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How can we break our addiction to contempt?

117 points by UnpossibleJim 5y ago

Pearse 5y ago
I found this episode quite cathartic. It's only somewhat related but hidden brain released an episode about passion in politics recently which I also found summed up some core problems with how we are framing discourse. https://pca.st/episode/b2bc078b-f757-41fa-83d8-734cf37589d7 https://pca.st/episode/b2bc078b-f757-41fa-83d8-734cf37589d7
alexfromapex 5y ago
"Arthur Brooks is an economist who for 10 years ran the American Enterprise Institute, one of the most influential conservative think tanks in the world. He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love." ... in other words, we're all doomed.
- greenail 5y ago
  It isn't clear to me what you are saying. Are you saying we are doomed because he's a conservative or because you have no faith we retain the ability love?
  - rubatuga 5y ago
    The ladder.
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      latter
      - shoemakersteve 5y ago
        We all have to climb the latter of love, one rung at a time.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  I get where he's coming from, but love is too freighted to really get traction. If you see love as meaning to be invested in the happiness and actualization of others, it's more practical on a lot of levels. The contempt issue begins at the roots of identity, I think. When we're adolescents, we're a part of the world or society, but without the responsibility or authority of an adult. This makes us subject to it and a bit helpless (but for the benevolence of adults) until we find a way to become adults ourselves. Until then, we often assert ourselves though revolt and rebellion as victims of the forces we are subject to. Our adolescent mind exists as an island protected by its own defensive resentment and contempt against the forces it is only subject to, until it acquires the responsibility and resultant confidence to act directly on the world. We all emerge from it differently, if at all. I'm saying the contempt is an adolscent urge that originates from believing we are a subject or victim of our circumstances. There are many situations where you really are a target, but I'd say there is no contempt without identifying first as a victim, and that necessary identity is a remnant of adolescence. The way to mitigate those adolescent remnants is by taking responsibility and ownership of your life, which coincidentally, happens to be a value at the core of conservative ethos Brooks advocates. Treating people as undeveloped adolescents because they use disgust and contempt as an organizing social signal could seem to merely respond to contempt with sincere, even heartfelt condescention (the most insulting kind), and that would be all the more alienating and enraging, but it's toward discovering what the fundamental divide in the very axioms that inform our values is. When Brooks says we need "love," I think what he means is we need to feel loved, and by this, that there is some force in the world (or universe) that is invested in our growth and happiness, and believing we can both recieve and achieve it.
- notquitehuman 5y ago
  I hope this is a signal that Brooks has turned to activism and is working to spread the message of love within his party. I eagerly await examples of his success and wish him all the best.
- dang 5y ago
  "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dontbeevil1992 5y ago
seems like a good place to put this quote: "Justice is what love looks like in public." If this conservative economist wants to spread love, he can start by supporting economic policies that prevent the 1% from exploiting everyone else
- panzagl 5y ago
  Right because conservative = bad and deserving of contempt. This is exactly the type of kneejerk reaction that he is talking about. The 1% do just as well when Democrats are in office, but keep on playing the game ruled by tribe and emotion, see where that gets us.
  - Hokusai 5y ago
    Brooks is literally against wealth redistribution. The parent comment is very relevant for this individual.
    - notenoughbeans 5y ago
      Market economies are full of wealth redistribution. Do you mean that Brooks is against government mandated wealth redistribution?
      - Hokusai 5y ago
        To move wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich is not what commonly is known as wealth redistribution. Even if it can mean that if you take the words literally.
        notenoughbeans 5y ago
        I have not read Brooks, so I don't know if his stated position is that he is in favour of plundering the poor for the sake of the rich. I'd imagine that it isn't. He does mention that there are systemic issues with the status quo, so I'm sure if you asked him if he was happy with how things are running I'm sure he'd have quite a list of things that he thinks could make the world better for everyone -- even if you might disagree with some of his solutions. In the interview he says that democracy is the political version of capitalism/a market economy and I think that's key to interpreting him charitably. In his worldview many of the good things about democracy are the good things about capitalism, but they also share many of the same flaws. In systems that emphasises individual agency and are incentive based, his view is that contempt locks us into a vicious cycle that de-incentivizes leaders from actually providing a realistic way forward. I tend to agree, and I can hardly fault someone for trying to argue for the best version of their vision for society.
bena 5y ago
The problem with this line of thought is that it always becomes something for "the other" to do. They need to compromise, they need to calm down, they need to love. And as long as they don't, we don't have to. Not to mention those that equate compromise, civility, and love with getting their way without any sort of criticism. Then there's the issues where compromise isn't an option. If you want to kill everyone on the planet, and I don't want you to kill anyone. Killing half the planet isn't really a compromise I'm willing to entertain. So sweet, I'm sure if we all loved each other and treated each other with respect, we'd all ride rainbows and shit ponies or whatever. But when we can't even agree on what love and respect even means, it's just kind of abstract, philosophical masturbation.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades. It's all peace and love and respect now that he's made a comfortable life for himself. And in typical AEI fashion, he's got a sense of history that mayflies would find appalling. Politicians are disagreeing and failing to use nonsensical phrases like "my good friend from <insert location here>?" Anybody want to recite Alexander Hamilton's memoirs of his genial political disputes with Aaron Burr?
