I think that a signifiant contributing factor is the power of group-think, which is a phenomenon that is extremely difficult for all people to overcome. It is socially engrained, instinctive behaviour, and I find for the most part that people are simply not interested in knowing why we think the thoughts that we think.
Group think combined with social media has created a scary beast, and I guess will run things for a while.
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Group think combined with social media has created a scary beast, and I guess will run things for a while.
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Originally Posted by Textcritic
I think that a signifiant contributing factor is the power of group-think, which is a phenomenon that is extremely difficult for all people to overcome. It is socially engrained, instinctive behaviour, and I find for the most part that people are simply not interested in knowing why we think the thoughts that we think.
I agree with both of you, 100%
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Former Presidential candidate Ben Carson declined a role in the Trump administration because....he doesn't have government experience. Kudos I guess for admitting the Presidential run was to sell books and up profile?
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I think that a signifiant contributing factor is the power of group-think, which is a phenomenon that is extremely difficult for all people to overcome. It is socially engrained, instinctive behaviour, and I find for the most part that people are simply not interested in knowing why we think the thoughts that we think.
Yup and like nfotiu said throw in social media and the algorithms that tend to show you things you agree with...
And organizations know this and leveraged this to a large degree.
There was a very in-depth article on the Trump campaign and how they were using their data, and one of their tactics was a voter suppression effort. They were doing ad buys targeting specific groups of voters (black people, women) and providing ads directing them to sources of info that were designed to discourage them from voting.
There was another talking about all the fake news sites that spread disinformation during the campaign. Reddit, Facebook, twitter, etc were all flooded with news sites that often looked professional (The Dallas Providence or International Political News or something) but if you checked they were brand new domain names registered to someone in Russia, or a teenager in Macedonia, etc.
I mean 120 years ago people would attend public lynchings, not murderous psychopaths, but regular people. We want to fit into the crowd.
It's fine to take a wait and see attitude with Trump, but it's also important to watch very carefully that he doesn't become normalized, because he's not normal.
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Former Presidential candidate Ben Carson declined a role in the Trump administration because....he doesn't have government experience. Kudos I guess for admitting the Presidential run was to sell books and up profile?
Lol, I read that a this morning. It is Ben Carson at his most Ben Carsoniest.
Group think combined with social media has created a scary beast, and I guess will run things for a while.
It would be bad enough if social media were not intentionally programatic, but by its very design all of our online social interaction tends to be overseen by our own web-browsing activities. My Youtube feed is a mix of hockey highlights, political commentary (primarily from the left), religious debates, Christian apologetics, and historical documentaries. Recommendations for me on Netflix tend to follow the same pattern. The bubble of our own thinking is prone to becoming more and more insular without our even realising that it is occurring.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I totally disagree with your first point - identity politics is exactly about "I'm different from you, so you should be quiet and listen to me" - but this is absolutely true about a lot of people who see the same problems that Cliff and I are worried about.
I think the key is sticking to principles - "more expression is better, a vibrant marketplace of ideas is preferable to suppressing ideas we don't like, dead dogmas lead to serious social problems, people rebel when you try to box them in ideologically", and so on - and talking about why those principles are important. Talk about ideas, not people. That's the way to avoid this problem.
Well there we have it. From that statement, along with previous positions and statements, I KNOW you don't understand identity politics, and I can comfortably assume Cliff doesn't either.
Do you really think BLM is a rage against sameness? "Hey, we're DIFFERENT, notice our differences and shut up!" Do you think gay rights marches and activism exists because we're just treated too darn the same and want to be seen as different? If you truly believe that the point of identity politics is to highlight differences and silence other groups, you're so far past the point that I have to doubt the relevance of anything you have to say on the matter.
These movements exist as a response to being seen as different and lesser, and their goal is to be seen as the same and equal. How you can think otherwise is almost surreal to me. And don't point to a bad apple, we're talking identity politics as a whole.
I hope you realise how insultingly wrong it is for you to tell me that my desire to have the same freedom and respect as anyone else is akin to trying to shut people up because I'm a special snowflake.
I'm calling you out on your last statement. We'll never agree. Have your vibrant marketplace of ideas where hate is validated, it doesn't sound great to me.
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Former Presidential candidate Ben Carson declined a role in the Trump administration because....he doesn't have government experience. Kudos I guess for admitting the Presidential run was to sell books and up profile?
This is hilarious, especially because... how did he not see this question coming? How was it not the first thing he thought of when someone came up with this excuse for him?
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Yeah NY Mayor said that they'd wouldn't give up the info to Trump or may even delete their database that contains info on undocumented immigrants that have a city ID card.
