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Political polarization is weird, if you think about it. It makes sense given the social dynamics, but makes zero sense from a logical standpoint. Maybe it woul
by jeffdavis 7y ago
Political polarization is weird, if you think about it. It makes sense given the social dynamics, but makes zero sense from a logical standpoint.
Maybe it would be interesting to make a kind of polarization "test". You could ask someone a bunch of questions, and calculate how polarized they are. If statistically improbable, it would inform them that, logically, their opinions are not really their own, and they should consider them more deeply and objectively.
Obviously you'd need to make the test carefully and try not to bias it, or it would be worthless. But you could use some objective criteria to make it pretty good.
There are certainly some challenges. People who live in cities their whole life are bound to have different opinions that those who live in small towns their whole life. But you could address that by looking at how people change their opinions after moving to a city from a small town or vice versa.
- xamuel 7y agoThe list of people whose opinions are "really their own" is pretty much limited to feral children and certain philosophers/scientists
- Dumblydorr 7y agoWhich philosopher scientists did you have in mind? I think Newton and Einstein were fairly independent, though undeniably they needed to stand on the shoulders of giants to make their independent discoveries. Maybe that is a contradiction....
- xamuel 7y agoIn the context of political opinions, I was thinking people like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. But you're right, even those people stood on the shoulders of giants, they didn't just independently get struck by lightning one day and suddenly have ideas in a vacuum. In any case, it's not realistic to expect Joe Smith the Generic Voting Citizen to have to have completely original new opinions on all the hot-button issues.