What Happens When Democracies Become Perniciously Polarized?

[Fun CH]

Tell ya what. You first. You and your Rep friends agree to knock off the lies and name calling and when that happens we'll follow suit.

According to an article in The Atlantic Jonathan Haidt believes it is social media that has weaponized the attacks.

I do understand your frustration, behavioral change is hard to do, but change we must.

None of my Replubican friends post lies or derogatory name calling on social media and don't do either to my face.

However, I really don't care what Replubicans do, I'm calling out the left because they are making everyone on the left, like me, look bad by association. But yea, call out derogatory name calling and lying when you encounter it.

And since you are accusing me of lying and derogatory name calling. Please post an example and I will try to do better.

For the record:

Here is one of your lies that you posted that I called out in a different thread.

"

Lauren Boebert replies to shooting, 'We are not a democracy'

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/03/laur ... s-were-not

here is her actual reply to the latest child Massacre .That quote you posted is her reply to calling for a gun ban. Yes I think facts are important even when they don't support my POV.

"Lauren Boebert
@laurenboebert
·
Mar 27
My prayers are with the beautiful children whose lives have been lost, their families & the first responders who are dealing with this tragedy in Nashville!""

While I'm not a fan of Ms. Boebert, as you can clearly see she responded to that shooting with compassion.

[Rideback]

Pretty much every pundit, whether its Haidt or the many psychologists who work in think tanks, all agree that with the advent of social media we've been exposed to a small number of people (say the Covid dirty dozen for example) who are at best con men and at worst exploiters who like to see chaos so they grab onto social media's platforms and explode their infuence campaigns to make a whole lot of money. Some people just like chaos for the sake of chaos.

https://digbysblog.net/2023/04/03/got-c ... iXXWOW3Nu0

[mister_coffee]

On the article, my first reaction is that it is extrapolating what happened in Nepal, Senegal, or even Brazil to what is happening in the United States makes as much sense as, I don't know, attempting to stand up a liberal representative democracy in Afghanistan. More precisely, the dataset they are using has a very small sample size and they are overgeneralizing the conclusions they can draw from the extremely small sample in use.

Maybe some practical questions are in order:

1. What is the desired end state?
2. What concrete actions are proposed?
3. How will those concrete actions produce the desired end state?

And a couple of observations:

Hyperbole, viewing with alarm, and demonizing your political opponents has been around a long time (read some of Thucydides if you don't believe me). While it is rarely constructive behavior it is so common that I find it hard to produce a meaningful correlation with any kind of social or democratic collapse. If it did, it would predict 99 of the last two dozen such collapses.

The behavior of a public figure like, say, Tucker Carlson, is also immensely profitable to him. I don't know how you'll gently persuade someone who is making buckets of money doing anything that their behavior is destructive to society and that they should stop doing what they are doing. Humans are able to rationalize horrid behavior all the time. Chances are you are going to have to put incentives in place that punish bad actors and reward good ones.

The people most likely to be persuaded to change their behavior by the kind of arguments in the quoted article are unlikely to be the people who can or will produce any kind of lasting change for the better. That is most definitely true if some very powerful people see any kind of value add in the current polarization. And it certainly is true that some very powerful people have benefited from the current "pernicious polarization."

[Rideback]

Tell ya what. You first. You and your Rep friends agree to knock off the lies and name calling and when that happens we'll follow suit.

According to an article in The Atlantic Jonathan Haidt believes it is social media that has weaponized the attacks.

[Fun CH]

So yeah, we want to dig at the truth. How can people discuss issues and have opinions and not seem divisive? There is a language that we have to use.

That's done by not demonizing the other side or demonizing their motives, listening to what the opposing POV is and consider it before reacting emotionally, use facts and not misinformation.

Using derogatory language plays a big part in demonizing the other side.
J.Haidt says call that out just like you would call out racist speach because the demonization of others because you disagree with them is hateful speach none the less.

Its about respecting the other person and recognizing the spirit in that person.

J. Haidt says, according to his research, its hard to show empathy across a moral divide, but that is what must be done.

[PAL]

Yes, that assessment is quite correct unfortunately. It is interesting to see who the major players and donors are of the Carniegie Endowment, Facebook, being a major one, BP, Bridgewater, to name a few. But there are great minds in the organization.

So yeah, we want to dig at the truth. How can people discuss issues and have opinions and not seem divisive? There is a language that we have to use.
But as humans, it is hard to remain at neutral and at a plateau. Just because I think one way or the other doesn't mean I am divisive.
The divisiveness we are experiencing is being egged on more and more by certains kinds of rhetoric that people use.
When referring to Trump specifically, as I said before, he says hurtful things about people and about how bad this country is. That is divisive. Am I being divisive when I say that sentence? Am I being divisive when I say I don't agree with him? I think not.
I am polarized from the Trumps, the Boebarts, Taylor Green, Jordon. Gotta say, they all have spunk.

[Rideback]

I agree with the Carnegie assessment.

Difference is, there's no 'us vs them' here. There is instead an effort to dig for the truth vs believing what Fox punditry says is so. How can there ever be agreement if the truth isn't uncovered? Without truth there's just opinions and they don't tend to make friends.

[Fun CH]

"Its not us its them, we're on the side of good" is the cry heard on the Pasayten bulletin board. Nope, its us, who else could it be?

"Severe polarization correlates with serious democratic decline:"

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/01/1 ... -pub-86190

"The rise of political polarization in the United States has pushed analysts to ask a fundamental question: what long-term effects will polarized politics have on the United States’ democracy?1 Existing evidence provides ample reason for concern. At the elite level, deep political divides in Washington have crippled efforts at legislative compromise, eroded institutional and behavioral norms, and incentivized politicians to pursue their aims outside of gridlocked institutions, including through the courts. Yet these divides extend far beyond the corridors of power, as polarization at the mass level is pushing Americans across the country to divide themselves into distinct and mutually exclusive political camps. The rise of an “us versus them” mindset and political identity in American sociopolitical life is evident in everything from the rise of highly partisan media to the decline in Americans’ willingness to marry someone from the opposing political party.2 Even more concerningly, these dynamics are contributing directly to a steep rise in political violence."