None of the Above (![[info]](http://klab.lv/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} artis) rakstīja,@ 2016-11-23 20:35:00 |
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Alien of extraordinary ability: Michal Zalewski (poļu izcelsmes 1. paaudzes imigrants ASV)
"Ultimately, we all live in bubbles and we all have biases; in that regard, not much sets CNN apart from Fox News, Vox from National Review, or The Huffington Post from Breitbart. The reason why most of us would trust one and despise the other is that we instinctively recognize our own biases as more benign. [..] We even have serious scientific studies to back that up; their authors breathlessly proclaim that the conservative brain is inferior to the progressive brain. Unlike the conservatives, we believe in science, so we hit the "like" button and retweet the news.
But here's the thing: I know quite a few conservatives, many of whom have probably voted for Mr. Trump - and they are about as smart, as informed, and as compassionate as my progressive friends. I think that the disconnect between the worldviews stems from something else: if you are a well-off person in a coastal city, you know people who are immigrants or who belong to other minorities, making you acutely attuned to their plight; but you may lack the same, deeply personal connection to - say - the situation of the lower middle class in the Midwest. You might have seen surprising charts or read a touching story in Mother Jones few years back, but it's hard to think of them as individuals; they are more of a socioeconomic obstacle, a problem to be solved. The same goes for our understanding of immigration or globalization: these phenomena make our high-tech hubs more prosperous and more open; the externalities of our policies, if any, are just an abstract price that somebody else ought to bear for doing what's morally right. And so, when Mr. Trump promises to temporarily ban travel from Muslim countries linked to terrorism or anti-American sentiments, we (rightly) gasp in disbelief; but when Mr. Obama paints an insulting caricature of rural voters as simpletons who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them", we smile and praise him for his wit, not understanding how the other side could be so offended by the truth. Similarly, when Mrs. Clinton chuckles while saying "we are going to put a lot of coal miners out of business" to a cheering crowd, the scene does not strike us as a thoughtless, offensive, or in poor taste. Maybe we will read a story about the miners in Mother Jones some day?
Of course, liberals take pride in caring for the common folk, but I suspect that their leaders' attempts to reach out to the underprivileged workers in the "flyover states" often come across as ham-fisted and insincere. The establishment schools the voters about the inevitability of globalization, as if it were some cosmic imperative; they are told that to reject the premise would not just be wrong - but that it'd be a product of a diseased, nativist mind. They hear that the factories simply had to go to China or Mexico, and the goods just have to come back duty-free - all so that our complex, interconnected world can be a happier place. The workers are promised entitlements, but it stands to reason that they want dignity and hope for their children, not a lifetime on food stamps. The idle, academic debates about automation, post-scarcity societies, and Universal Basic Income probably come across as far-fetched and self-congratulatory, too.
Most progressives are either oblivious to these biases, or dismiss them as a harmless casualty of fighting the good fight. Perhaps so - and it is not my intent to imply equivalency between the causes of the left and of the right. But in the end, I suspect that the liberal echo chamber contributed to the election of Mr. Trump far more than anything that ever transpired on the right. "
https://lcamtuf.blogspot.ch/2016/11/o
"Ultimately, we all live in bubbles and we all have biases; in that regard, not much sets CNN apart from Fox News, Vox from National Review, or The Huffington Post from Breitbart. The reason why most of us would trust one and despise the other is that we instinctively recognize our own biases as more benign. [..] We even have serious scientific studies to back that up; their authors breathlessly proclaim that the conservative brain is inferior to the progressive brain. Unlike the conservatives, we believe in science, so we hit the "like" button and retweet the news.
But here's the thing: I know quite a few conservatives, many of whom have probably voted for Mr. Trump - and they are about as smart, as informed, and as compassionate as my progressive friends. I think that the disconnect between the worldviews stems from something else: if you are a well-off person in a coastal city, you know people who are immigrants or who belong to other minorities, making you acutely attuned to their plight; but you may lack the same, deeply personal connection to - say - the situation of the lower middle class in the Midwest. You might have seen surprising charts or read a touching story in Mother Jones few years back, but it's hard to think of them as individuals; they are more of a socioeconomic obstacle, a problem to be solved. The same goes for our understanding of immigration or globalization: these phenomena make our high-tech hubs more prosperous and more open; the externalities of our policies, if any, are just an abstract price that somebody else ought to bear for doing what's morally right. And so, when Mr. Trump promises to temporarily ban travel from Muslim countries linked to terrorism or anti-American sentiments, we (rightly) gasp in disbelief; but when Mr. Obama paints an insulting caricature of rural voters as simpletons who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them", we smile and praise him for his wit, not understanding how the other side could be so offended by the truth. Similarly, when Mrs. Clinton chuckles while saying "we are going to put a lot of coal miners out of business" to a cheering crowd, the scene does not strike us as a thoughtless, offensive, or in poor taste. Maybe we will read a story about the miners in Mother Jones some day?
Of course, liberals take pride in caring for the common folk, but I suspect that their leaders' attempts to reach out to the underprivileged workers in the "flyover states" often come across as ham-fisted and insincere. The establishment schools the voters about the inevitability of globalization, as if it were some cosmic imperative; they are told that to reject the premise would not just be wrong - but that it'd be a product of a diseased, nativist mind. They hear that the factories simply had to go to China or Mexico, and the goods just have to come back duty-free - all so that our complex, interconnected world can be a happier place. The workers are promised entitlements, but it stands to reason that they want dignity and hope for their children, not a lifetime on food stamps. The idle, academic debates about automation, post-scarcity societies, and Universal Basic Income probably come across as far-fetched and self-congratulatory, too.
Most progressives are either oblivious to these biases, or dismiss them as a harmless casualty of fighting the good fight. Perhaps so - and it is not my intent to imply equivalency between the causes of the left and of the right. But in the end, I suspect that the liberal echo chamber contributed to the election of Mr. Trump far more than anything that ever transpired on the right. "
https://lcamtuf.blogspot.ch/2016/11/o
