The Hyper-inflation of Outrage and Victimhood.
For the better part of a decade, the political equivalent of a gold rush has been fomenting in the heart of our bodies politic; a rush built on the public expression of victimhood and outrage. Sympathy for victims and the ensuing outrage are among the oldest ethical tools of social cohesion that humans have. In the classic human setting, they encourage us to name and shame bad actors, which then allows us to take action against them and preserve group well-being. Without it we wouldn't have concepts like "honor", and would be far less motivated to behave ethically. Today, thanks to technology, outrage is more relevant than ever before, so much so that its utility is being degraded.
In the ancient world, there was an upper limit to how quickly outrage could spread, where the more egregious the transgression, the faster and farther the news would be shared out. In a way this helped ensure that group responses were proportional to the nature of the transgression. In the modern world, where information can instantly be disseminated to millions of people, each of whom can in turn take verbal or physical action of their own, and echo the information to millions more, the social sanctions we sometimes apply to publicized transgressors can be instant and utterly disproportionate. As a result, claims to victimhood and the social/political currency of outrage that it generates have become more powerful than ever, with several chilling effects:
Outrage can move so quickly that it can destroy reputations well before anyone has had a chance to examine facts; in supercharging our capacity to render social sanctions against transgressors, we've in practice marginalized habeus corpus. Mobs tend to make a lot of mistakes...
The world of corporate management and leadership has reacted to the supremacy of outrage in the new socio-economy by fearfully insulating themselves in a thick wet blanket of political correctness, and by purchasing stock in any source of outrage possessing good optics. While individuals search for ways to describe themselves as victims, and as others actively search for them to declare outrage on their behalf, and as media corporations embrace and promulgate without question, the market has been flooded/segmented, quality has declined on average, and the political market value of outrage has capped. We're so saturated in outrage that we have become less sensitive to it, and now the most salacious headlines compete for our limited attention spans, but what is salacious is not always ethically or politically relevant. In other words, we've stopped caring, and we're left with a situation where as a group we cannot identify alleged transgressions that are ethically or politically meaningful.
We've exploited outrage to the point that we've altered how it works, and it's now much less reliable as an ethical tool. Legitimate concerns which merit sympathy and attention are buried or obscured under the overtly sensational, and whatever legitimate issues do get play are quickly swept aside to make room for the ever growing "in-pile", and are never properly addressed.
In short, we've allowed our lives to become a daily interactive circus of appealing directly to each-other's negative emotions in a sport-like game of victims and outrage. The genuine, still bravely singing, cry, are scarce heard amid the clowns below.
In the ancient world, there was an upper limit to how quickly outrage could spread, where the more egregious the transgression, the faster and farther the news would be shared out. In a way this helped ensure that group responses were proportional to the nature of the transgression. In the modern world, where information can instantly be disseminated to millions of people, each of whom can in turn take verbal or physical action of their own, and echo the information to millions more, the social sanctions we sometimes apply to publicized transgressors can be instant and utterly disproportionate. As a result, claims to victimhood and the social/political currency of outrage that it generates have become more powerful than ever, with several chilling effects:
Outrage can move so quickly that it can destroy reputations well before anyone has had a chance to examine facts; in supercharging our capacity to render social sanctions against transgressors, we've in practice marginalized habeus corpus. Mobs tend to make a lot of mistakes...
The world of corporate management and leadership has reacted to the supremacy of outrage in the new socio-economy by fearfully insulating themselves in a thick wet blanket of political correctness, and by purchasing stock in any source of outrage possessing good optics. While individuals search for ways to describe themselves as victims, and as others actively search for them to declare outrage on their behalf, and as media corporations embrace and promulgate without question, the market has been flooded/segmented, quality has declined on average, and the political market value of outrage has capped. We're so saturated in outrage that we have become less sensitive to it, and now the most salacious headlines compete for our limited attention spans, but what is salacious is not always ethically or politically relevant. In other words, we've stopped caring, and we're left with a situation where as a group we cannot identify alleged transgressions that are ethically or politically meaningful.
We've exploited outrage to the point that we've altered how it works, and it's now much less reliable as an ethical tool. Legitimate concerns which merit sympathy and attention are buried or obscured under the overtly sensational, and whatever legitimate issues do get play are quickly swept aside to make room for the ever growing "in-pile", and are never properly addressed.
In short, we've allowed our lives to become a daily interactive circus of appealing directly to each-other's negative emotions in a sport-like game of victims and outrage. The genuine, still bravely singing, cry, are scarce heard amid the clowns below.
Comments (71)
We've conditioned ourselves into a more fundamental kind of division, and now our mere differences more so define us. It has probably always been this way to some extent, but as people become more social media connected they intrinsically (algorhythmically) establish themselves as disconnected from opposing parts of the whole network. We're all being pushed in to boxes with people who share our exact delusions, where they're easily reinforced and nursed to strength.
Apart from coming to realize that social media which feeds us an endless series of links and connections based on what is most emotionally appealing. is not healthy for our individual and overall cognitive health, I don't see the world becoming less divided or less confused any time soon.
My outrage isn't on its own a standard of justice.
The point of the thread is to explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture, and in doing so altered it. It's curious though, that you begin questioning how my own outrage compares to the outrage of others, as if to instantly begin playing that aforementioned sport-like game...
Are you outraged? Is your outrage unavoidable or more justifiable than my outrage?
I've described them as natural and essential tools for certain kinds of ethical action. Some outrage is healthy and warranted, and some outrage is not. Would you like examples?
Quoting ?????????????
I'm frustrated because I see social media exploiting our sensitivities, which divides and stupefies us. Is my frustration warranted? Sure, Is it avoidable? No. What does this tell us about why people have become inculcated with an obsession for their own outrage?
Quoting ?????????????
Parenthetically mentioning my own feelings of frustration was a matter of full disclosure (having feelings is something humans do afterall, and I'm not an unfeeling robot). However, my feelings are not the result of a single instant communication which happens to incense me, nor have they been cajoled by a box of emotionally reinforcing rhetoric. I can appreciate that you would like to show the apparent hypocrisy of being outraged at outrageous outrage, but I don't think that's the key to the issue I've identified.
Im not exactly sure what exactly you are offering for discussion here, but your coments seem accurate to me. There is a problem, and its clearly firmly entrenched.
At its base, this seems to stem from scoring social points which is normal in human cultures but there is something darker and more negative about what you are describing isnt there? The social points are being scored in a game of us vs them, rank tribalism. The harder you attack the more virtuous you are and the more points you score. The more points you are trying to score the more you become enslaved to the group think, and dependant on scoring, its cyclical and escalating. These groups will quickly turn on dissenters, because of course they are awarded social points for doing so.
It's a game that we're hard-wired to play, which is one of the reasons we're so vulnerable to it.
Quoting DingoJones
If you agree then perhaps there's not much to discuss. What this means for the future is perhaps worth discussing.
Honestly I think people are already waking up to it. The groups themselves are in the minority and people are wising up to the dangers of this sort of toxic virtue signalling, im so tempted to call it a fad and a fading one at that....but....it has infected our academia, it permeates our media intake in subtle and not so subtle ways and although people may have noticed and developed disdain they still dont seem to see the danger.
Your outrage seems entirely justified to me, and theirs certainly does not.
My frustration pertaining to the thread's subject is not the persuasive basis for it, and it does not resemble what I have described as the uncritical amplification of whatever happens to be salacious. I'm not wholly immune to outrage, as I have explained, and while I do seem superficially capable of setting aside my emotions for the sake of discussion, I'm not harboring a panacea.
Quoting ?????????????
