Stop villainizing people whose political opinions differ from yours.

Great Debates
1

There probably have been other threads about this, but I came across a thread somewhere in which both political sides were claiming their opponents were appealing to emotion and that their side is the only one that is reasoning logically. The truth is that both sides use appeals to emotion, just different emotions. Conservatives preach towards fear of the unknown and the different, liberals preach to love and harmony. Neither side is correct, they just have different views of the fundamental nature of humanity. Those that think we are inherently vile creatures and must stick together with those that are similar to protect us from our enemies are conservatives, and those that think that people are inherently good and should all come together to live as one big family regardless of their background are liberal.

We cannot accept into the community of civilization those that have no respect for the rules that are laid down, but at the same time, how does one get respect for those rules if those rules have created their misery? We must search for ways to be able to clearly draw the line between those who are without hope for redemption because they simply are vile people, and those who act out only because acting civilized has gotten them nowhere and can be taught how looking out for the group ends up with everyone better off.

We cannot possibly spread our wealth evenly throughout the world without wasting most of it on organizational inefficiencies in the redistribution, but with it all concentrated in the hands of a few people, that wealth has much lower overall effective utility due to diminishing returns. There is so much wealth concentrated in the hands of so few people that they cannot possibly enjoy it nearly as much as those who have nothing, but at the same time that concentration of wealth is often due to hard work and emotional sacrifice.

These are very plain truths that should be obvious to anyone who gives them a moment of thought. That we all choose to disagree on exactly where the point to meet in the middle on is not surprising. We need to stop turning the other political side into villains, and express some sympathy for their point of view. Virtually no one believes that they are evil - those who grasp for more simply believe that they are entitled to more than others because of various reasons that seem perfectly justified to them. There are no super-villains or grand conspiracies, just people who think they are making the world better for those who deserve it. We just disagree on exactly who deserves what.

2

I will as soon as they stop being such jerks!

3

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of arguing politics on the internet, doesn’t it?

4

While I can certainly respect a wide range of political views (on most subjects), there are appropriate times, when you love your country and your children, where you must take a stand against a dangerous and unqualified candidate (and many of his party who support him despite knowing better). I hesitate to Godwin this tread so early, but there are limits to the concept of respect for political differences.

5

I’m afraid that your thesis sounds a lot like the generic “truth-is-in-the-middle”, and I’m not referring to your use of the phrase “meet in the middle” but rather the whole gist of your argument.

Yes, there are extreme leftists and extreme rightists and moderation is usually the best bet, as a general principle. The two problems with that reasoning are that (a) over time a nation’s entire culture may gradually meander so far to one side that it drags the rational middle along with it, and (b) much more importantly, specific candidates at specific times can represent qualitatively extreme and dangerous leaps from established norms.

I’ll make an analogy with the infamous climate change debate. We have, on one hand, well-informed, qualified scientists who have studied the relevant science for a lifetime and based their findings on the research of other lifetimes before them, and concluded that we have a serious problem. And “on the other side” we have know-nothing gullible ignoramuses persuaded by fraudulent Internet sites surreptitiously funded by fossil fuel interests that the whole thing is a hoax.

Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Is it a combination of a little bit of a problem and a little bit of chicanery?

No, the truth is always where the facts are, and it’s absolutely unambiguous.

And it’s not just an idle analogy. One of the current major presidential candidates insists climate change is a hoax, and the other acknowledges its reality. One of those candidates has also been insisting that the election is “rigged” against him every since the polls started to show him losing. And, as it turns out, one of those candidates has no regard whatsoever for facts or truth, and the other one does.

You don’t blindly aim for the middle. You assess the facts, fairly and objectively, and you go where the facts lead you. Any other path is fraught with peril.

6

That’s exactly what you just did.

So the answer is not to be reasonable but to insult and vilify the other side.
This is just another veiled thread of, “Why are conservatives so evil and stupid?”

7

That sounds good in theory. But in practice, people don’t want facts. They want power.

8

I’m not going to villainize somebody over opinions on issues like trade relations or tax policies.