It has to be a difficult situation for the police. Having residents fearful of cooperating or calling the police because of potential immigration issues would make it very difficult for them to do their jobs. Especially in large cities.
Unfortunately, Trump said we will not allow federal funding in these cities where the police refuse to cooperate. I am not sure what federal funding goes to cities, so maybe it's moot.
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Well there we have it. From that statement, along with previous positions and statements, I KNOW you don't understand identity politics, and I can comfortably assume Cliff doesn't either.
Do you really think BLM is a rage against sameness? "Hey, we're DIFFERENT, notice our differences and shut up!" Do you think gay rights marches and activism exists because we're just treated too darn the same and want to be seen as different? If you truly believe that the point of identity politics is to highlight differences and silence other groups, you're so far past the point that I have to doubt the relevance of anything you have to say on the matter.
These movements exist as a response to being seen as different and lesser, and their goal is to be seen as the same and equal. How you can think otherwise is almost surreal to me. And don't point to a bad apple, we're talking identity politics as a whole.
I hope you realise how insultingly wrong it is for you to tell me that my desire to have the same freedom and respect as anyone else is akin to trying to shut people up because I'm a special snowflake.
I'm calling you out on your last statement. We'll never agree. Have your vibrant marketplace of ideas where hate is validated, it doesn't sound great to me.
Damn, that's an extreme reaction.
I understand that the intent is equality. I've no difficulty understanding the motivation behind people behaving this way, and the end result they want to achieve. However, the method is to divide people into categories based on identity (race, gender, sexual orientation), and suggest that people are inherently different solely by virtue of their membership in a particular category. Their views on certain issues are inherently more valid or credible, and as a corollary, other peoples' views are less credible because of their membership in a different category (usually on the basis of perceived or actual power imbalances). For example, "It's easy for you to take that position; you're not a X", where X is a disadvantaged group. That's the divisive aspect of identity politics that I object to - both in principle, and from the pragmatic perspective that I think it just backfires and creates resentment and balkanized groups that don't talk to each other.
I really think you need to stop putting the pedal on the floor and jumping right to "YOU CLEARLY DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING I'M CALLING YOU OUT YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS INSULTING WE'RE DONE TALKING", after giving the least charitable interpretation possible to a position of political philosophy. I wasn't insulting you, I wasn't being sarcastic or patronizing or trolling you. I could maybe understand this reaction if I'd done that; some people on here do nothing but that, maybe I do it sometimes, but I wasn't. I was just disagreeing with you, respectfully. Calm down a bit.
I mean I could have had a similar reaction to your perspective that tribalism is a force for good, but I'm more interested in why you think that, even though I'm pretty certain I'm going to totally disagree with you about it.
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It has to be a difficult situation for the police. Having residents fearful of cooperating or calling the police because of potential immigration issues would make it very difficult for them to do their jobs. Especially in large cities.
Unfortunately, Trump said we will not allow federal funding in these cities where the police refuse to cooperate. I am not sure what federal funding goes to cities, so maybe it's moot.
The one example I saw was San Francisco, which had a budget of $9.6 billion and the federal government portion was $478 million, 5%.
Lots of that is for programs that help the poor. Bye bye low income housing support.
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Lol Samantha Bee pointing out fans' reactions to their sports teams when people call people upset over a demagogue winning the election is pretty funny, I wonder if she reads our game threads.
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The big question is how do you do it? I've sat in on several meetings with different schools and they are all struggling to deal with this issue. My approach is open structured public debate, but the elements you wish to drag into that are not game for the most part. So what do you do? With the change in tenor on campuses it is not a great environment to be at the moment.
First, we need to stop treating college like it's a place children attend. It's a place for adults. It's not supposed to be easy or comfortable. It's supposed to be challenging. It's supposed to push you out of your comfort zone. If more colleges started including that in their mission statements, in their recruitment material, and repeating it at their orientation, they could shape expectations. And if some colleges didn't want to take that route, if they wanted to emphasize safety for children, then you'd let the market decide. Students, parents, professors, and donors could decide which kind of institution they prefer.
Maybe mandate an introductory course on Western ideas from the Enlightenment to today. A summary of the ideas that we've wrestled with for the last 300 years. There's nothing new under the sun, as much as young people like to think they've discovered entirely new ways of thinking. Explain the history of liberalism. Show how we got to where we are, how we created the most liberal, tolerant, and diverse society on earth. Emphasize that reasonable people can disagree about important things.
And if people want to protest and agitate for reform, then good. Let them. But do not allow them to prevent others from speaking. No platforming has no place in any liberal institution. Administrators who cave in to it should have their public funding cut. They have no mandate from the public to suppress free expression. In the trade-off between security and freedom we have to stop reflexively siding with security. That's a conservative way to approach the world.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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Equality is the path to individualism and "colour-blindness." It takes some significant jumping through hoops to convince yourself that isn't true.