What if I'm just experiencing a momentary lapse of outrage?
Quoting ?????????????
I no longer understand the key metaphor. I am trying to say that asking about my personal mere differences will reveal very little about the ethical-social phenomenon I'm interested in. You're telling me that, not only is what makes me different the key to understanding the inflating value of outrage in western culture, it is in fact the key to understanding even more?
Quoting ?????????????
Even mundane things like fashion, food, and humor can suddenly be polemicized: wearing a t-shirt depicting scantily clad women, as an academic, becomes both symbol and mechanism of the disdain for women in the sciences; a recipe learned in a South American country and used by a North American food vendor becomes cultural appropriation and theft; an awkward joke becomes overt sexism and grounds for professional exile; a wedding cake becomes a religious battle ground; a burka becomes support for terrorism or oppression of women; a cartoon of the Islamic prophet becomes intolerable; a joke about your favorite politician becomes part of a greater witch-hunt.
Would you like to know more?
I think it may come down to whether we have the self control to begin using social media responsibly (and for social media operators to begin using us responsibly). The most irrationally outraged are indeed the minority, but as long as our media and academic institutions pander to them they will have significant reach and force. When it comes to massive corporate entities, I hold out no hope, but I do expect academic institutions to figure it out.
Quoting DingoJones
It's definitely a let-down that information and communication technology now degrades and exploits public discourse in these ways, and the more I see, the more I can lament about. However, I do reckon that if we are to get through these most emotional of times, that our present discomforts are necessary growing pains.
It's really a very moving poem about solidarity with victims; a poignant example how sympathy can be an ethically meaningful cause to act. It doesn't get much more meaningful, relevant, or genuine than the casualties of war, and the sympathy and outrage this poem has generated is an invaluable source of ethical motivation to oppose armed conflict.
What I fear is the dilution of these kinds of sympathies as opportunistic pseudo-causes are foisted into our emotional vernacular. We're over-doing it on a bunch of petty issues which causes us to miss or drop the ball on the meaningful ones.
P.S
For anyone who has never read the poem, it was written by surgeon and soldier John McCrae during The Great War (WW1), and for nearly a century has held a special place in Canadian culture:
An example would be obesity. When obesity is understood as a symptom of insufficient will-power, the obese person is responsible for his or her situation. However, when obesity is seen as an addiction the responsibility is shifted towards the manufacturers of the products that supposedly cause obesity, the solution is passed onto health professionals and the obese individual becomes a victim rather than agent of his or her own destiny. Outrage follows when said victim is asked to take responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions.
There are many examples of this type. It is often referred to as medicalisation or pathologization, but it strikes me this is only part of the cause. Whilst it is certainly true that medicalisation has increased enormously in the past decades, it could not have increased without an underlying spread of deterministic beliefs on which to base this mode of thinking since it is so much easier to relinquish personal responsibility in a determined universe.
Given that determinism serves capitalistic growth so well, then it is not unreasonable to claim that deterministic beliefs have been spread by advertising. If this is true, then we may hold the advertising industry responsible for OP's original observation, and, more generally, frame the whole situation as a symptom of the quest for capital growth.
We sang a choral setting of the poem in a choir last year. It was really special.
Competition for attention isn't something new to social media. In some ways it actually opens up the playing field in competing for attention relative to television. And outrage is certainly not new. I mean, think of the children ;).
What's changed isn't the emotions in play, but what the emotions are directed towards -- I'd also say that we are more aware of a difference in values now than we were (or perhaps it's even more divided now, and it's not just our awareness)
We don't have a good basis for making judgments about the minds of ancient people -- whether they were as divided by emotion as we are, or whether we are more outraged than they, or for what reason. These are largely empirical claims which we lack the evidence to make a decent judgment on. Did information move more slowly? Sure. Does that mean that they were less susceptible to fits of outrage which were not guided by the cool hand of reason due to the slowness of information travel? I rather doubt it, though it's possible -- but in either direction it's largely speculative. It's worth noting, however, that Plato complained about the effects of the passions on the body politic.
There's a far better explanation for Ford's hearing than an inflation in outrage. Namely she is a woman, and he is a man, and men are given preferential treatment to women in the halls of power. For all the outrage against identity politics it's not like it came out of nothing -- there was already a preferred identity.
I don't think that people are unable to identify what is politically meaningful. It seems to me that people are largely set in their ways and they are not going to agree. There is a difference in values, and a stark one at that. I don't think this is the result of outrage-saturation, though. Why would I? Isn't outrage just another of the passions that motivate people to move? And aren't there other emotions which are appealed to in the competition for attention? Even now?
People are made apathetic by the competition for attention. But such has it always been -- there has always been a large percentage of people registered to vote who do not vote ,and an even larger percentage of people who are not registered to vote (just to name the easiest, lowest effort political act); in the US 2016 election there were roughly 125 million people not registered to vote, and of the 200 million registered about 127 million or so actually voted (and it's worth noting that these were highs -- indicators of a high degree of care and participation). They are apathetic to the process, for one reason or another, and some of them are apathetic because they have grown tired of having their attention competed for (though I think more often than not it's a little more mundane -- like having to fit in going to vote to a busy schedule, or feeling like the candidates are inadequate to vote for so there's no point to it, or thinking that someone else will go vote for them). But, then, there are others who fill their place, who become activated, who are passionate. And given that passions move people, and politics is about power, and power is derived from moving people -- why would you do anything but ride the passionate wave of movement? It's self-defeating to just not make appeals or compete for attention, even if it turns some people off. And if outrage is what works then why not?
Some day we may be so lucky as to have more fear and and disgust instead of outrage. ;) But one does not become politically motivated and go through the hassle without what are painful, and sometimes ugly, emotions. The sausage is good, but the process isn't the prettiest thing to look at.
Compare the treatment John F. Kennedy's, Bill Clinton's, and Donald Trump's sex lives received: Kennedy's promiscuous sex life was considered off limits by the 1960s press establishment. Bill Clinton's affairs received extensive, but reasonably restrained mainline media coverage. Trump's sex life news and views is a three-ring circus. Much of the change is owing to the Internet and the large social media corporations which, unlike the old mass media, are focused on the traffic volume on its sites. The old media like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times had a clear and definite stake in what they printed. (They still do, but it matters less.) Outrage, sturm and drang, and high velocity bullshit make for big social media traffic.
What happens now is rapid amplification of resonant outrages. (Resonant doesn't equal reasonable, of course.) And it isn't only the left that is outraged; the right too is outraged. Everybody is outraged because we too are interested in traffic volume, and mere irritation doesn't garner attention.
So I am saying that media is shaping the message. Outrage and non-negotiable demands fly, where modest proposals land with a thud.
It's not that everybody has gotten to be more angry and less tolerant. With outrage you make the case that there's nothing to discuss here, your side is right and the other totally is not only wrong in every kind of way, but simply goes against simple reasoning or basic morals.
Hence you don't say that many people disagree. You make it into a bigger thing by calling that people are outraged.
I'll pick an issue that's a prime example, but you might not like it:
The issue/concepts of racism and sexism (a.k.a, white supremacy in the west; the colonial patriarchy) have been slowly warped into misleading facades. Beginning in academia (specifically in certain humanities departments), the idea emerges that all white people are racist and all men are sexist (a redefinition in terms), and that every non-white/non-male person suffers from racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry and oppression at the hands of the white male owned system. The "intersectional" feminist approach then divides all people into their relative identity stacks and orders them from most oppressed to least oppressed (this is the "progressive stack"). At large, this encourages students of the field to be vocal about the race, gender, and sexual orientation of their interlocutors, and the final result is the promotion and repetition of divisive and classically racist ideas and speech. These students also tend to be trend setters and highly vocal and organized on social media, giving them a lot of reach. Worse still, corporate media are all too ready to kowtow to this vocal minority, if only to escape their ire.
