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I once read an article in Readers Digest with the title "Why we gossip". I started reading, prepared for something which was probably going to point out all the
by yaih 7y ago
I once read an article in Readers Digest with the title "Why we gossip". I started reading, prepared for something which was probably going to point out all the flaws in those people who gossip, and how they can be rectified etc.
But the article took a very interesting turn. It said, (paraphrasing) without gossip, people in power will arrange everything in the general direction of usurping more power (e.g. dictators). And how gossip serves a very important evolutionary need (a powerful, guerilla style technique to destroy power-grabs). If you were under a dictator, openly criticizing them leaves you with a small chance of being murdered. Hence you will choose instead to gossip. Imagine if the dictator then tells all his subjects - "whatever you have heard about me is untrue, it is just some haters hating".
So there is another explanation for haters (and their apparent obsession) - they look around and see a lot of injustice. Usually they are powerless to do anything, and waiting until they achieve something in life might make the problem much worse before they can offer their viewpoint. So perhaps hating has an evolutionary benefit - it gives clues to non-haters to then go and do their own additional research. Sometimes it results in reducing the power of those who become so out of touch that they just casually dismiss all criticism as hating, much like Hillary thought everyone who doesn't agree with her is a deplorable person.
- rossdavidh 7y agoI think you're fundamentally correct, but this is a mechanism which works better in small groups (say, a hunter/gatherer group on the African savannah, or a small medieval European peasant village). The same instincts which create haters now, would prevent somebody from getting too powerful in a small (Dunbar's number or less) group. Unfortunately now, we are interconnected in groups orders of magnitude larger than that.
- htfu 7y agoWell that was interesting until the attempt to turn "To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables." and following regret over saying half, into "Hillary thought everyone who doesn't agree with her is a deplorable person." I mean just, at least try?
- htfu 7y agoMy issue with this being I think the GP in its last sentence completely negates its otherwise decent analysis by giving an example not of someone "taken down to earth" or similar by "reasonable" hating, gossip or what you will, but instead having their words spun out of proportion to where something qualified several times over gets remembered as a blanket statement. Even if it fits your morals that they deserved as much, it can't be said to be true, so you'd have to posit truthiness is somehow good. Which I think is real bad. It makes very little sense to me. Almost reads like a joke. Edit: shit I'm dumb
- Fnoord 7y agoYes, Harari's Sapiens also builds upon this premise. > Imagine if the dictator then tells all his subjects - "whatever you have heard about me is untrue, it is just some haters hating". I regularly read criticism being waved away with exactly that argument, for example by polticians. It is inherently an ad hominem. Calling someone a fanboy or hater and ignoring their argument in the process _is_ an ad hominem, too. Does not mean the entire argument is (in)valid though.