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Old 07-04-2018, 07:22 AM   #1
CliffFletcher
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The U.S. politics and Canadian politics threads are devoted to day-to-day partisan combat, so I thought I'd start a thread for more general social issues and trends.

First up, polarization and how moderates enable extremism by being agreeable.

Political Moderates Are Lying

The headline is a bit misleading, but the idea is that our political dialogue today is dominated by relatively small numbers of extremists and dedicated partisans. We think politics today are 50 per cent of citizens furiously shaking their fists at the other 50 per cent, but it's more like a highly motivated and inflexible 10-15 per cent on each side doing the fist-shaking, while a great number of moderates go along with one side or another out of social conformity, not earnest agreement with the extremists.

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...From what we’ve described, it is highly unlikely that most people within these groups are extreme partisans. It is instead more likely that moderates make up the rank and file. This raises an interesting question: how do moderates navigate this complex web of political tribes and echo chambers?

Simply put, they falsify their preferences. Most moderates conform to group preferences that have been established by committed ideologues.

Conformity is the key, here. Moderates must go along with the intransigent minority to get along with the group. In order to function within an echo chamber, less opinionated entrants must falsify their preferences so as to not upset those who decide the rules, rewards, and punishments. Moderates who agree with the gist of what the group stands for will often support fringe positions for the sake of group solidarity and reputational preservation. If you insist on telling the truth, your reputational goose is cooked...

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Old 07-04-2018, 08:18 AM   #2
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I think that might be true in the US. The issue in the US is that extremism is incentivized. Because of the two party system and the primary system it encourages selection of extreme candadites at the primary level where involvement is small and without a 3rf party the jump from right to left is too far so staying in your camp makes sense. So I disagree that letting the extreme voices have a voice enables ectremisim. Having a system that structurally reinforces extreme positions results in extremism. Also the democratization of everything down to the dog catcher including judges allows this extremism to infect all aspects of society.

In Canada we have 3 relatively central parties who wouldn't dare touch abortion or defund public medicine. We still have the Primary problem but because we have less frequent and non-planned leadership races, local ridings setting their own dates, and centralized power in the PMO you don't have the same ability to enrich yourself by becoming an MP and their is no national primary season. This allows local candidates to be controlled

The 3 party system ensures that smaller minorities can win seats. It encourages vote splitting amoung the majority block. In theory you would think it would allow an extremist position to get votes while the majority is split. Instead at a national level it encourages the fighting for the middle as steeling points from the other party is easier than improving turn out from the extremes and if you stray to far from the middle the central party steals your moderates.

The ease of which parties can get on the ballot also improves resistance to extremism.

Structurally Canadas system is more resistant to extremism than the US and so you see it less. So I reject the argument that moderates being moderate and listening increases polarization. Political structures that incentivize polarization are the leading factor
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Old 07-04-2018, 08:49 AM   #3
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In the US, decades of efforts to enrich the rich at the expense of the middle class has massively increased inequality. As ever, inequality leads to populism, tribalism, protectionism, and extremism. Inequality is breeding similar things in Canada and elsewhere in the world too. The ability of a government to effectively redistribute money and tax the rich has reduced dramatically because of both globalization and flighted capital, and overt policies favouring the wealthy.

I remain of the opinion that there is no true dialectic in the US between extreme right and left. The extreme right is enabled, abetted, funded, and championed by many wealthy interests: a perverted betrayal of many poor citizens’ best interests, but a thrust that continues to exacerbate inequality and social ills.

However, the extreme left has no powerful or moneyed backers. On social policy - yes - there are some wealthy interests. But the Democrats and “left” or “centrist” interests in the US are backed by pretty conservative forces as well. The biggest donors to the Democrats - the ones that pay for political campaigns, get policies changed, and sway public opinion on a large scale - are decidedly centrist. Of course they are: wealth distribution rarely finds common ground with the wealthy. Is CNBC - the “left” news station - really extreme? A company owned by juggernaut Comcast? But Fox News sure is.

