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New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

scientificamerican.com

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Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#121

Post by vinay427 »

the-dude wrote: post #77
vinay427 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vegans describing other people as murderers. Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. The danger I see is then not listening to and interacting with these non-vegans to develop a more nuanced perspective of the people on "the other side" who may not be very different after all. Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder If you want redefine language, that is fine, but in real life I will not accept being called a murderer. 1984 was not a manual.

> in real life I will not accept being called a murderer.

What do you mean by not accepting it? You're welcome to disagree with the classification, of course. That's how we start a hearty discussion on values, morals, politics, etc.

In real life, I would also hope that I use a more tactful strategy that doesn't immediately fall back on a term that will polarize my interlocutor.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#122

Post by read_if_gay_ »

ecocentrik wrote: post #116
nabla9 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in social media spend several hours per day following politics but almost nobody of them is engaged in any real political work. They are engaging with politics to satisfy our own emotional needs and intellectual curiosities. That’s political hobbyism/consumerism. It's not different from being sports fan. Making noise from the couch but not having no effect in the game and annoying people who don't follow. They…

Keeping informed has been always been a prerequisite of American democracy. "wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government" Thomas Jefferson ( https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/60.html ) Engaging in the political dialogue is not wasted energy. Low level engagement on social media might be about as impactful as filling a stadium to see a politician speak during a pandemic but…

> If it wasn't valuable, nobody would be programming bots to disrupt the process and amplify division and hate.

The fact that social media sites are a valuable manipulation target to certain people doesn't make them valuable to you as a consumer. To the contrary.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#123

Post by souprock »

_v7gu wrote: post #97
yaakov34 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other side attacked actual Jews with rocks and bottles recently. What, that's not "your side"? Neither are those guys "their side".

What happened? Antifa?

On October 25th, in New York City, a miles-long parade of Jewish Trump supporters got attacked. The usual offensive words were said.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#124

Post by whodidntante »

hartator wrote: post #3
Tycho wrote: post #2

According to the article, this phenomenon is most obviously manifested in the humorous expression “own the libs”, and not, say, by shrieking scaremongering about fascism and comparing the other side to the Nazis.

Do you mean this article about political polarization is polarized against one side? :)

Well, I know you are being sarcastic, but my initial impression of the article was that while I agreed with everything the author stated, I felt the author was no where as subtle as she thought she was in herself promoting this polarization by what was left out.

All of the examples were one sided (and imo true, with many worse ones left unmentioned), while there was no mention of the elephant - the world view that all members of a certain race are racist by definition, and that all interactions between races are, by definition, based on race, no matter what the context. How is this not demonizing the "other" ?

My fear is that what used to be disagreements over what rights an individual has (who to marry, what to do in your personal space, what if any deities to bow before, what you are able to do with your own body) have turned into disagreements over what framework we should use to govern our society.

Individual rights, imo, need to be respected, and can be done without infringing on anyone else.

However, the current undercurrent of how we should govern ourselves as a society (marxism vs capitalism) is something that we all, as a society, need to abide by, and that differences in these views, historically, has been settled through war.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#125

Post by dsr_ »

dsr_ wrote: post #103
Tycho wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side has prominent interlocutors who routinely call the other side racists, Nazis, and harbingers of fascism in the United States, demanding their “de-platforming”. The other side sees this as hysterical nonsense spouted by sanctimonious hypocrites and people blind to reality, who deserve to be mocked, hence “own the libs.” These two sides are not equivalent. One is doing a lot more “othering”. The real equivalen…

There are concentration camps run by the United States government.

If you're downvoting this, you had better have proof that there are no concentration camps run by the United States government. Please show it to us.

Otherwise, I accept your downvote as proof that facts are not relevant to you.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#126

Post by read_if_gay_ »

ForHackernews wrote: post #95
Tycho wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not joking. Is it your opinion that there were no attempts, from within the agencies, to undermine the president (or his campaign) and that there is nothing corrupt about what the Biden family has been up to?

I'm not going to get sucked down this rabbit hole because there are a zillion other sites where you can have this specific argument, but I will say that if you're voting for Trump because you're anti- corruption then you and I have world views too far diverged for any meaningful communication to take place.

> if you're voting for Trump because you're anti-corruption then you and I have world views too far diverged for any meaningful communication to take place.

How ironic. Have you read the linked article? Way to prove its point.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#127

Post by the-dude »

vinay427 wrote: post #121
the-dude wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder If you want redefine language, that is fine, but in real life I will not accept being called a murderer. 1984 was not a manual.

> in real life I will not accept being called a murderer. What do you mean by not accepting it? You're welcome to disagree with the classification, of course. That's how we start a hearty discussion on values, morals, politics, etc. In real life, I would also hope that I use a more tactful strategy that doesn't immediately fall back on a term that will polarize my interlocutor.

> What do you mean by not accepting it?

I will make sure you will never call me a criminal of the worst kind ever again. In my experience, not very much is needed.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#128

Post by empthought »

yaakov34 wrote: post #50
empthought wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side has literal Nazis marching for it, yelling “Jews will not replace us,” though...

And the other side attacked actual Jews with rocks and bottles recently. What, that's not "your side"? Neither are those guys "their side".

Were they Nazis doing counter protesting? No? Then this is not relevant to the conversation.

The point is that associating one political party in particular with fascist and white supremacist views is not an exaggeration; one party’s leader embraces them as “very fine people.”

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#129

Post by ForHackernews »

Tycho wrote: post #119
ForHackernews wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to get sucked down this rabbit hole because there are a zillion other sites where you can have this specific argument, but I will say that if you're voting for Trump because you're anti- corruption then you and I have world views too far diverged for any meaningful communication to take place.

I don’t want to get into an argument with you, I was just curious if that was your actual opinion. Similar to how you asked if I was joking and I answered you.

Yes, my actual opinion is that Joe Biden is a vastly less corrupt candidate than Trump.

Presumably Hunter Biden traded on his famous name to get job opportunities (in a smaller way than the Trump kids), but I've seen no credible evidence (and please don't reply with a gish-gallop of shady twitter and youtube links) that Joe Biden compromised his office to assist his son.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#130

Post by scrollaway »

civilized wrote: post #111
scrollaway wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "republican" appears 6 times in the article. The word "democrat" 10.

Did you read the article, or just count the word mentions?

Both, but maybe unlike you I didn't get stuck only on the parts that criticized republicans.
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