- rkk3 5y ago
  > Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades. Sweeping generalizations such as "people like him" are bad, seems both contemptuous & a shallow examination.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    How's being purposefully obtuse working out for you?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 5y ago
      It's not ok to attack others this way on HN, regardless of how wrong they are or you feel they are. It only makes everything worse, and we've had to ask you this kind of thing more than once before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
at_a_remove 5y ago
What's the Matter with Kansas? is a lovely example of contempt disguised as gentle inquiry, with a touch of worry over another, and it starts even with the title itself. "Why those poor, naive, uneducated conservatives in the flyover states, they simply do not understand that they are voting against their own interests." It's concern-trolling with a mask of pity. Once you begin looking for it, you can see it more and more. On a rather left-leaning forum, an article appeared discussing authoritarianism and how pervasive it is in society. One commenter, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, wondered if there were some way to hook into this tendency to get people to get behind gun control or get vaccinated. I will at least take naked, open contempt over that sort of thing.
- watwut 5y ago
  Trigger the libs and snowflakes would be another nice example. And not even trying to hide. Or like, the notion of real Americams and those who live on cost as not counting as real.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I find those two forms of contempt to be equally frustrating, because (AFAICT) they have the same root cause: Judging an un-nuanced, possibly straw-man version of another's views. Without any effort to check that they truly understand what the other person believes, let alone what reasons that person has for holding those views. I've seen this from both conservatives and liberals, and especially from those with mass-media audiences.
  - coffeecat 5y ago
    It's impossible for us to understand the beliefs/priorities/values of others from any perspective other than our own. Actually, my conjecture is that the only way to see things from another perspective is to internalize some aspects that perspective. Let's say Alice holds some internalized ideal of traditional family values, and Bob holds some internalized ideal of tolerance and inclusion of LGBT people. When Alice looks at Bob's views, all she sees is that it's an affront to an ideal that she cares about, and when Bob looks at Alice's views, all he sees is that it's an affront to an ideal that he cares about. But how can Alice possibly understand Bob's point of view, unless she's able to tentatively drop her concern for traditional family values? I expect that even with effort to understand the other's perspective, unless that other perspective is internalized, Alice's thoughts on Bob's views will be centered around what she cares about: "I guess I understand what motivates Bob to hate family values", "I guess I understand what motivates Alice's bigoted views on LGBT issues", etc.
tombert 5y ago
At some level I will be a permanent victim of movies and media, and as such there are absolutely politicians that I hate, but I've been trying to acknowledge to myself that, generally speaking, most of their voters mean well [1], even if they are voting for politicians that I think are disgusting. As such, I've tried to not "hate" them, even if I don't particularly like a good chunk of them either. [1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  > most of their voters mean well Can you give some sort of reason why you have this impression?
  - tombert 5y ago
    I have conservative members of my family, who I admittedly don’t talk to very often anymore, but when I do I do get a vibe that they believe what they’re saying. They genuinely think that Donald Trump really Made America Great Again, and that Joe Biden exist to destroy America. I don’t agree with either of those statements, and I think their actions as a result of these beliefs are bad, but I do think they want things to be best for America, though I think they have a different definition of “best” Obviously this is anecdata, but you asked why I believed this.
    - pierrebai 5y ago
      I whole-heartedly agree with you. People love to demonize who they disagree with, assuming that disagreement is just a proxy for the fact the others are idiots. In reality, it is merely that they hold different values, their source of true facts they believe in are different and prioritize different things.
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      Making decisions with global, or even national, ramifications is a complex thing, but people seem to take shortcuts when they decide if something is good or bad. In your example, people may think "Trump MAGAed" because "He's fighting China, China's been stealing our jobs, and we liked jobs.", although the way Donald did the tariff wars, it disadvantaged American companies and consumers, making the American economy/jobs situation that little bit worse. (At least Covid happened and it eclipsed the whole problem).
hinkley 5y ago
In life there are many things we want but don't know we want, or can't admit we want. We seek analogs and those analogs often scratch our itch but might not for other people, leading among other things to arguments about contradictory anecdotes. We want to avoid people who are bad for us. If you treat them as dangerous, scary, or 'below you' it's fairly emotionally cheap for you to avoid everything about them, not just the badness. But ignoring 'dangerous' problems can just make them more dangerous.
GoodJokes 5y ago
by being less contemptible?
ootsootsoots 5y ago
How is this in need of philosophical debate at this point? Change which set of glyphs and discourse matters in politics, or put pressure on the labor market until it bears it no more (the source of contempt). So much of this can be reasoned around simply as euphemism. Change the story, change the outcome.
