3 ms·

The "divisive society" is a cop out insofar as it doesn't lead to a simple solution. But it is the ultimate problem in our society preventing any kind of progre

The "divisive society" is a cop out insofar as it doesn't lead to a simple solution. But it is the ultimate problem in our society preventing any kind of progress. We used to have a neutral ground of, say, a respected newspaper or TV show which had the ability to reign in radicalization, and would present issues by weighing both sides in a fair and representative way. This does no longer exist. It's us-vs-them, the other side is evil. Additionally our competitive society has no issue with creating and vilifying classes of losers and accepts a growing divide between rich and poor. There you have your shooters. There you have Trump 2024 or who else comes along (what kind of politician can only thrive in this climate?) My solution? I'd recommend everyone to smoke or drink some of your favorite drug or play some peaceful music and meditate over why the other side from your perspective is human, and what valid arguments they could have, or what made them think the way they do.

dfxm12 4y ago
This is false equivalence when you see conservatives, via, among other avenues, the biggest cable news network, pushing, for example, white replacement theory and other bits of society are not.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> We used to have a neutral ground of, say, a respected newspaper or TV show which had the ability to reign in radicalization, and would present issues by weighing both sides in a fair and representative way. No, we didn't. We used to have oligopolistic media with a fairly uniform set of biases and actively-pursued agendas across all outlets. Even farther back, media was more diverse and often hyperlocal, but still not “fair and representative”.
- UweSchmidt 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine Similarly in Germany we used to have only had 3 state TV channels, ultimately controlled by the ruling parties. Thinking about it now, I'm sure it was quite biased in all kinds of ways. And yet, people got their vaccinations without rioting.
- acdha 4y ago
  It wasn’t perfect but you're far too quick to reject the point about radicalization. Mass media had to be, well, mass and that meant that there was more of a centrist bias because advertisers didn’t want to be associated with fringe viewpoints. Before personalized advertising, if you sponsored something objectionable everyone knew it – quite different from where nobody sees the same ads and they can usually blame the marketplace for placements which attract criticism. That doesn’t mean it was perfect but it absolutely did temper things a lot - they had to setup their own network to host a voice like Carlson for a larger national audience than Stormfront. The U.S. also had a legal requirement to fairly present multiple sides of an issue until Republicans removed it in 1987. It is probably not a coincidence that this was around the same time that a handful or very wealthy people started pouring money into building highly-partisan networks.

dfxm12 4y ago

This is false equivalence when you see conservatives, via, among other avenues, the biggest cable news network, pushing, for example, white replacement theory and other bits of society are not.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> We used to have a neutral ground of, say, a respected newspaper or TV show which had the ability to reign in radicalization, and would present issues by weighing both sides in a fair and representative way. No, we didn't. We used to have oligopolistic media with a fairly uniform set of biases and actively-pursued agendas across all outlets. Even farther back, media was more diverse and often hyperlocal, but still not “fair and representative”.

UweSchmidt 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine Similarly in Germany we used to have only had 3 state TV channels, ultimately controlled by the ruling parties. Thinking about it now, I'm sure it was quite biased in all kinds of ways. And yet, people got their vaccinations without rioting.
acdha 4y ago
It wasn’t perfect but you're far too quick to reject the point about radicalization. Mass media had to be, well, mass and that meant that there was more of a centrist bias because advertisers didn’t want to be associated with fringe viewpoints. Before personalized advertising, if you sponsored something objectionable everyone knew it – quite different from where nobody sees the same ads and they can usually blame the marketplace for placements which attract criticism. That doesn’t mean it was perfect but it absolutely did temper things a lot - they had to setup their own network to host a voice like Carlson for a larger national audience than Stormfront. The U.S. also had a legal requirement to fairly present multiple sides of an issue until Republicans removed it in 1987. It is probably not a coincidence that this was around the same time that a handful or very wealthy people started pouring money into building highly-partisan networks.