The Atlantic offers a solution to the polarization of opinions that exists everywhere. Does this sort of stuff ever work? Will the future be more collaborative?
Ah, Moral Foundations Theory. Like Becher’s phlogiston, Jayne’s “Bicameral Mind”, the luminiferous aether, and pretty much all of macroeconomics ‘theory’, it is expansive, philosophically beautiful, and utterly without evidential basis. From the cited The Atlantic article:
Extensive survey-based research has revealed that almost everyone shares at least two common values: Harming others without cause is bad, and fairness is good.
I’m sure that people responded this way to surveys because they want to perceive themselves as benevolent and fair but the observational evidence of behavioral mechanics and social transactions indicates otherwise; many people get great pleasure out of seeing discomfort and harm to others, and the notion of ‘fairness’ is a transactional view of relative benefit rather than some kind of fundamental principle of social altruism.
The “polarization of opinions that exists everywhere” is driven by the usual impetus; fear, uncertainty, and doubt that is fed by propagandists selling a particular world view to their benefit, i.e. that global climate change is a ‘liberal conspiracy” brought to you by Charles and David Koch. The notion that so-called ‘polarization’ is the same character and degree across the political spectrum is really just a restatement of the “both sides do it” argument. In reality, while everyone has personal biases and irrational beliefs that shape their view of the world, it is one particular political pole that relies almost exclusively on denial, mistruth, fear-mongering, xenophobia and a general “fear of the other” to maintain relevance.
Stranger
And the other problem is that, even if this is true, almost everyone isn’t enough in this day and age with force multipliers that allow one person to harm a large number of people.
Had a chat with the police the other day at my business. They wanted to know if I had seen anything. Apparently, someone had gone through the parking lot and keyed over a dozen cars. That’s harm without cause.
There are just people who hate, who want to hurt others and the suffering they inflict is the cause. And the current political climate seems to be enabling and encouraging them.
It is becoming more common and it is discouraging to see examples at the highest levels of society.