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One small culprit is the human tendency to think categorically and, as a consequence, to think metaphorically. Abstractions and conceptual thinking can simplif

One small culprit is the human tendency to think categorically and, as a consequence, to think metaphorically. Abstractions and conceptual thinking can simplify reasoning if used responsibly, but more often this cognitive shortcut is abused to reach emotionally convenient conclusions. Reasoning that contains the string "this is like" is usually suspect. This is a red flag that the individual has categorized the subject of analysis into an overly broad abstraction, and is now attempting to draw a spurious relation to some causally unrelated thing that allegedly belongs to the same category. The difficulty is that this way of thinking is evolved and natural to us. This low-energy, cheap heuristic served us well in our simpler ancestral environments. It's maladaptive in the modern environment. - https://hbr.org/2019/09/the-dangers-of-categorical-thinking https://hbr.org/2019/09/the-dangers-of-categorical-thinking - https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9343778-word-thinking-is-a-term-i-invented-to-describe-a-situation https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9343778-word-thinking-is-a-... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQKk02pgmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQKk02pgmY

XorNot 2y ago
Anthropomorphization is another problem. As soon as people give things names, they start to treat them like they're individual people even if they're anything but. How many times have you heard someone say "China will..." or "The US thinks..." or "Europe's opinion..." Now these are all potentially useful, context-dependent shorthands...but they're absolutely ripe for misunderstanding. Something I find myself doing a lot these days is asking people to explain what exactly they think is happening on an individual, human level when they declare anything greater then that is "doing" something...because of course, no large organization ever does anything - they're all composed of individuals taking action, potentially under direction but still as individuals.
- xg15 2y ago
  I think the other extreme - to think about people only as isolated individuals without group identity or power relations - is also too simplifying. (It's also a useful thought exercise to deconstruct sentences like "the US decided to do X" and understand who or what really is meant with "the US" in that sentence. The US government? The political class? Some mainstream opinion in the general population?) But in general I agree with you, especially in the recent years. I find the level of anthropomorphization of countries lately honestly scary, and believe this is a strong sign of how much the political discourse already has shifted back into a "war" vocabulary. The intensity with which people argue this stuff also makes me wonder if they're still understanding it as a metaphor at all. Emotional attachment to flags, nations, peoples, shapes on a map, etc is real and is also a central component of war propaganda.

XorNot 2y ago

Anthropomorphization is another problem. As soon as people give things names, they start to treat them like they're individual people even if they're anything but. How many times have you heard someone say "China will..." or "The US thinks..." or "Europe's opinion..." Now these are all potentially useful, context-dependent shorthands...but they're absolutely ripe for misunderstanding. Something I find myself doing a lot these days is asking people to explain what exactly they think is happening on an individual, human level when they declare anything greater then that is "doing" something...because of course, no large organization ever does anything - they're all composed of individuals taking action, potentially under direction but still as individuals.

xg15 2y ago
I think the other extreme - to think about people only as isolated individuals without group identity or power relations - is also too simplifying. (It's also a useful thought exercise to deconstruct sentences like "the US decided to do X" and understand who or what really is meant with "the US" in that sentence. The US government? The political class? Some mainstream opinion in the general population?) But in general I agree with you, especially in the recent years. I find the level of anthropomorphization of countries lately honestly scary, and believe this is a strong sign of how much the political discourse already has shifted back into a "war" vocabulary. The intensity with which people argue this stuff also makes me wonder if they're still understanding it as a metaphor at all. Emotional attachment to flags, nations, peoples, shapes on a map, etc is real and is also a central component of war propaganda.