecute anything based on testimony alone.