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Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#351

Post by nradov »

lovich wrote: post #302
hattmall wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can frame it the same way too as states making things legal that are illegal in other states. But that's kind of the whole point of states, is for them to be different. It's not actually disintegrating the nation, it's providing choices. The problem comes when states use the federal government to attempt to override other states. If each state can just do their own thing and as a country we focus on prosperity, m…

I’m not talking about the states making things differently legal within their borders. I’m taking about things like the laws that make it illegal for you to get an abortion in another state where abortion is legal. It’s one state infringing on the rights of another state unless you view people as citizens of their states and not the country as a whole. That’s why I am asking how it isn’t breaking up a cohesive nation…

People literally are citizens of both their states and the country as a whole. For better our worse, the USA was intentionally structured that way with dual sovereignty.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#352

Post by recuter »

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

Do you have to be a neoliberal to think the way those protests were organized with the hand signals was ridiculously silly?

Great, income inequality, important subject to tackle. Are we going to get creative, involve serious people, suggest intelligent chang-- oh, you're flashing signs at each other aimlessly for days on end.

Cool.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#353

Post by argiopetech »

lovich wrote: post #229
nradov wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rogan claims to have voted for Barack Obama twice. That's pretty typical for a moderate leftist. He gives his guests a chance to express a lot more nuance than you see in mainstream media channels. Most of the criticism comes from people who haven't actually listened to many episodes all the way through, and just rely on biased takes from critics or short quotes taken out of context. I also used to have a negative op…

Youre skipping the criticism of his guest list. He's had Bernie Sanders on what, once, twice? Then he's had no other major leftist political figures or commentators but has has loads of extreme right wing figures including crackpots like Alex Jones. Joe Rogan can claim he is a moderate leftist all he wants, but his guest list on JRE does not support that

I don't watch and don't know much about Joe Rogan, but what would be the point of inviting guests that share your viewpoint? You already know what they're going to say, and so do your watchers.

It seems more beneficial to legitimate inquiry to invite moderates with an opposing viewpoint, and more conducive to ratings (drama) to invite polarizing figures of all ilk (Alex/Bernie) but particularly those whose viewpoint differs most from your own.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#354

Post by magicalhippo »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #205
jdkee wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

Something else happened around 2010 -- we elected a black president. Frankly that made a lot of people lose their minds. I think there's a lot of folks out there who don't mind black people exactly, but absolutely abhor the idea that a black person might be in a position of power over them. Witness the commentary from the far right on the new Supreme Court Justice: "Your children and your grandchildren are going to h…

I recall the news here (in Norway) covering a demonstration against Obama during the elections. They interviewed a woman who was in tears because she, apparently, really thought Obama would kill her kids if he got elected.

To me it seemed so utterly bizarre I had problems processing it.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#355

Post by Miner49er »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #303
rmbyrro wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a description of traditional media? Doesn't seem this is a fundamental change that caused the current divide. It's something deeper.

Traditional media would not be flooded with extreme right or extreme left, or conspiracy theories without any evidence backing. The current Turner/Murdoch media in the US is definitely not my understanding of 'traditional' journalism of the likes of Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters.

Turner/Murdoch is traditional journalism though. I see no reason why these wouldn't exist today even without the internet.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#356

Post by rceDia »

Cannot recall anytime in modern history in which a major political party is influenced and supported by an ethereal conspiratorial group that only "exists" on-line and in the minds of its followers. A fanatical follower even showed up at the U.S. Capitol on 1/6/21 dressed in a shaman costume.

Social media thrives on the concept of "followers", which sounds more like a "grooming" stage for authoritarians.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#357

Post by Clubber »

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344
avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

There are two different things and one is used to silence the other. You have social policies and economic policies. The economic policies are devoutly conservative / corporatist and have been since Reagan. This is generally known as neoliberalsm. Both parties bow to the alter of conservative economic policies because they are both paid to do just that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Now, the socialist policies, that's where the magic happens. If you can get the people to constantly bicker at each other about intentionally vague and ill defined social issues, well then you've succeeded in having them not talk about the economic policies and the status quo remains in place for the people who want it to remain in place. These are generally known as the culture wars. See you can't really make laws about social issues that do a whole lot, but you can sure make laws about economic ones: NAFTA, trade deals, government contracts, minimum wealth requirements, minimum wage laws, union laws, regulatory direction and funding, tax policy, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war

Economic policies that are good for the citizenry will alleviate most of the social problems we've been trained to focus on, but we can't take our eyes off the social bickering enough to actually make our lives economically better.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#358

Post by tstegart »

rayiner wrote: post #11

Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…

I don't think corporations had a smaller scope back then. Look up the Grange movement, trust busting and the progressive party. They were all responses to corporations having too much power, in fact control over many aspects of life and complete economic power over certain industries and groups of people. Government intervened, something which might not be possible right now.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#359

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

game_the0ry wrote: post #338
avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

Agreed - media portrays OWS as broken movement with no goals and no hope of changing anything. That's neo-lib PR - corp media does not want you take OWS issues (pro-union, anti-corporate, Medicare for all, etc) seriously.

In my home city the OWS movement denigrated into a homeless encampment with a handful of banners and sign waivers. I don’t think a neoliberal media was the culprit because from the beginning the local movement lacked any sense of cohesion or the coordination required to exert pressure on local politicians. The righteous anger burned bright for a few months then slowly faded and nothing really came of it. I distinctly remember a lack of a figurehead and a lack of specific reform they wanted to get people to support.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#360

Post by humanrebar »

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344
avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

To be fair to libertarian types (conservative isn't all that Liberal these days...), the critique of progressive ideas is that they never reach their real benefits and instead get sidetracked (corrupted), but not before concentrating power among the elites again.

Point being, this post seems to be describing that outcome.

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