Pxtl 5y ago
What's notable is where you can see reality come crashing into people who treat policy like it's a simple team sport. COVID doesn't care about your feelings, and the very real impact of higher infection rates and lower vaccination coverage is demonstrating who exactly has so dug-in on their position so far that they've become utterly disconnected from reality.
- dang 5y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28948984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28948984 and marked it off topic.
- tombert 5y ago
  That doesn't necessarily break with my reasoning, right? They might still actually think that the vaccines are worse than the disease. Obviously they're wrong, and they should get vaccinated, but they might be fundamentally "good" but also misguided people. I have my own hypothesis about the COVID vaccine denialism in particular, but I am afraid that it might come off as a bit too political for HN and Dang would lock the thread :).
  - Pxtl 5y ago
    The challenge is that historically the political mainstream has been endlessly assuming good faith on obvious bad actors, to the point that Trump's obvious racism was controversial to point out because he didn't literally dress up as a Klansman wielding a noose. As a reaction to this problem you see the basic approach that the social justice wing has basically declared that intent doesn't matter. No more excuses. And I'm getting to agree with them. If somebody is doing something destructive and the stakes are high, wasting time being nice about their feelings seems thoroughly counterproductive. COVID has made this problem deafeningly loud - whether the bad actors are crazy or grifters or misguided, polite deference to them on grave matters gets people killed.
    - tombert 5y ago
      I never said that the politicians are acting in good faith. I said that I think a lot of the voters are.
registeredcorn 5y ago
How can one break an addiction to contempt? The answer is dead simple. Follow the Prince of Peace. > Living the New Life > Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. > But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. > Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity. The thief must no longer steal. Instead, he must do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. - Ephesians 4:17-32 (HCSB) I realize some of the people who might see this have had bad experiences with so-called Christians. I was a staunch Atheist for the vast, VAST majority of my life, specifically because of how some so-called "believers" had treated me when I was very young. I hated Christians so much I scared a preacher half to death, threatened to beat him up, and got him to run away in tears. My own contempt, my rage, my unbridled hatred for people was off the charts. Anyone who didn't agree with me 100% on everything was an idiot, and I was not afraid to tell them so. I'm saying all of this to say, if you resent me writing all of this, I get it. I really do. On a fundamental level, I understand that anger. But if you feel like you want to know the only answer to how to turn away from letting those controlling, destructive emotions from ruling your life; this anger that we all seem to be under the thumb of, then there is a very clear, obvious answer: God Not just mere acknowledgement, or even a reverence for Him, but a stout willingness to obey His commandments and follow His teachings. There's only one religion that tells you not just that it's wrong to murder, but that to hate someone in your heart is murder, and worthy of the same punishment. There is only one that holds everyone to that level of accountability. Think it over.
Gunax 5y ago
He's wrong. Contempt will always beat love. Humour will always beat logical soundness. Pithy arguments will always beat correct but intricate arguments. I dont have any hard proof of course, but this is how it is. No one cares if you're right if the opponent can be witty. As proof Ill try to leave you with 2 videos, hopefully they are bipartisan enough: 1. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErZCMcoC8X8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErZCMcoC8X8 2. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
newbie789 5y ago
>…He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love. Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book. There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the libs” won’t be able to use the nearby freeways due to lack of maintenance, and how “the libs” will have trouble driving around town because there will be no snow plow operators come winter. Here’s the funny part: The conservative:liberal ratio there is about 50:1. This rural town is gleefully destroying its own infrastructure over some perceived culture war, fully knowingly. These people are willing to cripple their ability to leave their houses in order to “own the libs” even if they’re not even existent. I do not think I could be convinced by some old guy that his newly-invented form of conservative Kumbaya will actually make it possible for these people to go to the pharmacy when it snows, or get fresh food from the grocery store.
- etherael 5y ago
  Isnt this argument predicated on the supposition that the only reason they are opposed to coercive experimental gene therapy is because they want to "own the libs?" I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.
  - md8z 5y ago
    I'm not sure if you're saying this is your opinion, but just to be clear: Vaccine mandates are not coercive, the vaccine is not experimental, and vaccines in general are not gene therapy. To elaborate: You can consider work vaccine mandates to be similar to any other job requirement. The COVID vaccines have received a huge amount of studies and trials. And "gene therapy" usually refers to use of things like CRISPR-Cas9 or other methods of delivering DNA into the cell which are able to modify genes. mRNA vaccines do not modify genes. (I'm not a biologist so you should ask one if you want more information on this)
lamontcg 5y ago
Maybe people have more and more contempt because its easy to see that government and politics is broken.
platz 5y ago
I hate Arthur Brooks
- dang 5y ago
  OK, but please follow the site guidelines when posting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
adminscoffee 5y ago
by getting rid of the down vote button and putting a down comment button. you can down vote but there must be a reason attached