Enter identity politics: Your race, gender, and sexual orientation are now a liability or asset, depending on who you're pandering to; to disagree springs the Kafka trap and adds fuel to the fire... (An elegant killing machine, I must say...)
If you want to understand why the view described above is wrong we can get in to that, but for now I'll briefly explain why it's a problem:
It's extraordinarily divisive. Yes it empowers heretofore oppressed, shunned, attacked, disenfranchised, and otherwise down-trodden demographics , but it is done by shunning, attacking, and disenfranchising others; it creates conflict, not unity, and we're merely creating our own enemies. Example: a Canadian professor takes issue with a requirement to use newly invented pronouns such as xim, xer and xey, and a protest against him erupts. Jordan Peterson is born. Evergreen state has the bright idea to promote awareness of racism by asking all white students and staff to leave campus for a day, one professor refuses to do so, a protest erupts against him. Brett Weinstein is born. Antifa decides to disrupt a conservative provocateur's speaking event at Berkeley, violence erupts. The alt-right is born. The alt-right then begins trolling and harassing the left, which confirms their worst fears: the nazis have returned.
Before long the passionate among us are so fundamentally entrenched in mutually exclusive worldviews that reconciliation seems a distant pipe dream. The nature of modern media allows either side to compose reels and reels of frightening rhetoric from the opposition, which practically guarantees escalation... But at some point, at least seemingly, for most of us, it all becomes too foolish. We become so desensitized and so inundated that we care less despite caring as much as possible. The currency of outrage inflates, and we're left with a perception and a world that is less useful.
I do agree, but I believe there is something unique in the relationship between negativity/outrage and social media. I'll try not to bore you with causal explanations such as the psychological impact of negative and positive emotions from an evolutionary perspective (arguably, avoiding the "bad" is necessary while chasing the "good" is not) (Hey that wasn't so bad!), but it is fairly evident that the most popular bandwagons (or at least those which travel fastest, furthest, and crash hardest) tend to be fueled by anger and outrage.
Quoting Moliere
I would say that we're less able to identify what is politically meaningful where previously sympathy for victims and the ensuing outrage did help us to identify issues of merit. Now that all sides are victims, there's less sympathy to go around, and we're more liable to being hijacked by the polarized narratives which surround us.
Quoting Moliere
It's probably true that as individuals we're no more or less outraged than before, but group dynamics have changed thanks to hand-held social media; mobs form in a different manner. When a few million people are simultaneously incensed, even if each of them can only take a very small action, cumulatively it can amount to crucifixion. On the other hand, when were inundated with enraging click-bait, we have less time to take specific action. The result, I think, is that we're able to identify fewer issues of meaningful ethical concern, and of the issues which we do become concerned about (typically the most sensational) our responses come in inconsistent proportions.
Quoting Moliere
That's fair, but surely there are more and less ugly ways to make a sausage. Let's cook with love and not hate, for once :)
A similar contrast can be seen with FDR and Hillary Clinton. FDR took careful steps to conceal his physical disability from the public, and as far as I know the papers wouldn't dare attack his private health. In 2016 at one point there was a video showing Hillary slipping or feinting while being helped in to a limo, and conservative networks went wild with theories (Trump even incorporated it into an attack ad).
Some of the allegations against Trump regarding sexual misconduct do seem like they warrant attention, but they're just not compelling next to affairs with porn stars, mail order Melanias, and his uncomfortable affection for his daughter, so nobody seems to care.
The contrast in decorum is indeed stunning...
Quoting Bitter Crank
The right have learned to cry victim just as thoroughly as the left. Kavanaugh and the senate committee are recent examples...
Given how perverse the incentive structure seems to have become, can we ever grow out of our newfound/newly imposed obsession with outrage?
Somebody on one of the late night talk shows called these sorts of glittering generalities "deepities". They sound a lot profounder than they are. Another example of a deepity is "There is no such thing as an illegal human." Sounds good -- and is even true, but nobody has called "humans" illegal. Illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, illegal this, that, and the other thing, but no "illegal humans".
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I think a lot of the outrage, sturm and drang, incessant meme'ery, and so on are a result of the media. It isn't a plot; it's McLuhan's principle that the medium is the message. The high traffic social media are really narcissistic MEdia--emphasis on ME--and not so much social.
Facebook, twitter, and the like are designed to amplify the personal, so that's what people do with it. Recorded sound, film, radio, and television have various effects on the way we experience life. Those media are mostly 1 way: we receive; we do not send.
The Internet/WWW/browsers/email changed that. Now we could receive and send. This forum is a receive and send site. Philosophy Talk (on the radio) is 99.999% receive and about .001% send (the one or two calls and two or three e-mail questions they feature on the show). Send and receive is much more interesting, generally.
So, until such time as social media stops being MEdia. stops doing what the Internet is good at promoting (connecting), or until we run out of electricity, it will probably continue to generate waves of bullshit outrage.
Nice job, the opening post is most excellent.
It seems to me that political correctness in general is, in part, a channeling of some ancient psychological forces that can no longer be expressed in the usual manner. In the past if we wanted to feel superior to someone Jews, blacks and gays and other traditional victim groups were readily available and easily abused.
These groups have largely been taken off the table as targets (at least as compared to the past) but the urges which caused us to abuse them in the first place have not magically gone away. So we're on the hunt for new targets.
One example might be the group some would call "white trash trailer park hillbillies", that is poor southern whites. Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention.
If we were Catholics we might say that the devil always finds a way to sneak in the back door of even the most well intended projects.
And that condescending attitude also has given us Trump as a backlash.
Whopee.
To be sure, attention is currency in the marketplace of ideas; which boils down to social media in terms of exposure nowadays; and things which garner attention garner more attention. I made a thread a couple of months ago on a similar topic, though I did not intend to be as even handed as you did throughout. Specifically I was looking at where some pretty crap terms in our political discourse came from and how easily memed ideas interact with the attention economy to produce an overall lack of nuance. But also how this lack of nuance has been coopted (sometimes explicitly as with a few of the terms I mentioned in that thread) by interest groups on the far right.
I imagine what we can all agree on is that legitimate causes for consciousness raising are served very well by the current attention economy, but purely incidentally. Even if that consciousness raising yields little social transformation, some of the time it is worth all the spittle and spilled ink. Hashtag metoo and yesallwomen come to mind for, at the very least, trying to make people think about whether consent has been established for sexual advances. Say what you will about people who over simplified consent establishment in those beautifully progressive little outrages, and I might even agree with you. Regardless, it got women speaking out about their all too frequent sexual harassment which we've known about for quite a while from the statistics.
So yeah, as much as social media can be little more than a vector for invective, they're a universal message amplifier by design. If we're apportioning blame to Twitter for normalising outrage about Donald Trump's sexual misconduct, I'd put a hefty chunk of the blame on the way the algorithms work. Hashtag Trump aggregates all the nuances into an already dismissible narrative (FAKE NEWS, like what our OPs brand inappropriate outrage), and longer messages (what, 250 characters is long?) are harder to hear at the same time as their echoes.
As you suggest, when a controversial deepity is shot at high velocity from a blunderbuss (along with lots of other nasty flak), the impact crater it leaves behind is altogether novel.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I've always wondered about that second part of McLuhan's most well known phrase "If the medium is the message, then the content must be the audience". I can't be sure exactly what he meant (cryptic as he was), but man does it ever ring true when applied to social media...