So yeah - social issues get some play - and make it seem as if the discourse is a dialectic. It’s not: the extreme right is backed by money, while the extreme left is part of a party that is firmly centrist and will never go far left because it would hurt its own moneyed interests too much.
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Old 07-04-2018, 08:50 AM   #4
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Structurally Canadas system is more resistant to extremism than the US and so you see it less. So I reject the argument that moderates being moderate and listening increases polarization. Political structures that incentivize polarization are the leading factor
You're looking at this strictly in terms of formal politics. But this phenomenon is found in more than political structures, you see it everywhere in social discourse. Many of the issues people debate today, from immigration to education to freedom of speech to transgender rights to terrorism, are not confined to formal politics. An American, a Canadian, a New Zealander and a German can all debate these issues with one another, and you will see the same polarization driven by extremists.

Most of the forums where I talk about social and political issues are international, and this is exactly what I see: A contentious but wide-ranging debate breaks out; it comes to be dominated by the most extreme positions; the moderates either back out or support the extremists on what they see to be their side; the conflict continues until the weaker party is driven from the thread/forum and sets up shop in a more agreeable and homogeneous home. And once those echo-chambers are established, it's the most ardent and pure partisans who dominate discussion and the moderates either fall in line or bugger off.
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Old 07-04-2018, 08:59 AM   #5
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So I reject the argument that moderates being moderate and listening increases polarization. Political structures that incentivize polarization are the leading factor
It can be both. There are obviously going to be certain political structures that are more susceptible to this phenomenon, but what Cliff's talking about here is human psychology. Regardless of the political system you put human beings in, they're still human beings, and the majority of them are going to behave as effectively pre-programmed by evolution. That includes adherence to group norms in an effort to ensure safe group membership, as well as subsequent group polarization.

Political structures (or any social structures, really - institutionalized disconfirmation in the sciences is the most obvious example) can be set up to resist or put pressure on the aspects of human psychology that aren't productive - that's the difference between the Canadian and American systems. But human psychology remains, and the structures are only so effective. You'll get the same behaviours in Canada, even if, as you suggest, they're less obvious. People are still people.
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Old 07-04-2018, 11:17 AM   #6
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It can be both. There are obviously going to be certain political structures that are more susceptible to this phenomenon, but what Cliff's talking about here is human psychology. Regardless of the political system you put human beings in, they're still human beings, and the majority of them are going to behave as effectively pre-programmed by evolution. That includes adherence to group norms in an effort to ensure safe group membership, as well as subsequent group polarization.

Political structures (or any social structures, really - institutionalized disconfirmation in the sciences is the most obvious example) can be set up to resist or put pressure on the aspects of human psychology that aren't productive - that's the difference between the Canadian and American systems. But human psychology remains, and the structures are only so effective. You'll get the same behaviours in Canada, even if, as you suggest, they're less obvious. People are still people.
This is a very deterministic opinion, and I don't believe that it is substantiated. The concept of 7.2 Billion people being "programmed" the same way after being subject to different cultural forces is ridiculously simplistic.
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Old 07-04-2018, 11:43 AM   #7
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This is a very deterministic opinion, and I don't believe that it is substantiated. The concept of 7.2 Billion people being "programmed" the same way after being subject to different cultural forces is ridiculously simplistic.
Yes, I can see how my post could be interpreted that way - I am not denying that cultural forces at a macro level, or especially individual impacts on a person at the micro level, affect their behaviours to a significant extent. However, especially when you're looking at a large group of people, those people will have a lot in common simply by virtue of all being the same type of evolved simian. Consequently, patterns will emerge that will be more than just statistically significant. There is no cultural force that can erase millions of years of evolutionary psychology, and so people will have behavioural tendencies that have been ingrained in them by virtue of natural selection. This is one such tendency. People are not blank slates; their evolved characteristics can be masked, but not overwritten.
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Old 07-04-2018, 01:51 PM   #8
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Because this topic interests me greatly, I'll just add to what I wrote above. Apologies for the long post.

I actually believe that the opinion in the OP, and widely expressed elsewhere - that there are two extremes, right and left, dominating political and social discourse to the detriment of us all - is an epic strawman perpetuated by the right and extreme right. This strawman is bought and promoted by even sophisticated and reasoned thinkers on the left.

