12-28-2004, 11:38 PM
This is going to be a pretty long post. I'm talkign about "politicla polarization" as the way people with slightly different views argue them much harsher than the differences would suggest, and the way these people don't try to understand or get new ideas from the other views, instead arguing away. I'm starting with examples I've seen of it, will go to why I think it happens. I'm not going to take sides on issues other than giving examples from my point of view, a.k.a. the first exaple is the "stereotypical social liberal" points of view simply because that's mine and I understand it better.
I thought about this when seeing Letterman last night, and hearing Howard Stern talk about getting fines for saying some things about sex and violence on the show. I don't agree with those either, and started this rant going in my head which got to the points of me thinking "why don't they just turn off their T.V.'s". I then remembered that the worry is that other people will hear this stuff and cause some society changes that would cause problems for the people who don't watch those types of T.V., which I think makes a lot more sense than "I don't like watching it, so I want the government to control it".
The other examples I can thing of right now are how on the Iraq war peopel who were for it were the "violent power hungry nutheads" while the people who were "cowardly weeenies", or somethign along those lines, even though none of those was actually true for a lot of people, those lines became the way the war was argued, and negotiating it became harder.
This andThis thread has a lot of posts going through it desribing the different points of view as well as some "polarizing arguments" about gay marriage. The Kandrathe post is the one I wanted to show from that thread.
There are several reasons I think this polarization happens:
Usually in political arguments, peopel with more extreme views do more arguing than people with middle views. This seems to happen because people with more extreme views believe them stronger, so have more of a reason to argue them than people with less extreme views. A big chunk of people with less extreme views also aren't as interested in understanding or agrguing issues, so they will find it harder to jump into arguments about something when the more extreme views people have their arguments/slogans are already thought out and well tested. The middle people tend to get attacked by everyone with extreme viewpoints, so it's easier sometimes to get associated with a side. This seemed to happen when the communists took over in Russia, although there is a lot more to it of course.
Abortion is a great example of this, the Kandrathe post describes the different sides of abortion besides "pro-life" and "pro-choice", and in fact from what I see most peopel fall in the middle of it, but a lot of slogans ignore this. If you were to get some people with both views in the same room, they would probably agree that peopel shouldn't go having sex willy-nilly and then have abortions just for the heck of it.
Sometimes the issue that people get polarized about is either really complicated, will take a long time to solve, will be really hard to solve either way, or some combination, but because a lot of people want fast results, they get into arguments about why "this program will fail because it doesn't completely solve the problem".
School improvements are a great example of this. Peopel criticize no child left beind because teachers will supposedly teach to tests, causing problems, but sometimes becomes a general" this won't work" point of view. People can more easily criticize school improvenment programs because they don't show effects for a long time, so there's no way to tell for a few years whether the changes are working or not, that's why tests are used in these systems, because they are faster than measuring how many peopel go to college, or soemthing similar. Improving schools will take far more money than some peopel are reayd to spend, which makes the issues harder to deal with, and when improving schools peopls' views toward education will have an effect, so when some one says "this school programhas failed", it may be partially because the kids didn't work that hard, or they weren't expected to or something else along those lines.
I generally think all this is kind of silly because people's opinions are much closer together than their different arguments might suggest. People who want more controls of violence/sex/swearing on T.V.'s are not out to kill off all freedom of speech, people who don't want regulations aren't a bunch of crime supporters who also rush around havign sex wiht as many different peopel as possible just for the heck of it. I'm sure just about everyone knows someone very similar to them in their lifestyle who may have different opinions on someof these issues. I don't think this polarization is going to destroy the coutry , just an effect I thought of posting about that makes political arguments much harder.
I'm sure people have more to say, and I forgot some of what Iwanted ot post, so let's hear it. I'm not writing ths as an issue thread, mostly Iwrote the issues neutral and an using them as examples, nothing more.
I thought about this when seeing Letterman last night, and hearing Howard Stern talk about getting fines for saying some things about sex and violence on the show. I don't agree with those either, and started this rant going in my head which got to the points of me thinking "why don't they just turn off their T.V.'s". I then remembered that the worry is that other people will hear this stuff and cause some society changes that would cause problems for the people who don't watch those types of T.V., which I think makes a lot more sense than "I don't like watching it, so I want the government to control it".
The other examples I can thing of right now are how on the Iraq war peopel who were for it were the "violent power hungry nutheads" while the people who were "cowardly weeenies", or somethign along those lines, even though none of those was actually true for a lot of people, those lines became the way the war was argued, and negotiating it became harder.
This andThis thread has a lot of posts going through it desribing the different points of view as well as some "polarizing arguments" about gay marriage. The Kandrathe post is the one I wanted to show from that thread.
There are several reasons I think this polarization happens:
Usually in political arguments, peopel with more extreme views do more arguing than people with middle views. This seems to happen because people with more extreme views believe them stronger, so have more of a reason to argue them than people with less extreme views. A big chunk of people with less extreme views also aren't as interested in understanding or agrguing issues, so they will find it harder to jump into arguments about something when the more extreme views people have their arguments/slogans are already thought out and well tested. The middle people tend to get attacked by everyone with extreme viewpoints, so it's easier sometimes to get associated with a side. This seemed to happen when the communists took over in Russia, although there is a lot more to it of course.
Abortion is a great example of this, the Kandrathe post describes the different sides of abortion besides "pro-life" and "pro-choice", and in fact from what I see most peopel fall in the middle of it, but a lot of slogans ignore this. If you were to get some people with both views in the same room, they would probably agree that peopel shouldn't go having sex willy-nilly and then have abortions just for the heck of it.
Sometimes the issue that people get polarized about is either really complicated, will take a long time to solve, will be really hard to solve either way, or some combination, but because a lot of people want fast results, they get into arguments about why "this program will fail because it doesn't completely solve the problem".
School improvements are a great example of this. Peopel criticize no child left beind because teachers will supposedly teach to tests, causing problems, but sometimes becomes a general" this won't work" point of view. People can more easily criticize school improvenment programs because they don't show effects for a long time, so there's no way to tell for a few years whether the changes are working or not, that's why tests are used in these systems, because they are faster than measuring how many peopel go to college, or soemthing similar. Improving schools will take far more money than some peopel are reayd to spend, which makes the issues harder to deal with, and when improving schools peopls' views toward education will have an effect, so when some one says "this school programhas failed", it may be partially because the kids didn't work that hard, or they weren't expected to or something else along those lines.
I generally think all this is kind of silly because people's opinions are much closer together than their different arguments might suggest. People who want more controls of violence/sex/swearing on T.V.'s are not out to kill off all freedom of speech, people who don't want regulations aren't a bunch of crime supporters who also rush around havign sex wiht as many different peopel as possible just for the heck of it. I'm sure just about everyone knows someone very similar to them in their lifestyle who may have different opinions on someof these issues. I don't think this polarization is going to destroy the coutry , just an effect I thought of posting about that makes political arguments much harder.
I'm sure people have more to say, and I forgot some of what Iwanted ot post, so let's hear it. I'm not writing ths as an issue thread, mostly Iwrote the issues neutral and an using them as examples, nothing more.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)