The content of social media is by definition an amplification of our subjective selves. Often we start out in circles of the already like minded, and we're corralled deeper into niche groups as we explore the online environment. The many to many format of social media does connect us, but it can also disconnect us from the differently minded. For example, someone who browses /r/The_Donald, Infowars, Facebook, and Youtube will seldom if ever interact with or be exposed to the same informations as someone who browses /r/worldnews, Vice, Facebook, and Youtube. Subscription to one inlet/outlet will crowd-out subscription to other sources, and even within specific platforms the nature of subscription and algorithmic content delivery (you see what an algorithm predicts that you want to see) ensures that our existing views tend to be reinforced and seldom challenged. It's a folie à deux (folie en famillie, really).
Apparently McLuhan didn't even like television because he felt it was too subjective (compared to the objectivity of reading). He thought that it left us too susceptible to manipulation, and thought we ought to be teaching, from a very young age, the critical thinking skills necessary to choose which media broadcasts we should be exposing ourselves to. I can only imagine that he would be screaming blue murder from the rafters were he around to see what has become of us.
The "progressive stack" is an example of a misleading facade built to reflect and focus maximum sympathy and outrage with regards to sexism and racism (it is downstream from the original position you quoted).
Here's a video from an Occupy Wall-street rally (or something), which gets hijacked by a narrow worldview that appeals directly identity based victimhood, and defends itself via outrage:
The origins of the progressive stack and the worldview which produces it is a long story, but suffice it to say that it's founded on sympathy and divisive outrage, and promotes the very opposite of fairness and equality. For the most part it's a kept practice (it only tends to be employed among a certain kind of crowd), but it does reflect the genuine academic theory of "intersectional feminism" that is ubiquitous in academic humanities departments, and will inexorably be echoed in the sycophantic halls of mass media. It's just one brand of outrage though, and there are as many brands as there are worldviews.
"The caravan" is another concrete and more recent example of how a narrow world view can be hijacked via outrage inducing rhetoric, to the detriment of all. Mike Pence says that the caravan is a Venezuelan plot (I guess the plan was to have their own country fall into political and financial ruin, forcing thousands upon thousands to flee) because all the evil brown people want to ruin America. It's exactly the kind of simplistic and fact-ignorant rhetoric that works best on social media for its ability to induce sympathy and outrage, and when flung at high speeds through this series of tubes we call the internet, its impact is severe.
Regarding genuine issues of racism and sexism, most of my focus falls on non-western countries, but if I had to pick some issues, the list might look something like this:
I'm sure there are countless examples of racism and sexism in the west, but it is very difficult to find truly systemic issues (in part because we've spent a few decades trying to address unfair discrimination). I myself AM concerned about the genuine western discriminatory issues which remain, but very few of them win the competition for my attention. America's world record prisoner population might be the single greatest immediate human rights issue Americans of today actually face, and in so far as racism and sexism are contributors to that issue, I'll consider them systemic and worth fighting.
Disagreements can be reconciled, but outrage prefers revenge. By simplifying and polarizing, we seem to have lost the resolution required to navigate our differences, along with the emotional will to do so.
It's frightening to think that you might be right that we thrive in opposition, and history is definitely a positive indicator of such...
I would not at all be surprised that the moment we all finally become politically unified, regardless of the platfom used to do so, in the absence of the next meal, we begin consuming ourselves, tail first. I know it to be true of some political outlooks (communism and intersectional feminism, notably), but if it really is just satisfying a basic need to blame, then as Bitter Crank suggests, the new ubiquity of outrage as currency and the ensuing segmentation and division will continue as long as our computers have electricity.
That's probably not a good thing...
It's true. I had to write the OP in a way that everyone could relate to, else it would just read like my own bias. It's not just that I think we're too outraged about things we ought not be, it's that we're too outraged in general, and that this is having complicated effects. In some cases we're too outraged, in others we're not outraged enough (due to exhaustion; outrage's inflation). The #MeToo movement has some good and some bad effects (some overreactions, some justice) and the awareness of sexual assault that it creates is a good thing, but being amplified so loudly and repeated so frequently has had adverse effects as well. Men's rights groups (which are also a mixed bag of good and bad) and conservative apologists perceive the new environment as the persecution of men and are hardening to the issue (Dr. Ford's testimony was brushed aside as single drop in an ocean of public accusations).
Quoting fdrake
They're a universal simplifier, but as you say, what gets more clicks gets even more clicks. A small disparity of initial clicks leads to vastly increased exposure in the long run. If we're even slightly more interested in the negative, the salacious, and the outrageous, then they will be vastly over-represented in the mainstreams; social media is a biased amplifier. The disproportionate amplification is I think is a main cause of the overall problem, and looks to persist well into the foreseeable future.
There's really no point in citing individuals, but the strong form of this notion comes from the definition of racism and sexism as "privilege plus power" from intersectional feminism. Under these definitions, non-whites and and non-males cannot be racist or sexist respectively, because they lack power and privilege, and all whites and all males therefore inherently benefit from it (which is how the notion that all whites/males are racist/sexist emerges).
I think the correct way to deal with institutional racism is to enact laws to prevent it (along with spreading awareness of the issue). I've come to understand that in order to preserve some kind of demographic racial equality in university enrollment, they devalue the test scores of Asians because they tend to score higher on average. I think that should probably be made illegal, but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise. I think circumcision should be made illegal, despite significant objections on religious grounds. I think audits, oversight, and reform is needed in America's judicial and penal system (start by eliminating for-profit prisons), but I can't tell you the specifics or extent that would be required to get results.
Quoting ?????????????
How does forcing a certain demographic to speak and participate last prevent marginalization?
I know the reasons falling out of academia, but I'm curious to know why you think the progressive stack is a good idea.
I have faithfully reproduced the rhetoric, but if you would rather do your own research, that's quite alright.
Quoting ?????????????
I can see why you've misunderstood the progressive stack (it's pretty ridiculous after-all), but the point of the progressive stack is to have the most marginalized people speak first, which necessitates that least marginalized speak last (the progressive stack is a particular order of identities based on perceived levels oppression). Under the progressive stack the black woman would always be heard first in a room full of white men (is that fair?), and in rooms of mixed demographics, white males would always be heard last.
You have to understand that identity becomes credential; belonging to a marginalized group means you should get to speak first because your lived experiences directly reflect the systemic colonialism and patriarchy, and that is the boogieman we're here to fight. White men feeling like they are entitled to speak before other people is a part of the racist system that keeps women and people of color oppressed; white men don't actually have the right to speak publicly about the issue of racism or sexism because by definition they are a part of the problem.
Quoting ?????????????
So we should organize groups by arbitrarily valuing the presence and ideas of people with certain skin colors, sexual, and gender orientations, and arbitrarily devaluing the presence and ideas of others. Doesn't that theoretically propagate marginalization?
What is "marginalization"? Noun: marginalization; treatment of a person, group, or concept as insignificant or peripheral.
But wait, it's not arbitrary. It all makes sense because in the western world, whites and males are more significant. The group "white males" in particular are advantaged center-stage attention hogs who have had nothing but privilege for their entire lives. This is why when you encounter an individual white male, it is O.K to make assumptions about their experiences and ideas based on their gender and race, and to therefore disregard them as racist or sexist. Just as non-white skin is a credential that gives your ideas instant merit, being white gives instant demerit...
Ironically, the redefintion of racism I've outlined becomes itself a classically racist assumption, and along with the cadre of associated ideas and pundits coming out of this school of thought, are partially responsible for creating the classically racist alt-right (both sides reciprocate bigotry with bigotry).