117 points by UnpossibleJim 5y ago

I found this episode quite cathartic. It's only somewhat related but hidden brain released an episode about passion in politics recently which I also found summed up some core problems with how we are framing discourse. https://pca.st/episode/b2bc078b-f757-41fa-83d8-734cf37589d7 https://pca.st/episode/b2bc078b-f757-41fa-83d8-734cf37589d7

alexfromapex 5y ago

"Arthur Brooks is an economist who for 10 years ran the American Enterprise Institute, one of the most influential conservative think tanks in the world. He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love." ... in other words, we're all doomed.

greenail 5y ago
It isn't clear to me what you are saying. Are you saying we are doomed because he's a conservative or because you have no faith we retain the ability love?
- rubatuga 5y ago
  The ladder.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    latter
    - shoemakersteve 5y ago
      We all have to climb the latter of love, one rung at a time.
motohagiography 5y ago
I get where he's coming from, but love is too freighted to really get traction. If you see love as meaning to be invested in the happiness and actualization of others, it's more practical on a lot of levels. The contempt issue begins at the roots of identity, I think. When we're adolescents, we're a part of the world or society, but without the responsibility or authority of an adult. This makes us subject to it and a bit helpless (but for the benevolence of adults) until we find a way to become adults ourselves. Until then, we often assert ourselves though revolt and rebellion as victims of the forces we are subject to. Our adolescent mind exists as an island protected by its own defensive resentment and contempt against the forces it is only subject to, until it acquires the responsibility and resultant confidence to act directly on the world. We all emerge from it differently, if at all. I'm saying the contempt is an adolscent urge that originates from believing we are a subject or victim of our circumstances. There are many situations where you really are a target, but I'd say there is no contempt without identifying first as a victim, and that necessary identity is a remnant of adolescence. The way to mitigate those adolescent remnants is by taking responsibility and ownership of your life, which coincidentally, happens to be a value at the core of conservative ethos Brooks advocates. Treating people as undeveloped adolescents because they use disgust and contempt as an organizing social signal could seem to merely respond to contempt with sincere, even heartfelt condescention (the most insulting kind), and that would be all the more alienating and enraging, but it's toward discovering what the fundamental divide in the very axioms that inform our values is. When Brooks says we need "love," I think what he means is we need to feel loved, and by this, that there is some force in the world (or universe) that is invested in our growth and happiness, and believing we can both recieve and achieve it.
notquitehuman 5y ago
I hope this is a signal that Brooks has turned to activism and is working to spread the message of love within his party. I eagerly await examples of his success and wish him all the best.
dang 5y ago
"Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dontbeevil1992 5y ago