But if your political opinions are based on bigotry or a willful denial of the objective evidence then your opinions are wrong and I’m not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of civility.

9

But, but…it’s FUN to villainize people with political opinions that are different from mine. And it’s cathartic, too.

Seriously, though, I don’t villainize anyone – I just think that people who live in an information bubble can’t be taken seriously. That’s not demonizing anyone, but the American right wing is so fucking hypersensitive that they turn everything into a personal insult. I’m hyper-partisan because the truth is on my side – no, it really is.

10

You’re deluding yourself if you think everyone who votes for any particular party is monolithic in thought and rational.

11

That’s not what s/he said. What s/he implied was that some parties are much more closely aligned with the facts than others, whose idea of reality seems closely aligned with the fantasies and the bullshit fed to them by late-night talk radio and fraudulent websites. Which is exactly what I tried to show with my analogy.

12

Well, thing is that in this case we have people that want the power (of government) to be able to tell powerful fossil fuel companies to control the shitty thing they are doing.

On the other side we have people that want that power to… just tell those companies to carry on with their pollution. Current and future generations be dammed.

13

That’s absolutely not what I meant. If you think I intended to mean my characterizations of conservatives to show them to be evil and stupid, you misunderstand my point. There are some that have a perfectly healthy and rational fear of the unknown. Fear is a as good of a motivator as it is because it tends to be very realistic about the unknown outcomes of a situation. Yes, it can be misused, but having fear of those that are different is a very healthy reaction. One shouldn’t be of the mind that it is wrong to fear those who are different; one simply needs a broader understanding of in what ways “different” is something to be afraid of, and in what ways “different” in innocuous.

Perhaps it’s because conservatives have been vilified so much for their fear of the unknown and the other that it’s come to be seen automatically as villainous by the population. I’m taking the stand that doing that is not a good idea, because that fear is very real and genuine. Yes, it can be turned into hatred, but at its root it’s simply a fear that things will change for the worse if we change who we include in our in-group and change the methods we know that have worked in the past.

I feel somewhat stupid here defending conservative thought, since I don’t really agree with it much, but I think it’s important that people absolutely stop deciding that another person’s worldview is evil simply “because I disagree with it”, when then opposite could be said from the other direction. I mean, having an open mind about this kind of thing is obviously a tip-off that I lean liberal, but having interacted with conservatives and trying to understand their ways of thinking has led me to think a large reason that things are getting as bad as they are is the continual negative labeling of the thought-patterns of the other side instead of trying to understand exactly what they are.

14

I don’t mean in any way to imply that the Republican platform is anything but utter drivel, or that their candidate deserves any respect at all. If I had meant anything related to the election, this would have been in the Election Forum. I was moved to write this by something that was completely unrelated to the election in which conservatives and liberals were just shouting past each other that they were thinking rationally and their opponents were descending to emotional arguments, both missing the ways in which their opponents were making rational arguments and they themselves were making emotional appeals.

You’ll probably never hear me defend any particular conservative politician or position, only their right to have their legitimate concerns be addressed, and not have them be shouted down simply because there are those who dislike what they imply. But I’ve gotten sick of liberals who espouse liberalness for the sake of taking sides against the conservatives on the issue, instead of rationally trying to determine what the best and most reasonable course of action is.

15

There are times when it is impossible to accurately portray the oppositions position without seeming insulting. This is one of those times. I will go for accuracy over a feigned niceness.

16

Are there studies that show that without doubt that there will be more economic disruption to the global economy if fossil fuel use continues along its current path than under the plans of various groups to try to curb its usage? Yes, I know there are some truly deluded people out there, but I think the issue there is that people are seriously concerned that the amount of economic disruption wanted by liberal-leaning groups in order to combat climate change will end up being greater than the potential disruption averted that would be caused by global climate change.

