Political polarization

[Minionman]

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.

[[vL]Kp]

Consider the emotional appeal. It's a lot more damning to accuse your opponent of killing all freedom of speech than it is to accuse him of censoring gratuitous violence. That puts him on the defensive and forces him to try to reassure people that his position isn't as bad as you make it out to be.

People argue politics for different reasons. Some folks just like to argue in general, and politics is a broad enough subject you can usually find a hot button issue to strike up an argument.

Then there are people who argue politics to try to win converts. They will, of course, be focused on that as the end goal. Depending on how strongly they believe their position and how important they consider it, they may conclude that it's better to exaggerate (lie) about the evils of their opponent, so that people will join them. With regard to the war, would you really want to make an anti-war statement in a room that's just characterized the anti-war side as "cowardly weenies"? Similarly, it's not very appealing to make a pro-war statement when that position has just been deemed the domain of "violent power hungry nutheads." Expand that to be whole cities/counties/states, and you begin to see why one voice subsides, because the other has characterized it and all its proponents as inherently evil/wrong/stupid.

On the other hand, if someone had just gotten done explaining all the reasons he thought the war was good (or bad) and you had some reasons why you disagree (not a gut reaction like "war is evil" (for the anti-war folks) or "we want vengeance on the insurgents" (for the pro-war folks)), wouldn't you be more inclined to voice them in that environment, knowing you were getting into a real debate? Part of the problem here is that it's hard to sustain your position for very long without hard data to back you up (and exactly what constitutes "good data" is a very subjective thing anyway). Even worse, if you come to a debate citing figures from a debunked study (or from an organization with a history of quoting debunked studies, which thus suffers guilt by association), your opponents will call you on it and you'll lose credibility. So, to break even or win in a debate you need to be prepared with appropriate and credible statistics, whenever the debate happens. That'd be fine if you schedule a weekly argument at the office watercooler, but being ready for any argument (abortion, gun control, tax cuts, war, etc.) at any time is a huge burden, so most people aren't ready if you jump them for a surprise argument. That leaves them with either admitting ignorance or falling back on beliefs (or whatever information they happen to remember).

Arguing against someone's beliefs is an uphill proposition, because you must first convince them that the reasons they hold that belief are wrong (or at least no longer applicable). Arguing against someone's statistics is easier and more effective, because if you can agree on an unbiased party and the statistics made available by that party clearly indicate the success of one position over another, that offers solid evidence that one position really is better in this instance. Unfortunately, strong beliefs influence whether a party is seen as "unbiased." For instance, gun control proponents will inherently doubt NRA statistics because the NRA is arguing against them, and admitting that the NRA's statistics are valid reduces the arguments available for why gun control should be pushed.

[kandrathe]

...
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.
...
[right][snapback]63754[/snapback][/right]

I think their are a number of factors in "discussing" issues in a reasonable way. I started my debating at an early age, with my parents as my foil (poor them).

My father loved to argue, but he hated to be wrong. Since he was a 250 lb truck driver he didn't need to be, and I always let him win no matter how nonsensical his argument. I knew the argument was over as soon as that vein would pop out on his very muscular neck. I must confess that it was a sick fascination of mine to see how quickly I could get that to happen. The winner was, "Dad, why is it better to be dead than Red?" >rumble< >Rumble< Run!

My mother was the opposite case. The minute it began to look like an argument she would just stop, much like the character "Penny" played by Holly Hunter in "O' Brother, Where Art Thou?". "I've said my peace, and counted to three..." The discussion would end and we would do it her way, or else... [Enter, The Father, redfaced, a vein in his neck is bulging noticably]

My point is that the participants need to be willing to engage in the debate, and be open to the idea that what they believe might be wrong. Often very opinionated people with extreme views are very capable of expressing their point of view, but are unwilling to do so except to those of a like mind who will not upset their extreme world view. Temper that myopia with a fundamentalist religious outlook and you become the minion of Satan, trying to defile the purity of their closed mindedness.

Another thought on centrism; It may be a more tenuous position in that you are owned by neither extreme, but vulnerable to the attacks from either side. Also depending on the issue, it might not be seen as a position of tolerance, but of fence sitting, or as an adle patted moron being unable to decide.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, first of all, most people are incapable of distinguishing an argument from a discussion. A discussion is two sides trying to determine some glimmer of truth. An argument is two sides each trying to prove the other wrong. Thus, many discussions devolve into arguments as each side pays more attention to forwarding their own point of view and less to understanding the other's.

Also there is the fact that idealism and pragmatism will often collide. In a discussion, it is the idealism that dominates. In life, pragmatism wins out. So, just as a personal example, I am a complete believer in freedom of speech in any form and would take that standpoint in a discussion. However, I can and do live under the puritanical censorship laws of the USA and do little more to forward my position than cast the occasional vote. On the 'importance vs. immediacy' plane, freedom of speech ranks high on importance, but low on immediacy -- or, in other words, I have a life to lead and my own problems to solve.

