The Quiet Poison In American Politics

[Theodarzna]

We’ve all seen it in annoying tweets and chest-thumping Facebook posts ― items presented as casual observations or political arguments that carry a much different underlying meaning: I am good because I have said this important thing now, here, on the Internet! The social need to be perceived by our peers as being morally upright ― or to pile on, with tribal abandon, with our likes and faves ― has replaced our calling to pursue moral truth. Or to actually engage in morally useful activities.

The problem is extremely common, Tosi argues, something even the best-intentioned of us have succumbed to at some point or another, though some of us are more flagrant and frequent offenders than others. It isn’t restricted to social media. Brian Leiter’s popular philosophy blog cites the paper approvingly, noting that moral grandstanding is rampant even in Twitter-anemic academia, where otherwise intelligent people stake out entire careers on preposterous-but-shocking arguments. “I will resist naming the professional philosophers who should read this, but you know who you are,” he writes.

Even more troubling to Tosi and his co-author, Bowling Green State University Assistant Professor of Philosophy Brandon Warmke, moral grandstanding is foreclosing meaningful debates about what the right thing to do might actually be. The nature of a just society is complicated, and the right answer to new issues can be difficult to decipher. Moral grandstanding encourages people to simply stake out successively extreme positions to impress their friends, instead of simply talking to each other. This eliminates nuance and forces people into bizarre partisan camps. People who share a great many moral intuitions become polarized as antagonists.

“It’s like a moral arms race,” Tosi told HuffPost. “It doesn’t really impress people if you’re good at compromising, if you’re good at listening to the other side. It impresses people if you can destroy other people.”

Tosi and Warmke aren’t explicitly talking about all of the political and social debates surrounding 2016, but only a fool would miss the implication. Bernie Bros and Hillary Bots savaging each other over whether the Trump phenomenon was about only race or only economic anxiety, as if the two couldn’t possibly interact. The acid disdain some Democrats directed toward Trump supporters in the general election, and the at times violent hatred Trump supporters hurled at Democrats. A lot of this looked more like perverse moral grandstanding than serious inquiry.

There’s an important difference between moral grandstanding and the simple statement of moral ideas and beliefs, and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference between the two (although, yeah, sometimes it is). But Tosi and Warmke see the social status afforded to the most efficient moral grandstanders as blocking out more thoughtful discussion.

“We need to be able to talk to each other about morality,” Tosi says. “Or we need to be able to talk about what justice requires ― what the right thing to do is.”

(source)

Perhaps its a problem of the internet age and our love of slamming, destroying and beat downs?

[primalmatter]

It isn't really quiet considering how much they yell. Besides people are finally learning that if you just ignore crazy people they instantly lose all their power. It is why Hillary isn't president.

[Dextroden]

It's not clear to me what justifies assuming they're essentially lying about their position, as opposed to just taking it at face value that a lot of people want to implement what they view as ideological purity. Furthermore, the former would be at odds with the rather obvious intuitive perspective of whatever a person believes seeming right and beliefs that go against it being wrong. After all, nobody deliberately holds wrong beliefs. Most everyone will have rather firm belief that what they think is right is right, current personal doubts about their ability to know what is right aside. It seems much more likely and less patronizingly "charitable" that they simply mean what they say for the most part, even if it's not fully thought out or leads to some obviously logically or ethically problematic ends, as people are not naturally inclined towards good reasoning in the first place.

That ideal falls flat when people were being painted as the devil for voting Trump or Clinton.

[Independent voter]

Voting is what matters, you can destroy someone on a forum and impress people but you didn't sway your victim into voting your way, if anything you've created someone who'll always vote against what you want. And a lot of angry people are too angry to vote themselves so what they're doing on forums or twitter is very counterproductive.

[Dextroden]

Compromise and moderation have become dirty words on both sides of the isle. Fanatical idealism has trumped pragmatism. The ease of finding people like yourself, on the internet, social media, etc, has created echo chambers and tribes that reinforce your ideas.