Are you old enough to remember the thinking behind "don't see color"? It was the attitude that skin color should not be taken into account when making decisions about individuals. "I don't see color" was said to indicate as much. Nowadays, the phrase is viewed as harmful, because by not seeing color, we therefore do not see the credentials of lived experiences of oppression, et cetra, et cetra..., and can therefore never combat racism (by, for instance, employing a progressive stack)...
Everyone is looking to be a victim these days, but intersectional feminism has made it its science.
Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about something that happened in our social circle one night. It makes sense to ask people who were there.
Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about how people from different backgrounds feel about stuff. It makes sense to ask them.
Let's imagine that we're trying to find out about the possibility of really different experiences from different backgrounds. Yeah, still makes sense to ask them. They might even reveal things that we wouldn't even have thought of, maybe even couldn't in some cases.
How about assessing working conditions in an office? Let's ask all the people. Should we only ask men when sexual harassment of women is one of the reasons the office is being externally assessed? No, that's freaking stupid.
Why does it make sense to ask the people who were there and experienced stuff we wanted to find out about in any of the cases above? Well, because we want to know what events are relevant to them, if there are any patterns in those events, and how those events propagate through time - how they might stay as norms and so on. Fundamentally, the analysis of social circumstances begins with testimony of those people in them. Structure comes later.
So what's intersectionality? Really. It's the apparently outrageous idea that since people from different backgrounds often have different experiences, it makes sense to get their testimony about it before trying to find any underlying patterns.
It's that simple. If I wanted to find out about how second generation black immigrants are treated with regard to their national identity here in Trondheim Norway, I'd probably do well to start with asking members of that group. Turns out, for some reason me as a balding, stocky migrant temp worker with a ginger beard actually gets asked 'Are you Norwegian?' less than all second gen black citizens I've spoken to. Hm, I wonder how this relates to perceptions of national identity and racial stereotypes.
Applying intersectional methodology is nothing more than common sense applied to using testimony to study social circumstances. It does not mean that a person is automatically right in their descriptions of those social circumstances.
Also btw, as a cis white bloke, the intersectional feminists and trans folk I've spoken to have always been very receptive to my ideas, and they usually have something interesting to say. Especially postcolonial feminists. Maybe it's you?
The problem with that is that things like race or sexual orientation are not nearly as strong an indicator as the actual individuals traits. You get much more mileage asking about peoples experiences based on their actual experiences rather than the experiences you think (or even they think) they have had based on their race, gender or whatever other immutable trait they might posses.
You say its simple, but that is becuase you have made it that way, you just judge everything through the lense of immutable traits, a label that satisfies some but is not actually all that accurate (only in the most superficial ways). People are much more than these immutable traits, but if one views them as individuals then that will greatly hamper the outrage agenda and virtue signalling VagabondSpectre is talking about here.
Also, your anecdotal experience of how you are treated by certain kinds of people (whom I would just call people, your specificity seems totally irrelevent to me) is not really addressing whats being discussed here.
This is specifically about a movement, one that operates under the guise and as the unsolicited, unelected, and unverified spokespeople of minority groups in service of an outrage or victim culture. The movement is about power and revenge. Power to elevate certain groups above other groups and revenge for percieved slights of the past targeting innocent people today based on purely superficial traits like the color of their skin (white) or their gender (male).
Whether not you yourself are part of this movement or not I do not know, but its out there and its ugly and its precisely the same kind of false justification anti black/proponents of slavery used to dehumanise blacks in the US long ago. It is a rationalisation structure created not in service to anything just or righteous but rather for a dark emotional fulfilment.
Intersectionality is rooted in noticing that people from different backgrounds tend to have different experiences and think differently.
Put in a bit of effort to listen to people's perspectives, exposing yourself to backgrounds from a different part of the system we're all in and maybe you'll notice structural differences.
Bell Hooks was not pro-slavery or authoritarian in political standpoint. You'd think that people who allegedly spend their time obsessing over how any application of power marginalises others would be quite opposed to authoritarian politics.
Quoting DingoJones
You:You get much more mileage asking about peoples experiences based on their actual experiences rather than the experiences you think (or even they think) they have had based on their race, gender or whatever other immutable trait they might posses..
I agree entirely! This is precisely why you ask people what they think. That's how we end up noticing social patterns when we're not part of them. Why would you ever think I would disagree with this so much that it's a counterpoint?
Quoting DingoJones
No. Some parts of people's backgrounds are pretty innate; say having autism. Most of our socialisation, however, isn't. What matters is how people are treated. Why on earth, again, would you think that I treat identities as immutable? Why would you think that being committed to basic testimony gathering methodology entails all of this?
Quoting DingoJones
It's supposed to undermine the idea that people who believe in intersectionality are belligerent and unresponsive to cis white blokes. It's a case of not everyone is like that, and no part of believing in intersectionality commits one to behaving like a close minded ass. People turn to intersectionality precisely to try and avoid being a close minded ass.
In American political discourse there is absolutely no desire to achieve any kind of consensus or reconciliation. The main objective is simply to win the argument by taking power.
Actually I'm very worried that similar kind of vitriolic political discourse will happen here (as we tend to mimic things happening in the Big World). Some decency and cordiality still exists here as political parties have to form joint administrations with others.
I noticed also that the Mexican media focused on that a policeman was attacked by knife in a riot by the people trying to get into the country (and naturally Mike Pompeo reported it too). That kind of newsclip makes ordinary Mexicans angry, which is basically the intention of the newsclip. A similar agenda? Immediately came to mind that Lopez Obrador is taking power in December and as a typical leftist he has been (at least earlier) open to the idea of immigration. You can find similar political agendas in other countries too.
Two things. First, perhaps a differentiation between intersectionality and weaponized intersectionality. If all you mean is listening/understanding people, then Ill just keep calling that listening/understanding to people and you can call it intersectionality. If the idea is to listen to people based on the immutable characteristics like race or gender then I think its at best naive to the reality of how that is being used as a weapon by the aforementioned victim/outrage movement/culture.
Secon, I think its more accurate to frame it as different people equals different experience. Adding background just leaves the door open fir the above mentioned weaponisation.
A result of a sloppy work on my part, I didnt mean “you” you, but rather “you” in general. Poorly worded/phrased sorry. I switched between general use and specific use with no indication.
I dont think it undermines it at all, since as I mentioned this is specifically about a nefarious culture of outrage and victimhood, not about innocent or friendly people you might know.
Also, I dont turn to intersectionality, am I a close minded ass?
Is it so surprising that a methodology which seeks to give voice to patterns of suffering related to identities appears as a weapon? The intent here is violent in a sense, it is to destroy unfair practices!
When people of similar background get together and articulate their experiences, commonalities are noticed. Eventually this filters through to public discourse if there are open channels. Hence our modern and enlightened rejection of prejudices like sexism, racism and transphobia. A good account of life requires reaching out to it.
Quoting DingoJones
Differences based on background (1) predate intersectionality as an idea and (2) must be seen as changeable for activism concerning them to make sense. If you look at race and gender from a biological lens alone it's a bit different. For race there's less genetic between group variation (say, black vs white) than within group variation so 'racial differences' are pseudoscience. Gender seen biologically is essentially sex, and we know that humans are both sexually dimorphic and that human genitals have lots of different rarer forms. When we're talking about race and gender, we're not talking about them in either of these senses. We're instead talking about them as historically specific, contingent social facts.
There's a top down component - structural issues like availability of appropriate medical care for trans people and the mentally ill, ghettoisation and so on. Things which are systemic properties with multifaceted causes, contributing factors and which require pluralistic strategies of redress.