Of course, one of the factors that drives discussions to arguments is that the subject being considered is either a matter totally of opinion (e.g., the existence of god) or of untestable fact (e.g., the best way to handle the drug 'problem'). With no subjective empirical information to root the discussion, each side puts forth arguments based on 'reasonableness'. However, such arguments are not usually very convincing since they usually have lost originality and the counter arguments are well known. The discussion, at that point, should normally just die down (hence the wisdom of the LL's 'no hot topic' rule). If the discussion goes beyond the stock arguments, usually all that is left is for each side to bring out more farfetched and controversial arguments. At that point, the irritation on each side caused by the idiocy of the arguments of the other brings the whole crashing down and an argument ensues.

This is not to say that a 'middle ground' is the best solution. There are some things that can be matters of degree (e.g., the already mentioned 'drug problem'). There are others that are pretty much binary, such as using 'In God We Trust' as our national motto. It is possible to take a centrist position on the first. The only centrist 'position' possible on the second is, "I don't care." And indifference is a big filter in determining who will post.

Of course, in discussing this topic, the most divisive event in recent memory comes immediately to mind namely the recent presidential election. On the one hand, it is hard to conceive how one could be centrist in deciding whom to vote for. It's not like one can give 45% of one's vote to one side and 55% to the other. But the real tension was caused, to a large extent, by the media sharks looking for a meal and the political pundits, both humorous and vitriolic, who quenched the flames of bitterness by dousing them with the oil of self-interest. And that takes everything full circle. To muzzle the media and pundits so that an election can be a rational event would require reducing their freedom of speech. Only by inflicting one injury on the nation can another be prevented. Or by education the nation so those shrill bigoted and ignorant people will not be an acceptable norm for out “information” sources.

There. Hopefully I’ve added some small light to the original topic and vast heat to many others :)

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

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[right][snapback]63754[/snapback][/right]

Hullo, chiming in here:

Regulation, politics and duelling opinions seem superfluous to some of that passage's thought.

There was a time where I could have been described as wanting to "rush around and have sex with as many different women as possible just for the heck of it." As it turned out, that drive did not match opportunity on a one for one basis with urge, for better and for worse. Better? A few less bastards in the world. Worse? Some morale dampening lonely spells along the way to a better approach, and a few better matchups. (Funny how changing approach changes a lot else. Style counts, I guess.) What business is it of the government to get involved in that, I wonder? Codifying the age of consent?

What does this have to do with your original line of inquiry? Not much.

My comment on that larger topic is that not that many folks want to enter into a debate, or argument, due to being risk averse. One risks losing a debate. A discussion has no loss, and has the benefit of possibly emerging as a win-win transaction.

It is my cynical opinion that much recent "political debate" and "discourse" is pure smokescreen. What we have seen lately is more along the lines of advertising, and folks trying most anything to win market share in the political industry.

And completely OT: Is there any debate on who leads the relief effort for those the quake / tsunami left in the lurch? It is my guess that any number of "someones" on the international political scene will try to milk that situation to their advantage, with the aim of generating compassion spin.

Occhi

[Guest]

PUBLIC airwwaves. Like it or not the radio and TV stations that buy the rights to use particular frequency ranges agree to follow eules put forth by the FCC. The FCC is a Govt orginazation and trys to keep the public happy.

In my opinion thats fair. The public owns the airwaves and they dicide what goes on them.

You are allowed to broadcast what ever you want on cable and satilite. Personally I think Stern is a big baby.

[Occhidiangela]

PUBLIC airwwaves. Like it or not the radio and TV stations that buy the rights to use particular frequency ranges agree to follow eules put forth by the FCC. The FCC is a Govt orginazation and trys to keep the public happy.

In my opinion thats fair. The public owns the airwaves and they dicide what goes on them.

You are allowed to broadcast what ever you want on cable and satilite.&nbsp; Personally I think Stern is a big baby.
[right][snapback]64114[/snapback][/right]

Agree with your assessment of Stern. He started as a DJ on public airwaves, and I wonder if he does not, in his own mind, confuse the public airwaves with cable. As to sattelite bands, I suppose I will need to google a bit to figure out who has any jurisdiction over that.

Besides being a baby, Stern is an attention whore of epic standing.

Occhi

[Minionman]

Personally I think Stern is a big baby.
[right][snapback]64114[/snapback][/right]

That's what it sounded like very quickly. It did get me thinking at least.

[Minionman]

That was an example of how "pragmatism triumphs in real life" as Pete wrote it. It seems like that example worked better in my head than in writing, like a lot of that post.

[Minionman]

This is not to say that a 'middle ground' is the best solution.&nbsp; There are some things that can be matters of degree (e.g., the already mentioned 'drug problem').&nbsp; There are others that are pretty much binary, such as using 'In God We Trust' as our national motto.&nbsp; It is possible to take a centrist position on the first.&nbsp; The only centrist 'position' possible on the second is, "I don't care."&nbsp; And indifference is a big filter in determining who will post.

Talking of "middle" positions, there are some issues that have more middle positions than some people give credit for. I have seemn more opinions on abortion than simply the "pro (something)" ones.

But the real tension was caused, to a large extent, by the media sharks looking for a meal and the political pundits, both humorous and vitriolic, who quenched the flames of bitterness by dousing them with the oil of self-interest.&nbsp;
[right][snapback]63979[/snapback][/right]

Wow. What a description.