This is the cause of the divide, self sorting (into the forum, news site, group, state, etc) and the incoming societal strife.

Oh crap! I forgot I told you pragmatism was a joke if Clinton lost. Because what happened after that loss? Republican style lashing out.

The party that made a rift in their own voter base (Bernie or Bust) was supposed to unify and beat Trump.

[Powerogue]

I try to avoid this by not picking sides. I can see the appeal though. On some fundamental level, arguing is more fun than talking things out and compromising. Probably because compromising requires feeling that nagging cognitive dissonance of having multiple ideas vying for dominance in your head.

Compromise and moderation have become dirty words on both sides of the isle. Fanatical idealism has trumped pragmatism. The ease of finding people like yourself, on the internet, social media, etc, has created echo chambers and tribes that reinforce your ideas.

This is the cause of the divide, self sorting (onto the forum that match your ideology best, news site, group, state, etc) and the incoming societal strife.

It's hardly the internet's fault. The internet makes it easy to find anyone, like or unlike yourself. Faced with that we've clung to our innate tribalism that's "worked" for us to this point. (If we can call hatred, paranoia and wars "working", but it's what we know.)

[xChurch]

Wait, I thought huffpo was fake news?

[Dextroden]

It's not everyone though, I ultimately held my nose and voted for HilBot.

As much as I like Bernie, I will always turn to pragmatism as the last resort.

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Well, blame I would say is too strong a word. I ultimately think the internet will fix the issue it helped create. It's a tool, it's all in how you use it. You can use a knife to cut someone down, or cut their binds and set them free.

I guess that stench was too great for some people. Or they realized they shouldn't have to hold their nose to vote for someone. Or that Trump isn't the ultimate evil the prophets proclaimed and the rally cry could be safely ignored.

There's a reason running against the Kenyan muslim communist anti-christ didn't work. So, it's really surprising that people didn't expect running against the Hitler Russian spy that's going to grab Mexican women by the pussy to fail.

[Venant]

at times violent hatred Trump supporters hurled at Democrats

Well I suppose we can't expect any self awareness from a Huffington Post article, but then again we all remember that time some maniacs kidnapped and tortured some guy, streaming it while repeatedly shouting F-Hillary, or the time anti-Hillary mobs rioted and did millions of dollars in property damage, or all the maniac Trump supporters who attempted to assault Hillary.

[Dextroden]

When describing an emotion, "violent" just means especially intense and negative, and the statement is semantically roughly equivalent to the preceding statement, which stated that Democrats directed "acid disdain" towards Trump supporters.

There's a term for that already. It's called aggressive. Violent implies violence.

Are you equating loudness with violent?

[Dextroden]

I think the problem is also that both sides see themselves as saints. I idealistically wished that the left would be mature enough to act better than the right did with Obamas win.

I am sure there are people on the right that had the same thought as I back then.

But people are people. I think wishing for one side or the other to be anything but was delusional on my part.

So I am just going to take a non serious, absurdist, and bemused outlook on this show, and see where we end up. Knowing history it will be a pendulum swing back to the left, sooner or later.

Yvaelle and I both have enough data tracking to keep us busy in that regard.

You don't call people stupid or terrible for doing something and then go do that very same thing and expect not to be viewed as stupid and terrible.

People freely harp on Trump for double-speak and Mocking people who support him. Mention a single moment of Clinton and cries of Trumpist are sure to follow. There is no awareness here, right down to being mirror images of people on the right ranting about Cucks.

It's amazing. The Democrats are transitioning very well into 2008 Republicans. However, since Sanders did a poor job of being Ron Paul, I'm not sure if a splinter party will form to take advantage of the stagnation and dissent.

[Dextroden]

Well that is because like me, you expect something from democrats because we project something better onto them than republicans. When in reality both are people who just have different perspectives on the same issues.

I am just going to stop expecting better from people just because they may have the same ideological beliefs as me. That has been shown over and over to be a failed expectation.

I don't like Trumps positions but throwing a temper tantrum solves nothing. "...Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Trump won, I cannot change that.