But there's a bottom up component too - 'what's your experience like at the doctor's regarding that you're trans/schizophrenic?' etc. The top down bit and the bottom up bit actually have very similar content - one expresses the other. The major difference between them is that it's a lot easier to ask questions of people when trying to form representative accounts of how people like them are treated. Contrasted to how hard it is to intuit structure top down without formative experiences.
It's certainly well intended, but its general application is silly and divisive. If we're trying to survey the opinions of a particular demographic, then yes we should be asking that demographic, but most discussions, such as those at an occupy wall-street rally, aren't so specific. By assuming in the general sense that race or orientation arbitrates the relevance of an individual's experiences, and acting on that, we're just practicing a kind of race/gender/orientation discrimination of our own, are we not?
On the one hand, the progressive stack is about elevating the previously silenced groups (doesn't exactly apply to individuals, (elevating an individual is not elevating a group) but that's fine), on the other hand it calls for a kind of favoritism and ostracization to actually get results. The strong and defensible version merely states that we should be listening to victims because they probably have relevant information, but just down the hill is the version which states that because one group is oppressor and another victim, we need to favor and disfavor individuals belonging to that group accordingly.
Quoting fdrake
When we're talking about an actual survey, yes we need to get unbiased samples, but this isn't the progressive stack (or at least, it is the "motte" and not the "bailey"). In an educational setting, would it be equitable for professors to employ the progressive stack in the course of general teaching interactions with their class? I'm in favor of calling on students who should participate more, but why not seek to actually treat individuals fairly? If structural power dynamics are deeply at play in such discussions, how does merely inverting and enforcing the power dynamic result in social equity?
Quoting fdrake
If we're investigating the sexual harassment of women, then we ought to get the testimony of the women who have been sexually harassed. That makes perfect sense to me. What doesn't make sense is that because there is sexual harassment against women, we ought to employ a progressive stack favoring women outside of discussions regarding the sexual harassment of women, to somehow combat it.
If we're looking to discover averages or trends, then sample selection is quite important; in discussions, content is what's important, and race or orientation as a heuristic for determining the merit of content will only work so well.
Quoting fdrake
This is like the Plushie™ version of inter-sectional feminism. This is where it began to be sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think students or activists are still in the testimony gathering phase; the patterns are in. They include: microaggressions, cultural appropriation, a lack of safe spaces, and systemic or institutional discrimination functioning as a safeguard for the colonial patriarchy. Rather than an investigative tool, it gets used as a social sanction.
Feminism has more sects than any religion in my experience. I consider myself a feminist in the sense that I believe in equality of opportunity for everyone, but it's hard to wield the label these days and not catch flak because of it.
I just cannot get past the prima facie discrimination that comes out of the intersectional camp. Maybe it's me. I know that as a cis white het male I'm supposed to be made uncomfortable (because my unearned comfort comes at the expense of other identity groups), but I think there's a bit more to it than my own [s]white fragility[/s] sensitivity.
As a rich gay WASP I bask in the knowledge that my exalted position in society rests securely on the overburdened backs of oppressed peasants. (As well it should!) I really wouldn't have it any other way. [aside... "Hey, you fucking peasants, stand still!] And of course neither would the peasants of color and especially the peasant women. They rejoice in their wretched state of servitude, believing that the last shall be first, and that imperialist sexist fascist gay WASPS are over due for their comeuppance. Well, rah rah cis boom bah!
We have heard rumors that the oppressed riff raff at the bottom of the heap (where they belong) are becoming bitter and resentful about we benevolent overlords sitting up here having peak experiences at their expense. Does it matter? We have been good to them. They are not starving, actually. Many of them are from the fried fish belt and desperately need a raw oat and water body cleanse to get rid of all that lard they have been sucking up with their PCB-flavored catfish. Plus they smoke inferior substances and it stinks! Quite disgusting. At least we aren't required to endure seeing all the way down to the bottom; that would be just totally disgusting. Keep them in the dark, please.
Satire alert.
It doesn't seem likely to me that a major reason why Occupy failed was intersectionalism. It looks to me that it failed because it had lots of complaints but almost no tangible political goals, and it lost its momentum to move towards those goals by failing to exploit whatever asymmetries of organisation they could. They experimented like the small 60 and 70's communes, which had already failed to produce an anticapitalist politics for similar reasons.
Whenever someone is excluded based on their identity, it makes sense to ask in what contexts are they excluded, and why they are excluded. Even if we grant that the concerns of white cis men are diminished in relevance compared to anyone outside of that category in intersectionalist movements and circles, it doesn't mean that white cis men are excluded from anything else. The 'divisive rhetoric' doesn't so much divide the populace as unite us into causes along identity lines. You can't have it both ways; that the rhetoric is divisive but nevertheless produces a unified front of outraged sheeple from all backgrounds.
Another major point, which I'm surprised that you're not tackling given how you've researched intersectionalism and privilege, is that privilege is a structural property rather than agent based one. The popular sense of privilege is rooted in two different types of privileges: spared injustice privileges and unjust enrichment privileges. Spared injustice privileges are like the disproportionate number of blacks in prison - white people and neighbourhoods are largely spared this injustice. Unjust enrichment privileges are like the rising tide failing to raise all boats when an economy grows - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and this isn't fair.
So we can't say that me, personally, as a white bloke, mistreats blacks, women and other identity categories just because I'm white. It's more statistically that I have less shit to deal with.
Regardless of how much effort I put into my arguments and how reasonable they appear, the selection criterion referenced in the OP will allow anyone to say 'yes, but this is quite reasonable, we weren't talking about that'. The people who believe in this stuff generally aren't idiots you know, most people aren't.
That remains to be seen. It's possible to be blinkered in some areas and not blinkered in others. I imagine that you're not particularly blinkered here because you seem to agree with intersectionality when it's presented with some amount of finesse, and not reduced to (what I see as a largely imagined and unrepresentative) 'horde of brown people' and their allies (as BC satirised it).
My point was that you don’t need intersectionality to accomplish your stated goal.
That intersectionality is certainly being used in nefarious ways by the outrage/victim culture should give the”finesse” proponents of intersectionality like yourself more than sufficient reason to lose the label and even condemn it. If they/you cannot do so, it might be more about trams and identity politics than you cared to admit so far.
Intersectionality is being taught in academia as part of the dogma for this nefarious movement. You look at what happened at Evergreen university, intersectionality was certainly part of the dogma from which that toxic culture (on the part of the “SJW”/feminist/activist students and NOT on the people they were attacking) was birthed.
Hear hear! They're takin' our peak experiences!!! :lol:
Quoting fdrake
You're right that intersectionality did not kill Occupy Wall-street, but that wasn't my charge (it was disorganization and a lack of coherent demands that did it in). As far as I know the OW movement was about addressing wealth inequality (an issue which arouses my own passions) which is why I scarcely understand their need to divide themselves into categories of identity based relevance. In the video I posted, an objection is raised from the audience along the lines "it shouldn't matter what our race or orientation is, we're all here because we belong to a marginalized class". He was rebuked with laughter and a lecture about privilege being equivalent to identity. Imagine for a moment that the individual who objected has in fact lived an impoverished and disadvantaged life, despite the statistical correlation between race and wealth/access to institutional power. From their already marginalized perspective, "stepping up by stepping back/checking their privilege" is just more arbitrary marginalization, is it not? This is how it becomes divisive...
