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> questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle The reality of the situation seems obvious to me, even if the edges are not clearly defined. I don

> questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle The reality of the situation seems obvious to me, even if the edges are not clearly defined. I don't think it's very difficult to work out what is going on (with climate change etc.) To me this is not about people getting access to good data, or being otherwise properly educated. It's about people identifying with "their group", and attacking the "others". And such battle lines are fought around various issues and language, and labels. But it's not actually about those issues or language or labels. It's about self and other. My people, and those other people. So this is what needs to be healed, this separative egoness.

nwatson 9y ago
And in the mean time, other parties will step into our USA internecine war with their own agendas and prey off our pride and ignorance, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ra.... [Written from an obvious US viewpoint.]
cmahler7 9y ago
Dividing the West and the United States in particular has been planned for a long time. Race, gender, income, politics all of it is being used to keep the plebes at each others throats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4
colinator 9y ago
So much agree. The content of issues is largely irrelevant to most people. If the republican leadership were environmentalists, so would their constituents be. What people really want is for their group to beat other groups. It's always been that way, and always will. This factionalization can occasionally be overcome by great leaders or external enemies. But now, with this 'party over country' attitude that we have, it'll can't be. Shame on us.
graphitezepp 9y ago
I agree the central issue is the self/other tribalism that's gone out of control. But you shouldn't dismiss the lack of access to good data. It's the manipulation and bombardment of nonesense that is entrenching the divide to what I perceive as unprecedented levels.
DelightOne 9y ago
So saying (or possibly just feeling) we are all the same makes them try to be different by fighting with each other? Maybe that came to be cause you cant discern anymore your pals on here as on the street where you see who he is by his looks.
belorn 9y ago
This resonate strongly with me but there doesn't seem to be any political platform that has been promoting this theory in the last 20 years. The left focus has been on promoting the distinction and multitude of groups and the strengthening of self-identity that members has towards such groupings. The right is in return focusing the distinction between self and other, making the combination of left and right a special volatile mix in current political environment. Sadly the group that has changed in this formula is the left. They used to (ie, 30-40 years ago) spend a lot of focusing on eliminating and underplay difference between groups. Today I often see the modern left making fun of those times as naive experiment.
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  Can you give some examples of when and how the Left is doing this? From what I can tell, in general the left of the US is constantly making an attempt to be all inclusive. I'd agree that there hasn't been enough work to help people see that they have common cause with people who look different and live in different places. That's really whats needed, but it's never been clear to me how to help someone who is severely bigoted to understand that their views are born of ignorance. From what I can tell, the Right uses positions to drive wedges between people, such that someone can literally hate something which is clearly benefiting them personally because they have turned the issue into an Us vs Them argument. The only thing I see the Left consistently use as a wedge issue is class and money... Whereas the Right uses every possible thing they can come up with to convince people that follow them that they should all be afraid of what the Left is going to "take" from them.
  - jaredklewis 9y ago
    I think the left is not inclusive enough. Though perhaps a better way to describe it is that the left is increasingly unwelcoming, remarkably to the people whose votes we need. As an extremely liberal person who also happens to be from the south, I am horrified by my Facebook feed where everyday posts by liberal friends proudly mock conservatives as being stupid or bigoted. Being from the south, I know many conservative people with great hearts. These are the people we are trying to convince to join our side, and we are shitting all over them. In these articles, one can sense a true disdain for many conservative points of view on topics like abortion, the role of religion in our society, and gun control. It is rare to find articles that I would feel comfortable sharing with conservative friends or family, as their tone is so contemptuous of conservatives. If it were not for the acerbic tone, many of these articles might become powerful tools of persuasion. But I guess it is just too much fun to taunt the "basket of deplorables." To quote an article that nicely summarizes a Lincoln speech: > When Abraham Lincoln was 33 years old, he gave a speech inside a Presbyterian church to a temperance society. His message: The assembled ought to be nicer to drinkers and sellers of alcohol, rather than shunning them, or denouncing them as moral pestilences. Indeed, they ought to use “kindly persuasion,” even if a man’s drunkenness had caused misery to his wife, or left his children hungry and naked with want. > For people are never less likely to change, to convert to new ways of thinking or acting, than when it means joining the ranks of their denouncers. > To expect otherwise, “to have expected them not to meet denunciation with denunciation ... and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of human nature,” Lincoln explained. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-cant-the-left-win/522102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-can...
DougN7 9y ago
I agree completely. People need to be able to come together, with disagreeing being the starting point, and not attack each other's groups and views. That would allow for necessary communication to come to agreement, or at least civilly agree to disagree on that topic. Then the door is at least still open to discuss other topics.

