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Comment by vore | Hacker News Reader

This is an argument you can make regardless of what is actually going on on the ground. "The problem isn't policy, it's actually polarization" -- but the article completely fails to examine the causes of said polarization: What are people feeling angry about? Which people feel angry about what? Are those people justified in feeling angry? Are those angry people just doing it for show or are their lives being actively ruined?

You end up having to view the conflict through an ideological lens, but claiming there is some enlightened non-ideological view and the "real problem" is contemptuousness is mega disingenuous.

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Created a throwaway account for this. As a foreigner who has spent significant time living the US, indeed this seems like the kind of mealy-mouthed, somewhat vapid meta-commentary about "unity" that offers nothing more than some soundbyte call for some abstract value (in this case "better disagreement").

It doesn't address, for example, the fact that the two political factions in America now accept different versions of reality. You cannot square that circle with "better disagreement". You cannot paper over a disagreement on the nature of fundamental facts with simplistic calls for a better discourse.

To offer the most salient example: the question of whether or not the President of the country, with the help of his party and a major media outlet, is conspiring with a foreign dictatorship to undermine the democratic integrity of the country.

One demographic believes the above to be true. The other either does not believe it to be true, or alternatively does not believe it to matter even if true.

This is not some issue that can be simply bridged with "better disagreement". I'm sorry, that's just something you don't get to do.

To offer another example: whether the former President of the united states was indeed an illegitimate candidate due to not being a natural born citizen.

One side believes this to be true, the other does not.

This disconnect on reality exists across the spectrum, and the lines are harshly drawn.

If Americans cannot acknowledge that this schism in their country is arising out of a fundamental and deep disconnect on facts and reality that is widening on a day by day basis, not some mere "communication issue", they will never truly be able to understand and address it.

None of my conservative friends believe that nonsense about Obama, and none of my democrat friends believe that Trump is a Russian spy. Both sides agree Trump is a swindly buffoon, and everyone agrees the Russians have higher standards when recruiting spies.

The difference is that some of my conservative friends think it’s ok - or even funny - to have a swindly buffoon as president, and my democrat friends find this appalling.

The New York Times on the other hand is making mad bank promoting a big culture war, so make of that what you will.

I find two things interesting about your comment. The first is that you refer to conservatives in the general, and democrats in the specific. This may be simply inadvertant coincidence, but it stood out to me. In fact, you use those particular constructions twice:

> None of my conservative friends believe that nonsense about Obama, and none of my democrat friends believe that Trump is a Russian spy.

> The difference is that some of my conservative friends think it’s ok to have a swindly buffoon as president, and none of my democrat friends agree with that.

This suggests that in your mind, the "sides" you are seeing here are "conservative" vs. "democrat", which I find very interesting. One gets a party label, the other does not.

Secondly, to address your main point:

I don't understand why you feel that it's relevant what the "conservatives you know" believe. The political party that represents that demographic certainly strongly pushes those beliefs, does it not? Did the current President and party behind him not accuse the former one of being born in Kenya? Did they not and do they not still promote the belief that the issue of climate change is a "chinese conspiracy" (or alternatively, some ploy by the liberals and scientific establishment)? Did they prosecute a war on the "belief" that Iraq had WMDs (an action which cost your country several thousand soldiers' lives, and a few trillion dollars)?

Whatever your conservative friends may believe (let's leave aside the fact that you are making an argument via anecdote - your friends may or may not be representative of the demographic as a whole).. the party that represents them certainly pushes these understandings, and pushes them relentlessly, and justifies policy on the basis of those understandings.

I find your response to be similar to the article in question: generalized, abstracted, "stepping above".

Unfortunately, in this circumstance.. the details matter.

Keeping it real, you're reading way too much into what they're saying.

No he isn’t. I agree with him that there is something interesting about the fact that he refers to democrats specifically and conservatives generally. It gives us some insight into his/her bias. It exemplifies some of the broad strokes that are being painted. All conservatives think X because all conservatives, whether fiscally or socially, have the same beliefs. Their anecdata is also highly questionable and presented as a legitimate source of information.

I read it in quite the opposite way! I think it's implicitly referencing that 'republican' is a clearing house of views as opposed to actually representing any specific view. As an example libertarians and religious types generally have relatively little in common, yet both tend to vote republican. And this is because the party works to give them each something they value. So, for instance, I imagine that the vast majority of libertarians are pro-choice, yet the party chooses pro-life as a platform to offer something to the religious types. And indeed it turns out even though pro-life is the party platform, only 44% [1] of 'those that vote republican' would support overturning Roe v Wade. So the platform doesn't necessarily represent the individual.

By contrast democratic ideology is becoming increasingly authoritarian in that there's extremely little tolerance for views outside the party line. You'll generally find something like 85%+ support for the party line on most any 'hot' issue. By contrast, you'll find much more diversity in 'republican' views. For instance 'gun control' is supposed to be a black and white division, yet you find 31% [2] of republicans support stronger gun laws and only 13% would support less strict. By contrast, and as usual, you find a whopping 87% of democrats supporting stricter gun control and what measures as less than statistical noise (3%) in support of less strict gun control.

So there isn't really any such thing as a 'republican.' I think 'conservative' also does not necessarily apply ubiquitously, but it's somewhat reasonable. By contrast there is very much a thing as a 'democrat' and the vast majority of people that vote for that party are indeed 'democrats'.

[1] - https://thinkprogress.org/pro-choice-america-majority-d89630...

[2] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/243797/six-americans-support-st...