Quoting fdrake
It's hard to not sound like a whiny entitled piece of work by lamenting the exclusion of white men from intersectional feminist spaces (which seems to include more than just academic round-tables), but I am indeed whining. I'm whining about the division it creates using outrage as its operant motivator. Many young white men don't see a unified front, they see a hierarchical pecking order with themselves as bottom fodder. Where passionate and dedicated activists go overboard with the precepts of intersectional feminism, they do real damage to the reputation of any legitimate causes they represent, their entire movement, and they fan the flames of division (which in recent years as made a stark contribution to the rise of the alt-right, their now ironically existent bogeyman).
Quoting fdrake
Having a full discussion about these issues is a very large undertaking because of their loaded complexity, but to put in brief: institutional power structures service and disservice individuals far less rigidly on the basis of race or sex than inter-sectional theorists would have us believe. This is a thread I wrote regarding the issue of racism in police violence against blacks, which would constitute a spared injustice privilege for whites in the eyes of an inter-sectional feminist. That specific alleged privilege is loaded with complexity, engenders outrage when accepted, and is difficult to explore and discuss (exploring and discussing the entire gamut of privilege would be unending). I actually reject that discriminatory institutional practices are the main perpetuators of demographic inequalities in contemporary western society. For example, for white inmates and impoverished white families, there is no institutional lever they can pull to elevate themselves; the concept of white privilege to them, is quite alien. In a nut shell, I think the main error is confusing raw statistical outcomes with intent or design in institutional practices. I contend that impoverished white families are having about as hard of a time escaping poverty as impoverished black families are having, and the main forces which actually keep them poor have very little, if anything, to do with race or gender or identity. By assuming from the get go that all statistical disparities are caused by discriminatory institutional practices we're disregarding the many other circumstantial factors which contribute to contemporary statistical outcomes, in all their exhaustive complexity.
Quoting fdrake
But how do we export this statistical truth into a worldview? (Or in the case of the progressive stack, as race based rules of engagement?).
Quoting fdrake
And yet, there are idiots out there, and they tend to be relatively loud. What's worse is the loud idiots find one another through social media and reinforce eachother's idiocy. Worse still, the cacophony of their combined idiocy causes other idiots who take them seriously to rise in idiotic protest of their own, which eventually polarizes both sides into the very caricature the other ridicules them as.
I'm not saying that outrage is inherently bad, and I'm also not saying it's the fault of inter-sectional feminism that there's so much outrage flying around (it doesn't help), I'm simply saying there's too much outrage, and that has got to be affecting us somehow.. Disagree about specifics as you will, you cannot deny that the amount of polarized outrage observable in recent years is a worrying trend. The major cause of the polarizing outrage seems to be hand held media which corrals and reinforces us into segmented ideological compartments, and via the ensuing degradation of discourse it's our democratic health that becomes the victim. As the frequency and intensity of our outrage increases, we're less able to take satisfactory action, and the less emotional patience we have to listen and communicate effectively. It's as if we're being stoked into a growing and irritable mania, where dissent and deviation from our own understanding is less tolerable than ever before...
P.S. I'm not trying to obliterate dissent toward my own ideas in this thread by responding in a meticulous manner, but given the direction the content has taken, I would be too easily misconstrued or fail to make my point otherwise.
The video was a random example of the progressive stack's use I submitted in an effort to satisfy the "concrete" criterion of your request. I wouldn't call it research, but I fail to see how the video did not reflect my given definition of the progressive stack.
Thanks for your contributions to the thread so far! If the results of your own research prove relevant to the thread, please share them!
I broadly agree with what you're saying here. Intersectionality without paying attention to class misses an important source of variation in opportunities which cuts across and intersects other important identity categories. Viewing political activism solely through the lens of group identity without any attention to political economy is pretty bad, and is precisely the image I have in my mind of the 'outraged victim mentality' referred to in the OP.
In the vulgar form of 'any injustice results from an institutional disparity' I agree, but I don't really think this is representative of intersectional thought. The entire point is to avoid reductionism of an account which renders that account unrepresentative for some groups of people.
But that doesn't mean I believe there isn't a place for focussing on social issues that don't, at least at face value, relate to political economy meaningfully. I definitely think it's important to challenge norms when they're discriminatory or even just unpleasant for some of those involved.
Also ironically, I generally see people getting butthurt over intersectional discourse as part of this politics of outrage. Some nebulous group of people without a modicum of objective social power dislikes my universal humanitarian outlook because it problematises 'universal' views on humanity is destroying discourse/society/politics! Is there really a better example of finding strange things to be a victim of?
Is it? How would one measure such a thing to make it evident? And from a political perspective, if politics is about power, and anger makes a "bandwagon" popular quickly, makes it travel further, and have a bigger impact then . . . what exactly is wrong with it?
Would you rather a political agent travel slowly, affect a handful of people, and not have much of an impact? Or is it the particular policies that the anger is directed at that are actually the problem -- as in, you'd rather these (effects -- policies, actions, what-have-you) be slow, local, and disappear?
My suspicion is the latter. But then if that were the case then outrage and anger are not your object of criticism -- it's what the anger and outrage are doing.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I understand that you believe this -- But why would you say this?
Polarization isn't the result of a lack of ability to identify issues. That would be uncertainty -- but polarization comes about because people have convictions of which they are certain, and said convictions are in opposition to one another.
So we have two common identities in the states right now which want different things, and the different things they want annul each other. To use a common point of dispute, and your terminology of victimhood -- abortion can be seen as an issue where the innocent are harmed; the innocent in one case are unborn babies, and in another are women. Neither side deserves to be harmed for what they are: the difference lies in how we look at the two groups, and that manner of looking aligns pretty strictly with the two popular US identities.
But that isn't an inability to identify what is politically meaningful. In fact, both sides know exactly what is meaningful, and exactly what they want.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
What are some common responses in light to a social media campaign? No-platforming and firings seem to be the most extreme things I see.
But this pales in comparison to, say, riots, assassinations, and civil war -- all of which have a history of happening in the United States before social media.
How groups interact have changed, sure. But what does that have to do with outrage?
Lastly I'd just note that anger springs out of love. If someone you love is harmed then anger is an appropriate response.
We can say more than that. Difficulty of circumstances are defined by the conditions of the individual. In this respect, there's not much required for someone to have greater difficulty than another person.
All it takes is failing to overcome a circumstance in question. The reasons for this could be many: drug addiction, lack of family support, poverty, sexism, racism, personal interests, personal enemies to name but a few. Any one might make a situation unilaterally too difficult to overcome. Belonging to a social group who is favoured or one which is oppressed doesn't prevent this.
White privilege was never a reason to expect any given when person will do better or have less difficulty than someone of another race. It's just a description of a cultural state, that people who are white often have certain social resources.
Being rich doesn't necessarily mean you'll have less difficulty than someone who is poor. A rich person might act in a way which brings them more difficulty than a homeless person, they might be addicted to drugs, roam the street and refuse to use money to help mitigate hardships. Most of the time though, this doesn't happen. The rich person usually used wealth to mitigate hardship or help overcome their circumstance. Despite some rich people having difficulty, there is still a relation to describe.
White privilege is no different. It does not mean any white person will have less difficulty. Rather, it identifies certain distributions of resources, social events and significances, such that white people are less likely to face or do not face certain difficulties. It's never been a reason an individual overcomes their difficulties or not. Privilege is not a causal reason.
The mistake a lot of people make (and one you are making here) is to think privilege is a causal reason. A lack of privilege is not a reason someone has difficulties. Nor is belonging race, sex, gender, etc., a reason someone has difficulty.
Causal reasons for difficulty are far more material. It's illness, lack of community, poverty, actions of other people to exclude people of a race, sex or gender, etc., lack of services, an environment in which people harm each others and a host of other events we could name. Privilege is just description of certain social relations and states formed out of those causes.