Do we know for a fact exactly what will happen, and on what sort of time table? Will it be impossible for people to slowly realize that the coastal areas are not good places to stay and that they should move inland? Will there not be places that are currently not able to be put to productive use have potential uses arise because of the change in climate? There is a lot of land in the northern hemisphere that is unused simply because it is too cold and the growing season is too short. Has anyone seriously looked at how these lands might be exploited to make up for the loss of other areas? How do we know that it’s going to be 100% bad with no up-side at all? In this way, liberals are almost taking a too conservative view of things. They claim that the ecosystem will be unable to tolerate the rate of change of the climate because it normally does not change as drastically. But what proof do they have of that? Why do they favor the status quo so much?

That said, I don’t know a ton about the issue. I don’t know if there are studies that say exactly what I’m wondering about, but the fact that I’ve been passively introduced to many climate change issues and have yet to see those facts be put heavily into rotation suggests to me that they truly have not been dealt with. I do believe that we should try to develop alternatives forms of energy, especially ones that try to harness as much energy as possible from the sun (solar and wind) as well as the moon (tidal). I recognize that fossil fuel use is unsustainable in the long-term, as it is impossible for there to be an infinite supply. I understand the concern about low-lying coastal areas being overtaken by the sea, and the terrible impact that will have. But I also think it’s possible, given what I’ve read, that those changes will be gradual enough that we don’t have to worry about forcing an economic solution besides the invisible hand showing people that coastal areas need to be abandoned and new land inland in the north can be opened up to development.

17

Unfortunately, stereotyping lies deep in human nature; left or right. People like to paint with a broad brush, because it’s easy. For instance, one prominent progressive poster (whose screen name I am omitting) said in another thread:

18

So, I’m supposed to be nice to a political movement that promotes violence, denies climate change and has not said if they are are going to respect the outcome of the democratic process? How’s that supposed to work?

19

Understanding the psychology of one’s political opponents is also useful for crafting better propaganda. If you appeal to the same intuitions as you would when talking to fellow tribe members then your arguments won’t have much of an effect.

Jonathan Haidt’s article What Makes People Vote Republican? is often posted in discussions like this, but perhaps it’s worth sharing again. A quick summary is that there are five moral foundations:

  1. harm/care
  2. fairness/reciprocity
  3. ingroup/loyalty
  4. authority/respect
  5. purity/sanctity

Liberals focus on the first two and reject arguments based on the last three. Conservatives engage all five. If liberals understand the last three they can more easily attain power by appealing to these intuitions.

I think it’s a solid hypothesis, but I can think of exceptions. Liberal opposition to pollution, nuclear power, and GMOs can be based off harm, but a big component seems to be purity concerns. When it comes to GMOs Europeans sound like a bunch of General Rippers. Appeal to experts and sometimes outright scientism is a hallmark of liberal argument (“Studies say…”) and is based on authority/respect.

It’s true that conservatives have a strong disgust response and a higher negativity bias. I disagree with your conclusions, though. AFAIK there’s no evidence that liberals have a positivity bias. You can find human nature cynic/optimists wherever you look.

For instance, the point of a big government in the liberal enterprise is to regulate behavior. This is necessary because humans are selfish, close minded, and violent, so in addition to social incentives you need a monopoly of force to make them behave optimally and punish free riders and rent seekers. I don’t think this is the view of a human nature optimist. If you think liberals have such a rosy picture of humanity ask them about the business class or the military industrial complex or the rubes who vote against them.

Many liberal arguments are characterized as “love and harmony” as you say but are actually (or additionally) coldly pragmatic. For example, diversity increases creativity and wealth. Hippie logic is not driving pushes for immigration or relaxed borders by elite institutions. Pollution and global warming destroys wealth. Biodiversity can lead to new medicine or scientific discoveries. And so on.

Meanwhile, conservative conclusions can sometimes be quite naive regarding human nature, e.g. The foreigners will greet us as liberators. The rich won’t take advantage of the system so no need to regulate. Charities will be enough to aid the poor. Teenagers won’t have sex if you don’t teach them about it. Some of these are born out of a “just world” ideology which isn’t usually characterized as cynical, though perhaps can be interpreted that way in some cases.

20

That’s a bit simplistic. The left also tends to ignore that governments are made of people and the power that the state has will be abused by the people in power. It’s no surprise that the greatest amount of murder and torture that humanity has had to suffer through has been at the hands of state agents.