Very broadly, I believe that the Fox News modus operandi applies: take an extreme position on the right - "get rid of Medicaid!" - and then show the minute subset of people abusing the system - "look at those freeloaders!" All of a sudden you have a dialectic created between what seems like two extreme opinions, and a battle is "waged" in the minds of Fox News watchers everywhere.

There are exactly zero people advocating the abuse of Medicaid. Not even the people who do it. Expanding, funding, reforming - these are actual opinions with backers on the left - but no one is advocating the abuse of the system. There are many very real and very well-funded advocates of cutting Medicaid altogether on the right. The well-funded part is the important part - before someone points out that even the US has communists.

Likewise immigration - Trump describes the alternative to his extreme immigration policies as MS13-loving antipatriots who want open-borders and the destruction of America. Trump undoubtedly holds extreme views on immigration (despite that pesky immigrant wife thing) - but there is absolutely no counterpoint worth anything on the extreme left with any significant backing. Sure, some hippies in Vermont might want open borders to all, but I wouldn't call their extreme position well-backed. And it certainly has nowhere near enough backing to get it to the point where a president is Tweeting about it.

But, because of the way Trump frames the issue, it appears as if there are two extremist sides to immigration when there absolutely is not.

This is why it is so vastly different when we discuss the far-right and far-left: for the far-left we are usually discussing a professor being fired here, a transsexual wanting access to bathrooms there, or a group of SJW taking censorship too far somewhere else. There are absolutely pockets of it, especially on college campuses.

But the key take is that every example of the far left is an isolated, pitiful attempt by (usually) nutjobs to change something micro and unimportant on a larger scale. The far left has no reach, and that is why examples are always individual. Most often, examples of the far left taking it too far are outnumbered 1000-to-1 by similar examples evidencing centrist or rational thought about the same issue.

The far right on the other hand? They have the ear of the freaking White House. There is no extreme right-left battle messing things up for us all. There is an unholy alliance of the extreme right with the corporate and greedy, backed by a lot of money. They use the strawman effectively in convincing others that there is a powerful force worth fighting against on the left, but there simply isn't.

The most that can be said of the left is that maybe they buy this dichotomy too wholeheartedly, believing that too many rightists are nazis or white-oppressors or whatever. But the people who hold these extreme views - of the other side - are not powerful nor influential nor worth even a minute amount of thought during any major election period.

It is not an equal battle and should not be characterized as such. The extreme right holds positions that ally them with moneyed interests and vast reach that got many of them all the way to Congress and the White House. The far left? They're lucky if they get a gender neutral bathroom or a controversial speech at the local university delayed by a half hour.
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Old 07-04-2018, 02:06 PM   #9
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Woops

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Old 07-04-2018, 02:09 PM   #10
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Such a good post I thanked it twice!
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Old 07-04-2018, 02:39 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
...the idea is that our political dialogue today is dominated by relatively small numbers of extremists and dedicated partisans. We think politics today are 50 per cent of citizens furiously shaking their fists at the other 50 per cent, but it's more like a highly motivated and inflexible 10-15 per cent on each side doing the fist-shaking, while a great number of moderates go along with one side or another out of social conformity, not earnest agreement with the extremists.
Great topic, Cliff, but hopeless. To expect a good discussion on this here is naive at best. The extreme rightists will either ignore it or dis it. The extreme lefties will write long boring posts explaining why the rightists are all idiots. Real moderates will not even bother responding, which kinda supports the original premise.
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Old 07-04-2018, 02:54 PM   #12
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Manipulation (social, economic especially) of the huddled masses has a had a profound impact on society around the world, but so glaringly obvious in the U.S.

I fear it will come north of the border.

I love this documentary, anyone on the right or the left should watch it:

https://www.netflix.com/title/80083790

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Old 07-04-2018, 03:06 PM   #13
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Manipulation (social, economic especially) of the huddled masses has a had a profound impact on society around the world, but so glaringly obvious in the U.S.