In my perhaps biased experience of intersectional feminism, it has been most significantly lacking in its descriptions of the specific mechanisms of structural power and discrimination it alleges perpetuate inequality. At best it relies on an appeal to widespread bigotry by presuming that the cumulative impact of widespread discriminatory actions by individuals from groups occupying more positions of power is what leads to statistically disparate outcomes for non-males and non-whites. Where discriminated identities are compounded (the intersection of multiple identities) so too is discrimination compounded (hence the progressive stack). As far as I have gathered, this is the exact lens of inter-sectional feminism, and while it is not necessarily wrong, when haphazardly wielded as broad explanatory tool it does at its core make the assumption that unfair discrimination based on identity is at the heart of all statistical disparities.
It's easy to see how the mis-application of this lens can go wrong. Where specific discriminatory actions, trends, and institutions cannot be identified, students of inter-sectional feminism are incentivized to invent them (micro-aggressions and cultural appropriation to name a few); wearing dreadlocks can amount to cultural theft, and asking about someone else's culture can amount to denigration, etc... (Through the intersectional looking-glass, any transgression becomes dire). As a hypothesis, inter-sectional feminism is very appealing to the progressive minded, but when applied as an untreated lens it obscures more than it reveals. In practice it cannot avoid reductionism, and it is forced to carry out investigations without the benefit of a broader imagination (the cause of X disparity must always come in the form "Y group has more power, therefore Y group employs that power to perpetuate X disparity"). As a hypothesis and heuristic we may use it to direct our inquiries in a hopefully right direction, but we cannot rely on it as answer. Statistical representations of whole populations need a lot of interpretation and analysis to be well understood or explained, let alone remedied, and while inter-sectional feminism is very good at presenting statistical outcomes, it is very poor at finding solid causal mechanisms that go beyond the scope of assumed human discrimination.
Quoting fdrake
I'm not against challenging norms, especially norms perpetuated by discrimination, but not by any means. Take the norm of American presidents being men as example: I wish that people would give political candidates fair consideration regardless of their gender, but I do not wish for people to vote female candidates for the sole reason that they want to achieve parity in gender outcomes in the office of the president. When Hillary Clinton said that one of her merits is that she's a woman, to vote for her because she is a woman, she was appealing to the idea that unfairness in previous outcomes demands arbitrary correction; that instead of voting for her because of her ability to do the job, we can and should vote for her because the circumstances of her birth. A rather silly move if you ask me.
Quoting fdrake
You're right, those left butthurt in the wake of intersectional feminism have been long festering, and overtime various evolutions/schisms within that group have resulted in the creation of the alt-right (it was bred in places like youtube where pundits trot out and "take down" the silliest examples of "regressive" politics, which has by now largely been co-opted by older political memes (which in the case of the alt-right were the neo-nazis and "ethno-nationalists")).
Quoting fdrake
I'm not sure what you mean by objective social power. To the extent that any collection of citizens has social power, wealth not withstanding, inter-sectional feminists and the associated movement do have social power, but what is objective social power?
This is a bit of a false dilemma. Just because anger, hate, and outrage propel us the fastest doesn't mean it's the most desirable or effective means of political locomotion, or that any alternative would be slow and ineffectual. Sometimes we move too fast, especially in anger, and we break things or do things we regret. In extreme circumstances a quick and angry response might be just what is required, but often times it is wiser to take the time to understand the problem before crashing into it at high speeds (which can often make problems worse).
Quoting Moliere
Of course, abortion is a meaningful political issue, but it's already been thoroughly identified as such. I'm more worried about awareness of the steady stream of issues which the body politic is meant to confront; our ability, as a group, to expediently and rationally identify and address them.
Polarization can occur for many reasons (you've merely defined polarization, not explained how it can come about). Disagreement can turn to polarization when for whatever reason both sides have sufficient emotional stake in their positions, and in the course of defending against attacks from the other side they are driven deeper into commitment or extremity. On the subject of abortion, as you say, there is outrage on both sides, certainty on both sides, which has largely been brought about thanks to the emotional arguments each side uses. The uncompromising certainty held by either side pretty much guarantees that reconciliation toward truth (in whichever direction it may lay) is not possible. In this case outrage fuels the certainty and division that seems to otherwise prevent consensus.
Quoting Moliere
A civil war is a pretty high bar to set before accepting that outrage has changed. The other examples you mentioned, riots and assassinations (at least assassination attempts), are also contemporary problems I associate with a change in outrage. Earlier I said it may be true that we're no more or less outraged than before, but it is surely true that as groups we're able to focus our outrage in novel ways. Riotous protests and demonstrations have been occurring for several years (antifa and the right/alt-right mostly), and there have been assassination attempts on politicians by nut jobs from both sides of the isle in recent years (the pipe bomber most recently). I submit that the tendency of social and news media to favor that which outrages (because it gets more clicks and views) has altered our previous balance of emotions toward a state of stress, irritability, and resentment (being inundated with enraging click-bait which has been selected because it reinforces our preexisting biases, is a main culprit).
People react to new environments differently, some more extreme than others, but in general I do see a rise in stress (at least the "on-line" cross section of westerners), increasing polarization, shrinking will for empathy and bi-partisanship; general cantankerousness. The inspiration for writing this thread came from one of the main conservative reactions to Dr. Ford's testimony: they were outraged that such an unfair witch-hunt was allowed to happen instead of even batting an eye at Kavanaugh's blatant lies and questionable character. It fit their polarized narrative, it gave them outrage of their own, and that's really all it took; meaningful issue successfully disregarded...
I have to be honest and say that I think you're on a theoretical island of your own. Merely equating disproportional outcomes with words like white privilege without any explanatory force behind them is an inversion of typical inter-sectional feminist theory: "privilege is why whites have disproportionately better outcomes". I can understand what you mean in your descriptive approach, but I don't see how it delivers anything useful, because to remedy the disproportional outcomes, we really need to understand legitimate causes.
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.
In some cases, when we want to identify a cause, people can make a mistake of only giving this description. Sometimes this happens when people are trying to explain the issue. They'll just say "It's privilege" because they already know associated material caused nested with that outcome. Confusing to those outside, who don't know those associated states and causes, but not wrong.
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.
If use description, intentionally is only one form of an issue. Various issues are going regardless of intention. Any material cause which produces difficulty for a social group will manifest a relation with respect to that group.
If economic and cultural situations are producing, for example, a society in which black communities have massive rates of incarceration, then the racial social relation is produced regardless of both intention and whether a response is justified.
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.
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.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
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.
I don't disagree with you in saying there is a rise in stress, irritability, resentment, and a drop in empathy. It's more that I don't think social media is the culprit, but just another vehicle through which the same emotions have always fueled political discord. We just happen to live in a time when compromise is being viewed with more suspicion.
And I'd submit that this isn't necessarily bad. Change is violent. These moments are indeed scary. I feel fear when I think of the future. But, then, I also do not feel the need to compromise. I feel anger, and anger is a gift which overcomes fear.
Not that I want to live the entirety of my life full of rage. Anger can also be corrosive. But philosophers tend to view anger with suspicion, where I say that it has plenty of good to offer. Especially when you come to realize that it's not a lack of understanding on either side of an issue, but rather a disagreement on values.
And that time when an issue is no longer debatable is usually brought up immediately to rally one's side. Looking for compromise would be demeaning appeasement. It's a good tactic nowdays.
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.
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.
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?
Quoting 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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Quoting 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.
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.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
But what are the causes? Claiming authority in these matters is hubris.
Quoting 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).
Quoting 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.
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.
Quoting 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).
Quoting 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...
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.
Quoting 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.
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.