seems like a good place to put this quote: "Justice is what love looks like in public." If this conservative economist wants to spread love, he can start by supporting economic policies that prevent the 1% from exploiting everyone else

panzagl 5y ago
Right because conservative = bad and deserving of contempt. This is exactly the type of kneejerk reaction that he is talking about. The 1% do just as well when Democrats are in office, but keep on playing the game ruled by tribe and emotion, see where that gets us.
- Hokusai 5y ago
  Brooks is literally against wealth redistribution. The parent comment is very relevant for this individual.
  - notenoughbeans 5y ago
    Market economies are full of wealth redistribution. Do you mean that Brooks is against government mandated wealth redistribution?
    - Hokusai 5y ago
      To move wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich is not what commonly is known as wealth redistribution. Even if it can mean that if you take the words literally.
      - notenoughbeans 5y ago
        I have not read Brooks, so I don't know if his stated position is that he is in favour of plundering the poor for the sake of the rich. I'd imagine that it isn't. He does mention that there are systemic issues with the status quo, so I'm sure if you asked him if he was happy with how things are running I'm sure he'd have quite a list of things that he thinks could make the world better for everyone -- even if you might disagree with some of his solutions. In the interview he says that democracy is the political version of capitalism/a market economy and I think that's key to interpreting him charitably. In his worldview many of the good things about democracy are the good things about capitalism, but they also share many of the same flaws. In systems that emphasises individual agency and are incentive based, his view is that contempt locks us into a vicious cycle that de-incentivizes leaders from actually providing a realistic way forward. I tend to agree, and I can hardly fault someone for trying to argue for the best version of their vision for society.

bena 5y ago

The problem with this line of thought is that it always becomes something for "the other" to do. They need to compromise, they need to calm down, they need to love. And as long as they don't, we don't have to. Not to mention those that equate compromise, civility, and love with getting their way without any sort of criticism. Then there's the issues where compromise isn't an option. If you want to kill everyone on the planet, and I don't want you to kill anyone. Killing half the planet isn't really a compromise I'm willing to entertain. So sweet, I'm sure if we all loved each other and treated each other with respect, we'd all ride rainbows and shit ponies or whatever. But when we can't even agree on what love and respect even means, it's just kind of abstract, philosophical masturbation.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades. It's all peace and love and respect now that he's made a comfortable life for himself. And in typical AEI fashion, he's got a sense of history that mayflies would find appalling. Politicians are disagreeing and failing to use nonsensical phrases like "my good friend from <insert location here>?" Anybody want to recite Alexander Hamilton's memoirs of his genial political disputes with Aaron Burr?

rkk3 5y ago
> Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades. Sweeping generalizations such as "people like him" are bad, seems both contemptuous & a shallow examination.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  How's being purposefully obtuse working out for you?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 5y ago
    It's not ok to attack others this way on HN, regardless of how wrong they are or you feel they are. It only makes everything worse, and we've had to ask you this kind of thing more than once before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

at_a_remove 5y ago

What's the Matter with Kansas? is a lovely example of contempt disguised as gentle inquiry, with a touch of worry over another, and it starts even with the title itself. "Why those poor, naive, uneducated conservatives in the flyover states, they simply do not understand that they are voting against their own interests." It's concern-trolling with a mask of pity. Once you begin looking for it, you can see it more and more. On a rather left-leaning forum, an article appeared discussing authoritarianism and how pervasive it is in society. One commenter, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, wondered if there were some way to hook into this tendency to get people to get behind gun control or get vaccinated. I will at least take naked, open contempt over that sort of thing.