But the liberals think the conservatives are dumb enough to actually believe that Obama is Kenyan. And the conservatives think the liberals actually think that a guy like Trump is suitable material for a KGB asset.

He's the president of the U.S. That places him well beyond mere "suitable material".

> But the liberals think the conservatives are dumb enough to actually believe that Obama is Kenyan.

The Republicans elected a prominent birther so this should not be especially surprising. To look at it a little more precisely, depending on which polls you prefer, somewhere around half of them are, in your words, "dumb enough to actually believe that Obama is Kenyan:"

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republican... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persiste...

Sorry for the meta, but it's interesting that the "points" on this post have fluctuated up and down quite a bit more than my others (that I've noticed). It's interesting to me because while that sort of thing isn't rare with political posts, this was the post where I was actually sharing data.

> It doesn't address, for example, the fact that the two political factions in America now accept different versions of reality.

This isn't an unusual state of affairs. Historically, western civilization has faced similar problems with, eg, Catholics vs Protestants (which was substantially worse than anything we have now). The US specifically isn't yet even as bad as it was in the Civil War. The C v. P issue deserves special consideration - religious freedom isn't a principle in the west because it is warm and fuzzy. There were a lot of deaths.

The threat is always that one side gets so delusional they do away with the institutions and systems that moderate the disagreement. Things like equal voting and standing before the law, judicial precedent, free speech, personal freedom, etc, etc. That risk is not concentrated in either wing of politics.

The problem is, as soon as one side starts doing that, the other side will try to outdo them next time they have a chance.

We're already seeing the collapse of many customary norms in Congress, for example.

I think part of what you’re getting at is what Wittgenstein called deep disagreements, conflicts that can’t rationally be resolved because they actually are just a proxy for differences in foundational beliefs (‘hinge commitments’).

There’s a lot of interesting work that sprung out of these ideas, for example can hinge commitments be true/false or just ‘are’, if they can be true/false is it possible to give evidence to prove that?

High level (hopeful) overview i read a while back on the topic https://chris-ranalli.weebly.com/uploads/7/4/6/4/7464753/wit...

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

It is a trick. People are being deliberately played. Power depends on myths. And people believing them.

Is there really a qualitative difference? Public discourse is a vehicle to arrive at a shared understanding of (= beliefs about) facts.

> It doesn't address, for example, the fact that the two political factions in America now accept different versions of reality. You cannot square that circle with "better disagreement".

You can't square the circle, but you can have a better discourse that recognises the fact. Abortion has been an issue like this for years - one side believes it is murder, the other believes it is fundamental to women's rights. But in the main, debate has been civil and about the issue rather than the people. That might be changing, of course - but it demonstrates that you can have a better discourse.

One of my brothers studied to become a marine biologist. He then found Jesus. Now he's a creationist. Amongst a dozen other proclaimed beliefs.

Does my brother really, truly believe that the earth is 6,000 years old? Really?

One of my besties just revealed that she's an anti-vaxxor. Um, okay. Honestly, I can't even look at her the same way.

I now favor the theory of belief as attire. Every day is Halloween and people dress up aspirationally. Because reasons.

Whatever my brother (and others) now claim to believe, I've no idea how to relate, so I've given up trying to have meaningful, sincere conversations about anything substantial.

To keep things civil and pleasant, it's all just chitchat. With familiar strangers.

You haven't addressed the author's main point at all. You can disagree all you want with someone, without feeling contempt towards that person.

> "but the article completely fails to examine the causes of said polarization"

Actually the article does exactly that:

> The sources of motive attribution asymmetry are easy to identify: divisive politicians, screaming heads on television, hateful columnists, angry campus activists and seemingly everything on the contempt machines of social media. This “outrage industrial complex” works by catering to just one ideological side, creating a species of addiction by feeding our desire to believe that we are completely right and that the other side is made up of knaves and fools. It strokes our own biases while affirming our worst assumptions about those who disagree with us.

I would add to the above the tech-fueled echo chambers, fake news, and clickbait journalism. As far as actual substantive differences between the 2 political parties, I don't think anything has changed dramatically in the past century.

Feel free to be as ideological and radical as you want. I believe in Medicare for all and UBI. But there is such a thing as healthy disagreements and healthy debates, and never does that include contempt. If you think that anyone who voted for the other party is worthy of contempt, you're part of the problem.

I know a literal neo-Nazi who voted for the other party. Are they worthy of contempt?

for somebody who as a non resident and oblivious to what is happening to US society (other than what toxic media feeds me), I wish the below thread (now dead) had at least 1 or 2 comments explaining why his/her position is flawed (or even outrageous). Judging only from what many Australians, Brits and Europeans are saying it seems the opinion on Americans is that they have been divorced from reality long before Trump. One of my mates living in NYC who I caught up with in January has pretty much reverberated what that (dead) sibling comment said. Not only do I fail to see why people find that comment outrageous but I don't even understand what people believe is the real reason for the divide.

Hopefully no one finds this offensive. Also the problem is far from being an isolated US phenomenon. I see it everywhere across the EU (Brexit being just the tip of the iceberg here).

edit: suddenly @discard0000's comment is no longer dead.

Yeah, I had to vouch for it to undead it. I was honestly surprised that it was killed. It made a great point and wasn't inflammatory.

Polarization is a tactic used to gain power, on both sides. It’s obvious who benefits from polarization: the moral defectives who end up in positions of power and influence by stoking it.

This is an ideological view here. The author is the head of a large think tank, the kinds whose current position is threatened by the "extremes" on either side of the divide. Take out the AEI and place in CAP and you get a similar antagonism and a loathing of these types at the people rejecting business as usual.

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