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>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all... This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but

by Rayhem 4y ago

>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all... This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but I'm exceptionally happy to do so. Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up. He states that universities have sought to remove all emotional distress, when they're supposed to be the place where you go to have your ideas challenged and feel a little distressed about it. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
Even before universities or higher education, a lot of people are growing up in demographic bubbles where everyone around them, their parents, their classmates, the other people in their hobbies (and they are usually specific hobbies delineated along class lines), are from the same socio-economic class, the same political POV, share the same set of cultural values around things like art, religion, history (self created myths more often), etc. They often simply don't face much disagreement at all and so don't really experience "fundamental" disagreements. This is often exacerbated when they go to higher-ed where certain schools often mirror those same demographic differences and bubbles. Those schools market to those demographics and then it becomes an intensifying spiral. I grew up on the borderline between the liberal urban part and the more conservative leaning rural part of my city, and I credit simply where I grew up with me having friends from diverse backgrounds up and down the class scale and with different POVS. If you weren't able to handle disagreement, you simply didn't have as many friends or had none. When I moved to a far more homogenous city for university where I met an intensely cosmopolitan set of friends (all of whom are very nice people) it was fascinating to see how they struggled to occupy a different POV from their own, even more weird: they saw in that inability a paradoxical foundation for the certainty of their beliefs that made them double-down more often! They simply assume something was wrong with the person if they disagreed with them. If they couldn't occupy that different POV, then either they are in the wrong, or that different person is thinking wrong in a fundamental way that is irreconcilable. I'll let you guess which position they are more likely to take.

by Rayhem 4y ago

beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago

Even before universities or higher education, a lot of people are growing up in demographic bubbles where everyone around them, their parents, their classmates, the other people in their hobbies (and they are usually specific hobbies delineated along class lines), are from the same socio-economic class, the same political POV, share the same set of cultural values around things like art, religion, history (self created myths more often), etc. They often simply don't face much disagreement at all and so don't really experience "fundamental" disagreements. This is often exacerbated when they go to higher-ed where certain schools often mirror those same demographic differences and bubbles. Those schools market to those demographics and then it becomes an intensifying spiral. I grew up on the borderline between the liberal urban part and the more conservative leaning rural part of my city, and I credit simply where I grew up with me having friends from diverse backgrounds up and down the class scale and with different POVS. If you weren't able to handle disagreement, you simply didn't have as many friends or had none. When I moved to a far more homogenous city for university where I met an intensely cosmopolitan set of friends (all of whom are very nice people) it was fascinating to see how they struggled to occupy a different POV from their own, even more weird: they saw in that inability a paradoxical foundation for the certainty of their beliefs that made them double-down more often! They simply assume something was wrong with the person if they disagreed with them. If they couldn't occupy that different POV, then either they are in the wrong, or that different person is thinking wrong in a fundamental way that is irreconcilable. I'll let you guess which position they are more likely to take.