watwut 5y ago
Trigger the libs and snowflakes would be another nice example. And not even trying to hide. Or like, the notion of real Americams and those who live on cost as not counting as real.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
I find those two forms of contempt to be equally frustrating, because (AFAICT) they have the same root cause: Judging an un-nuanced, possibly straw-man version of another's views. Without any effort to check that they truly understand what the other person believes, let alone what reasons that person has for holding those views. I've seen this from both conservatives and liberals, and especially from those with mass-media audiences.
- coffeecat 5y ago
  It's impossible for us to understand the beliefs/priorities/values of others from any perspective other than our own. Actually, my conjecture is that the only way to see things from another perspective is to internalize some aspects that perspective. Let's say Alice holds some internalized ideal of traditional family values, and Bob holds some internalized ideal of tolerance and inclusion of LGBT people. When Alice looks at Bob's views, all she sees is that it's an affront to an ideal that she cares about, and when Bob looks at Alice's views, all he sees is that it's an affront to an ideal that he cares about. But how can Alice possibly understand Bob's point of view, unless she's able to tentatively drop her concern for traditional family values? I expect that even with effort to understand the other's perspective, unless that other perspective is internalized, Alice's thoughts on Bob's views will be centered around what she cares about: "I guess I understand what motivates Bob to hate family values", "I guess I understand what motivates Alice's bigoted views on LGBT issues", etc.

tombert 5y ago

At some level I will be a permanent victim of movies and media, and as such there are absolutely politicians that I hate, but I've been trying to acknowledge to myself that, generally speaking, most of their voters mean well [1], even if they are voting for politicians that I think are disgusting. As such, I've tried to not "hate" them, even if I don't particularly like a good chunk of them either. [1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.

TomSwirly 5y ago
> most of their voters mean well Can you give some sort of reason why you have this impression?
- tombert 5y ago
  I have conservative members of my family, who I admittedly don’t talk to very often anymore, but when I do I do get a vibe that they believe what they’re saying. They genuinely think that Donald Trump really Made America Great Again, and that Joe Biden exist to destroy America. I don’t agree with either of those statements, and I think their actions as a result of these beliefs are bad, but I do think they want things to be best for America, though I think they have a different definition of “best” Obviously this is anecdata, but you asked why I believed this.
  - pierrebai 5y ago
    I whole-heartedly agree with you. People love to demonize who they disagree with, assuming that disagreement is just a proxy for the fact the others are idiots. In reality, it is merely that they hold different values, their source of true facts they believe in are different and prioritize different things.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Making decisions with global, or even national, ramifications is a complex thing, but people seem to take shortcuts when they decide if something is good or bad. In your example, people may think "Trump MAGAed" because "He's fighting China, China's been stealing our jobs, and we liked jobs.", although the way Donald did the tariff wars, it disadvantaged American companies and consumers, making the American economy/jobs situation that little bit worse. (At least Covid happened and it eclipsed the whole problem).

hinkley 5y ago

In life there are many things we want but don't know we want, or can't admit we want. We seek analogs and those analogs often scratch our itch but might not for other people, leading among other things to arguments about contradictory anecdotes. We want to avoid people who are bad for us. If you treat them as dangerous, scary, or 'below you' it's fairly emotionally cheap for you to avoid everything about them, not just the badness. But ignoring 'dangerous' problems can just make them more dangerous.

GoodJokes 5y ago

by being less contemptible?

ootsootsoots 5y ago

How is this in need of philosophical debate at this point? Change which set of glyphs and discourse matters in politics, or put pressure on the labor market until it bears it no more (the source of contempt). So much of this can be reasoned around simply as euphemism. Change the story, change the outcome.