Then I am vindicated in my belief that nothing will ever actually improve because why should I expect better from anyone? It's like my disconnect with people who speak highly of a wealthy tech company or their CEO after 8 years of businesses and corporations are only out for themselves and fighting the 1%. What makes Google or Musk more trustworthy than Walmart or 90s era anti-trust laws Gates.

[Dextroden]

Watch their actions, not what they say. If Bill Gates, or Musk do something wrong notice that and criticize it. Keep them honest. They may feel guilt or remorse and change their way, or maybe not. Treat them as you would any individual. Or as the Russians say, "Doveryai, no proveryai."

Does Trump get to feel remorse or learn or change? Or is everything he does different a waffle or lie. (Yes, some of it is indeed lies or waffling. That's why I didn't vote for him.)

Also, watch out with the Russian. I don't want you getting interned because the Cold War is back on.

[Spiffums]

HuffPo = Fake News

[Dextroden]

Yes, Trump is the same. I hold out hope that he is better than he appears and will learn from his mistakes, just like everyone else.

Which brings us full circle. Making your enemy the Kenyan muslim communist anti-christ is a terrible campaign. They insulted Hillary, but as inept and corrupt. Which is par for the course in terms of political mudslinging.

The victories of Obama and Trump should be hard proof that dehumanizing the enemy doesn't work anymore.

[Dextroden]

I agree, dehumanizing your "enemy" has been a tried and true tactic since the advent of war. But the issue is actually the people doing the dehumanizing. Because you get what we saw after Obama, and now Trump. "He ain't our President!"

Both sides do it, it's wrong no matter the side.

It has. And then Vietnam happened and we shifted stances on that over time. Fighting will never stop, but we don't want to be that vicious as a whole anymore.

I look forward to 2020. Either a new campaign will unfurl or Trump gets to be 2004 Bush or 2012 Obama.

[melodramocracy]

I'd say the poison is slightly different. It's that positions of leadership simply no longer command respect from the public (or, at the very least, far less than they ever have before). Much of this has to do with the advent of the internet, which allows everyone a somewhat equal soapbox from which to speak, and has magnified the number of news sources (both credible and un-credible) and overall noise on the subject.

I find Trumps tween-like addiction to Twitter quite interesting. On one hand, as mentioned above, it actually serves to lessen the status of POTUS in the eyes of the general public. On the other hand, it serves as a fairly unfiltered way to speak to the public... it's direct, likely off the cuff, and Trump absolutely knows that anything he posts will be picked up and dissected by the media. It's on-level dialogue, and not a bad thing, despite the fundamentally flawed platform to do it from.

The poison isn't a bad thing per se. Hopefully people eventually catch onto the idea that the folks they vote into power, for the most part, really have no business making decisions for anyone else. Actually trying to solve the issue, of course, tends to be a pretty ugly matter by all historical accounts.

[Theodarzna]

Compromise and moderation have become dirty words on both sides of the isle. Fanatical idealism has trumped pragmatism. The ease of finding people like yourself, on the internet, social media, etc, has created echo chambers and tribes that reinforce your ideas.

This is the cause of the divide, self sorting (onto the forum that match your ideology best, news site, group, state, etc) and the incoming societal strife.

Pragmatism or moderation are not IMHO the factor here. People have their views and that is fine, but two people of different views cannot seem to even interact anymore.

[Zython]

Tell me about it. I'm so sick of moral grandstanding about "winning them over with kindness" and "when they go low, we go high". Politics is a serious matter and should be treated as if it were life or death. Because it is.

[zenkai]

Compromise and moderation have become dirty words on both sides of the isle. Fanatical idealism has trumped pragmatism. The ease of finding people like yourself, on the internet, social media, etc, has created echo chambers and tribes that reinforce your ideas.

This is the cause of the divide, self sorting (onto the forum that match your ideology best, news site, group, state, etc) and the incoming societal strife.

You hit the nail on the head with that one. If people don't like hearing something that is true, they simply go find a source that doesn't tell them the truth.