nwatson 9y ago

And in the mean time, other parties will step into our USA internecine war with their own agendas and prey off our pride and ignorance, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ra.... [Written from an obvious US viewpoint.]

cmahler7 9y ago

Dividing the West and the United States in particular has been planned for a long time. Race, gender, income, politics all of it is being used to keep the plebes at each others throats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

colinator 9y ago

So much agree. The content of issues is largely irrelevant to most people. If the republican leadership were environmentalists, so would their constituents be. What people really want is for their group to beat other groups. It's always been that way, and always will. This factionalization can occasionally be overcome by great leaders or external enemies. But now, with this 'party over country' attitude that we have, it'll can't be. Shame on us.

graphitezepp 9y ago

I agree the central issue is the self/other tribalism that's gone out of control. But you shouldn't dismiss the lack of access to good data. It's the manipulation and bombardment of nonesense that is entrenching the divide to what I perceive as unprecedented levels.

DelightOne 9y ago

So saying (or possibly just feeling) we are all the same makes them try to be different by fighting with each other? Maybe that came to be cause you cant discern anymore your pals on here as on the street where you see who he is by his looks.

belorn 9y ago

This resonate strongly with me but there doesn't seem to be any political platform that has been promoting this theory in the last 20 years. The left focus has been on promoting the distinction and multitude of groups and the strengthening of self-identity that members has towards such groupings. The right is in return focusing the distinction between self and other, making the combination of left and right a special volatile mix in current political environment. Sadly the group that has changed in this formula is the left. They used to (ie, 30-40 years ago) spend a lot of focusing on eliminating and underplay difference between groups. Today I often see the modern left making fun of those times as naive experiment.

bluejekyll 9y ago
Can you give some examples of when and how the Left is doing this? From what I can tell, in general the left of the US is constantly making an attempt to be all inclusive. I'd agree that there hasn't been enough work to help people see that they have common cause with people who look different and live in different places. That's really whats needed, but it's never been clear to me how to help someone who is severely bigoted to understand that their views are born of ignorance. From what I can tell, the Right uses positions to drive wedges between people, such that someone can literally hate something which is clearly benefiting them personally because they have turned the issue into an Us vs Them argument. The only thing I see the Left consistently use as a wedge issue is class and money... Whereas the Right uses every possible thing they can come up with to convince people that follow them that they should all be afraid of what the Left is going to "take" from them.
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  I think the left is not inclusive enough. Though perhaps a better way to describe it is that the left is increasingly unwelcoming, remarkably to the people whose votes we need. As an extremely liberal person who also happens to be from the south, I am horrified by my Facebook feed where everyday posts by liberal friends proudly mock conservatives as being stupid or bigoted. Being from the south, I know many conservative people with great hearts. These are the people we are trying to convince to join our side, and we are shitting all over them. In these articles, one can sense a true disdain for many conservative points of view on topics like abortion, the role of religion in our society, and gun control. It is rare to find articles that I would feel comfortable sharing with conservative friends or family, as their tone is so contemptuous of conservatives. If it were not for the acerbic tone, many of these articles might become powerful tools of persuasion. But I guess it is just too much fun to taunt the "basket of deplorables." To quote an article that nicely summarizes a Lincoln speech: > When Abraham Lincoln was 33 years old, he gave a speech inside a Presbyterian church to a temperance society. His message: The assembled ought to be nicer to drinkers and sellers of alcohol, rather than shunning them, or denouncing them as moral pestilences. Indeed, they ought to use “kindly persuasion,” even if a man’s drunkenness had caused misery to his wife, or left his children hungry and naked with want. > For people are never less likely to change, to convert to new ways of thinking or acting, than when it means joining the ranks of their denouncers. > To expect otherwise, “to have expected them not to meet denunciation with denunciation ... and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of human nature,” Lincoln explained. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-cant-the-left-win/522102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-can...

DougN7 9y ago

I agree completely. People need to be able to come together, with disagreeing being the starting point, and not attack each other's groups and views. That would allow for necessary communication to come to agreement, or at least civilly agree to disagree on that topic. Then the door is at least still open to discuss other topics.