Reasonable people can disagree on where equality of opportunity should give way to equality of outcome. There's widespread public consensus on the former. The latter is a subject of passionate political disagreement. And not only on issues of race and gender, but on class and wealth. We do not have a society where goods and status are assigned by the state. We have a society that is governed largely by the market. Most people who defend the market model are not motivated by bigotry. In fact, most of the immigrants to Canada place a high value on individualism and market values, because most come here with not much and expect to build a lot based on their own individual efforts.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
2. You preach a lot about the negative impact of identity politics, the condemning of whole groups, and tribalism. But here you are: the regressive left, liberals, conservatives, you separate people into those groups plus 2 or 3 others and say "these ones are all like this, they need to conform to this group or else they'll die, I'm not like them, I'm in this group." How can you consciously rally against these things while engaging in them at every turn? You're not against tribalism, or condemning groups, or identity politics, you're against those that don't ascribe to your particular view.
I think Corsi covered this. It's hard to discuss these things without associating the ideas you're opposed to with people. For instance, the roots of much of the ideology I'm opposed to are the anti-capitalist, anti-Western academic left. But I'll try harder to frame these things in terms of ideas instead of people.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I get that you're conservative (even if you play the liberal when rallying against the RL) but your bias is too strong for anyone to buy you as a moderate. It's telling that you're more worried about rudely condemning racism, sexism, and hate than you are about those types of hate. When you think the way we condemn racism is a bigger issue than racism, you've lost the plot completely.
So I'm one of those atheist, pro choice, pro gay marriage, pro gun control, pro public health care conservatives? If I don't meet your ideological litmus test you're in a lot bigger trouble than you realize.
Identity issues have only become the main ideological battle-ground in our society in the last 7 or 8 years, and yet I've been a liberal all my adult life. Moreover, it's possible to be liberal without feeling transgendered bathrooms are a vital cause that separates all decent people from the enemies of progress.
I call out illiberal sentiments wherever I see them being made unchallenged. I've been flamed countless times on the Globe and Mail forums for supporting immigration and defending Muslims from ugly bigotry. But the fact is in my world - the world of educated, liberal, urban Canada - I rarely come across racism and bigotry. It's the unchallenged illiberality of dogmatic progressive thought that I come across far more often. I see it every day in the media and forums I frequent. So that's what I typically challenge. It's more immediate, closer to me. And I may actually be able to change the minds of the people I'm challenging, or give courage to others who haven't spoken up.
Me sitting here on this forum and saying racist police in Missouri are a bad thing achieves nothing other than let people know I'm a decent person. The people I know in real life already know I'm a decent person. I don't especially care what people on the internet think of me.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
3. Your last point makes zero sense. Who is losing "pro-choice, educated, irreligious, pro-gay marriage voters"? The RL? Who are they losing them to? The notion that pro-choice, educated, irreligious, pro-gay marriage voters are going to join pro-life, educated, religious, anti-gay marriage voters because they feel more "heard" is very imaginative. I don't know about you, but I think most people hold beliefs that are a little stronger than wet toilet paper.
Believe it or not, there are many examples of people doing just that in the wake of the U.S. election and in Brexit. Read the comments in places like the Guardian, the Atlantic, the Economist. A lot of liberals feel they've been abandoned. They haven't changed, but the tactics of the activist left are hostile to their core values. They're tired of being vilified for exercising their habits of skepticism and dissent. So they either sat on their hands and didn't vote, or they voted for the side who they disagree with on most issues, but who at least won't tell them to shut their mouths. You may find that hard to swallow, but it's a fact on the ground.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 11-15-2016 at 12:41 PM.
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Believe it or not, there are many examples of people doing just that in the wake of the U.S. election and in Brexit. Read the comments in places like the Guardian, the Atlantic, the Economist. A lot of liberals feel they've been abandoned. They haven't changed, but the tactics of the activist left are hostile to their core values. They're tired of being vilified for exercising their habits of skepticism and dissent. So they either sat on their hands and didn't vote, or they voted for the other side as a protest. You may find that hard to swallow, but it's a fact on the ground.
I think she made an enormous mistake. A protest vote for President is never a good idea, and particularly not this time, when the downside risk is existential risk. But apparently there are at least some people out there who were motivated this way, and didn't appreciate or credit the danger that I think Trump represents.
I have no idea how many. I suspect that it's a reasonably small number, but that there's a larger number whose disaffection just led them not to vote at all, or maybe voted for a third party. Which, to be clear, I also think was a mistake (I agree with Eichenwald completely).
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