Pxtl 5y ago

What's notable is where you can see reality come crashing into people who treat policy like it's a simple team sport. COVID doesn't care about your feelings, and the very real impact of higher infection rates and lower vaccination coverage is demonstrating who exactly has so dug-in on their position so far that they've become utterly disconnected from reality.

dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28948984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28948984 and marked it off topic.
tombert 5y ago
That doesn't necessarily break with my reasoning, right? They might still actually think that the vaccines are worse than the disease. Obviously they're wrong, and they should get vaccinated, but they might be fundamentally "good" but also misguided people. I have my own hypothesis about the COVID vaccine denialism in particular, but I am afraid that it might come off as a bit too political for HN and Dang would lock the thread :).
- Pxtl 5y ago
  The challenge is that historically the political mainstream has been endlessly assuming good faith on obvious bad actors, to the point that Trump's obvious racism was controversial to point out because he didn't literally dress up as a Klansman wielding a noose. As a reaction to this problem you see the basic approach that the social justice wing has basically declared that intent doesn't matter. No more excuses. And I'm getting to agree with them. If somebody is doing something destructive and the stakes are high, wasting time being nice about their feelings seems thoroughly counterproductive. COVID has made this problem deafeningly loud - whether the bad actors are crazy or grifters or misguided, polite deference to them on grave matters gets people killed.
  - tombert 5y ago
    I never said that the politicians are acting in good faith. I said that I think a lot of the voters are.

registeredcorn 5y ago

How can one break an addiction to contempt? The answer is dead simple. Follow the Prince of Peace. > Living the New Life > Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. > But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. > Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity. The thief must no longer steal. Instead, he must do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. - Ephesians 4:17-32 (HCSB) I realize some of the people who might see this have had bad experiences with so-called Christians. I was a staunch Atheist for the vast, VAST majority of my life, specifically because of how some so-called "believers" had treated me when I was very young. I hated Christians so much I scared a preacher half to death, threatened to beat him up, and got him to run away in tears. My own contempt, my rage, my unbridled hatred for people was off the charts. Anyone who didn't agree with me 100% on everything was an idiot, and I was not afraid to tell them so. I'm saying all of this to say, if you resent me writing all of this, I get it. I really do. On a fundamental level, I understand that anger. But if you feel like you want to know the only answer to how to turn away from letting those controlling, destructive emotions from ruling your life; this anger that we all seem to be under the thumb of, then there is a very clear, obvious answer: God Not just mere acknowledgement, or even a reverence for Him, but a stout willingness to obey His commandments and follow His teachings. There's only one religion that tells you not just that it's wrong to murder, but that to hate someone in your heart is murder, and worthy of the same punishment. There is only one that holds everyone to that level of accountability. Think it over.

Gunax 5y ago

He's wrong. Contempt will always beat love. Humour will always beat logical soundness. Pithy arguments will always beat correct but intricate arguments. I dont have any hard proof of course, but this is how it is. No one cares if you're right if the opponent can be witty. As proof Ill try to leave you with 2 videos, hopefully they are bipartisan enough: 1. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErZCMcoC8X8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErZCMcoC8X8 2. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

newbie789 5y ago

>…He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love. Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book. There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the libs” won’t be able to use the nearby freeways due to lack of maintenance, and how “the libs” will have trouble driving around town because there will be no snow plow operators come winter. Here’s the funny part: The conservative:liberal ratio there is about 50:1. This rural town is gleefully destroying its own infrastructure over some perceived culture war, fully knowingly. These people are willing to cripple their ability to leave their houses in order to “own the libs” even if they’re not even existent. I do not think I could be convinced by some old guy that his newly-invented form of conservative Kumbaya will actually make it possible for these people to go to the pharmacy when it snows, or get fresh food from the grocery store.

etherael 5y ago
Isnt this argument predicated on the supposition that the only reason they are opposed to coercive experimental gene therapy is because they want to "own the libs?" I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.
- md8z 5y ago
  I'm not sure if you're saying this is your opinion, but just to be clear: Vaccine mandates are not coercive, the vaccine is not experimental, and vaccines in general are not gene therapy. To elaborate: You can consider work vaccine mandates to be similar to any other job requirement. The COVID vaccines have received a huge amount of studies and trials. And "gene therapy" usually refers to use of things like CRISPR-Cas9 or other methods of delivering DNA into the cell which are able to modify genes. mRNA vaccines do not modify genes. (I'm not a biologist so you should ask one if you want more information on this)

lamontcg 5y ago

Maybe people have more and more contempt because its easy to see that government and politics is broken.

platz 5y ago

I hate Arthur Brooks

dang 5y ago
OK, but please follow the site guidelines when posting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

adminscoffee 5y ago

by getting rid of the down vote button and putting a down comment button. you can down vote but there must be a reason attached