"Despite the enormous progress that we’ve made in creating a kinder, fairer, more inclusive world, it feels as if we’re more divided than ever. Not because bigotry has gotten worse, not because our fundamental needs conflict with each other, but because instead of looking for common ground, we’ve gotten used to taking sides. "
"Despite the enormous progress that we’ve made in creating a kinder, fairer, more inclusive world, it feels as if we’re more divided than ever. Not because bigotry has gotten worse, not because our fundamental needs conflict with each other, but because instead of looking for common ground, we’ve gotten used to taking sides. "
Very important observation. I agree and would like to share some related observations about the mechanisms which produce and sustain this dysfunction.
For a large portion of my life (ie: for several decades), objectively crime in the US had been substantially decreasing (until recent years anyway). At the same time, many polls have shown that most people believed that it was actually substantially increasing and they were increasingly fearful. Common perceptions can be badly detached from reality, based on things like selective news coverage.
Polls have revealed that many liberals believe police killings of unarmed Black people to be 10 to 1000 or more times higher than they are. When one realizes how detached this is from reality, it explains some of their emotion driven attitudes. A white ally of my acquaintance felt she could not ride her motorcycle to a workshop here in liberal SF Bay Area northern California, because that would be white privilege since a Black person would have a substantial chance of being killed by police if they did the same thing; her estimate was implicitly out of touch with reality by a factor of perhaps 100,000 to 1,000,000. But if your own perception of reality was that grossly distorted and you were a decent person, how would you respond?
Perception and impressions drive the internal model that most people have of the world, not rational evaluation and data.
And selective media coverage drives that perception. Some of the bias comes from "if it bleeds, it leads" - emotionally evocative stories, especially those which invoke fear or outrage - get more readers, viewers and clicks. That bias goes back forever; a related concept is that "Man Bites Dog" is newsworthy but "Dog Bite Man" is not.
But today some of it is also shaped by polarized media consciously Reinforcing the Narrative by selectively focusing on stories which are believed by the reporters to advance social justice by highlighting a narrative of oppression, and burying stories which might reduce the certainty about that narrative. I want to emphasize that these reporters think of themselves as noble and are trying to do the right thing, not trying to destroy the country (as some right wingers believe). They have largely been trained to believe that reinforcing the neo-progresive narrative is the path to social justice and trump outdated concepts like balance or journalistic integrity. Who cares about such high minded abstractions when legions of Black men women and children are being hunted and killed in the streets by racist cops?
As a result, we can be in a rapidly escalating racial crisis, even when the underlying data does not support any panic - it's all about (shaped) perceptions. There is no huge increase in racist discrimination or bias in recent years. Racist discrimination is not rising to crisis levels today, but perception of racial issues is.
By contrast, there IS a new and escalating increase in polarization in the US, rising to historic levels. Of particular note is "affective polarization" - not just having widely divergent opinions, but actively despising rather than just disagreeing with the other side, projecting dehumanizing stereotypes on them - in both directions. That alarming rise IS actually supported by data. By some measures it's the worst since the US Civil War, by others it's the highest since the measure began. I consider this to be moving toward an existential threat to our nation and democracy. But it gets less attention (not none).
Sadly, when I try to discuss this, a common reaction is "that polarization is all driven by the zealots on the other side, not us", without a shred of reflection or irony.
"Despite the enormous progress that we’ve made in creating a kinder, fairer, more inclusive world, it feels as if we’re more divided than ever. Not because bigotry has gotten worse, not because our fundamental needs conflict with each other, but because instead of looking for common ground, we’ve gotten used to taking sides. "
Very important observation. I agree and would like to share some related observations about the mechanisms which produce and sustain this dysfunction.
For a large portion of my life (ie: for several decades), objectively crime in the US had been substantially decreasing (until recent years anyway). At the same time, many polls have shown that most people believed that it was actually substantially increasing and they were increasingly fearful. Common perceptions can be badly detached from reality, based on things like selective news coverage.
Polls have revealed that many liberals believe police killings of unarmed Black people to be 10 to 1000 or more times higher than they are. When one realizes how detached this is from reality, it explains some of their emotion driven attitudes. A white ally of my acquaintance felt she could not ride her motorcycle to a workshop here in liberal SF Bay Area northern California, because that would be white privilege since a Black person would have a substantial chance of being killed by police if they did the same thing; her estimate was implicitly out of touch with reality by a factor of perhaps 100,000 to 1,000,000. But if your own perception of reality was that grossly distorted and you were a decent person, how would you respond?
Perception and impressions drive the internal model that most people have of the world, not rational evaluation and data.
And selective media coverage drives that perception. Some of the bias comes from "if it bleeds, it leads" - emotionally evocative stories, especially those which invoke fear or outrage - get more readers, viewers and clicks. That bias goes back forever; a related concept is that "Man Bites Dog" is newsworthy but "Dog Bite Man" is not.
But today some of it is also shaped by polarized media consciously Reinforcing the Narrative by selectively focusing on stories which are believed by the reporters to advance social justice by highlighting a narrative of oppression, and burying stories which might reduce the certainty about that narrative. I want to emphasize that these reporters think of themselves as noble and are trying to do the right thing, not trying to destroy the country (as some right wingers believe). They have largely been trained to believe that reinforcing the neo-progresive narrative is the path to social justice and trump outdated concepts like balance or journalistic integrity. Who cares about such high minded abstractions when legions of Black men women and children are being hunted and killed in the streets by racist cops?
As a result, we can be in a rapidly escalating racial crisis, even when the underlying data does not support any panic - it's all about (shaped) perceptions. There is no huge increase in racist discrimination or bias in recent years. Racist discrimination is not rising to crisis levels today, but perception of racial issues is.
By contrast, there IS a new and escalating increase in polarization in the US, rising to historic levels. Of particular note is "affective polarization" - not just having widely divergent opinions, but actively despising rather than just disagreeing with the other side, projecting dehumanizing stereotypes on them - in both directions. That alarming rise IS actually supported by data. By some measures it's the worst since the US Civil War, by others it's the highest since the measure began. I consider this to be moving toward an existential threat to our nation and democracy. But it gets less attention (not none).
Sadly, when I try to discuss this, a common reaction is "that polarization is all driven by the zealots on the other side, not us", without a shred of reflection or irony.