I fear it will come north of the border.
It’s already here and has been for a long time.
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Old 07-04-2018, 03:44 PM   #14
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In the US, decades of efforts to enrich the rich at the expense of the middle class has massively increased inequality. As ever, inequality leads to populism, tribalism, protectionism, and extremism. Inequality is breeding similar things in Canada and elsewhere in the world too. The ability of a government to effectively redistribute money and tax the rich has reduced dramatically because of both globalization and flighted capital, and overt policies favouring the wealthy.

I remain of the opinion that there is no true dialectic in the US between extreme right and left. The extreme right is enabled, abetted, funded, and championed by many wealthy interests: a perverted betrayal of many poor citizens’ best interests, but a thrust that continues to exacerbate inequality and social ills.

However, the extreme left has no powerful or moneyed backers. On social policy - yes - there are some wealthy interests. But the Democrats and “left” or “centrist” interests in the US are backed by pretty conservative forces as well. The biggest donors to the Democrats - the ones that pay for political campaigns, get policies changed, and sway public opinion on a large scale - are decidedly centrist. Of course they are: wealth distribution rarely finds common ground with the wealthy. Is CNBC - the “left” news station - really extreme? A company owned by juggernaut Comcast? But Fox News sure is.

So yeah - social issues get some play - and make it seem as if the discourse is a dialectic. It’s not: the extreme right is backed by money, while the extreme left is part of a party that is firmly centrist and will never go far left because it would hurt its own moneyed interests too much.
In the USA universities are big business. Their combined voting power (including faculty and staff) is huge. They definitely lean towards the far left. I'd argue they are just as big of a voting/lobby group as any other major industry.

I mostly agree with what you're saying, although a major part of the problem is also generational. The baby boomers control huge amounts of wealth, and the younger generations have very little access to it. The problem is worldwide. It's destroying economic mobility. As the cost of owning a home or starting a business becomes out of reach for anyone but those born into rich families, people end up firmly entrenched into the social class they were born into. This creates discord and leads to extremism on both sides.

Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but there's no doubt it's much harder to start a business or own a home than it was 20-30 years ago. Traditional avenues, like education, do little to alter this, as many university students end up with a useless degree and a large debt load.
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Old 07-04-2018, 03:47 PM   #15
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In the USA universities are big business. Their combined voting power (including faculty and staff) is huge. They definitely lean towards the far left. I'd argue they are just as big of a voting/lobby group as any other major industry.
Maybe certain faculties do... but funding comes from wealthy donors and state capitals that are majority Republican. Not a chance a majority are voting or lobbying for far left politics or politicians.
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Old 07-04-2018, 04:10 PM   #16
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Maybe certain faculties do... but funding comes from wealthy donors and state capitals that are majority Republican. Not a chance a majority are voting or lobbying for far left politics or politicians.
I think you're really underestimating their power. Even sub-industries of the universities, like book sales and speaking tours, have become huge industries in their own rights.
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Old 07-04-2018, 04:21 PM   #17
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I think you're really underestimating their power. Even sub-industries of the universities, like book sales and speaking tours, have become huge industries in their own rights.
So where are their politicians? The university community’s far-left counterpoint to the NRA-beholden, the anti-immigrant, or the EPA-is-the-devil-ers?
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Old 07-04-2018, 04:34 PM   #18
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So where are their politicians? The university community’s far-left counterpoint to the NRA-beholden, the anti-immigrant, or the EPA-is-the-devil-ers?
You seriously don't think university students have an influence on politics?

There are plenty of major political figures who have their support base almost exclusively in the universities. We've already seen reference to Chomsky in this thread.
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Old 07-04-2018, 04:36 PM   #19
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He's talking about elected representatives - who are the people who are representing these interests in Congress. There really aren't many, and those that you could point to have really been converts - they weren't elected because of those principles. And the reason for that is probably mostly the result of, first, the Tea Party having about a five year head start on the left's equivalent (remember, identity politics really rose up very quickly around 2013), and second, the fact that young people don't vote.
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Old 07-04-2018, 04:40 PM   #20
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Who are these Chomskyists in government? They’d be the counterpoint to the Deep State crowd for sure - but I don’t know of any.
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