by Jonathan Haidt. Self-recommending (although it seems to have annoyed Handle).
The problem may not be connectivity itself but rather the way social media turns so much communication into a public performance. We often think of communication as a two-way street. Intimacy builds as partners take turns, laugh at each other’s jokes, and make reciprocal disclosures. What happens, though, when grandstands are erected along both sides of that street and then filled with friends, acquaintances, rivals, and strangers, all passing judgment and offering commentary?
Read the whole thing.
Also, Haidt has done a two-minute animated video. I agree with some of its points, but it would not be my approach.
I find this interesting from a “the medium is the message” perspective. First, it is an RSA Video Short made from the Creative Commons licensed audio of a talk. Some of the “RSA Animate” videos using an animated whiteboard style are magnificent and created a whole new media genre. The Video Shorts seem to be much cheaper and scalable way to animate audio that doesn’t require a superstar animator, only a graphic designer and/or tools. The audio quality is disappointing and the animation doesn’t work well, for the Haidt talk. A video like this is a mashup that doesn’t require any input from Haidt other than agreeing to the audio license.
My question is, what would be your approach? Is it worth creating a four minute carefully scripted animated video for one of your books/ideas? What about a carefully scripted audio only file licensed for mashups? Or perhaps licensing the audio of every published talk/podcast you’ve made to allow an audio summary to be created which is the first step of every RSA Video production. The format seems to hit a sweet spot when executed well. If you are interested in spreading ideas, understanding why this animated video misses the mark might lead to great insights.
“Madison’s design has proved durable. ”
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As long as we settle long term state issues with a semi-regular civil war.
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“The problem may not be connectivity itself but rather the way social media turns so much communication into a public performance. We often think of communication as a two-way street.”
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Maybe, but marketing is a one way street and that is what Facebook turned into, a marketing tool.
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“In other words, social media turns many of our most politically engaged citizens into Madison’s nightmare: arsonists ”
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And broadcast radio turned Madison Avenue in a disruptive arson force. And the sudden appearance of telegraph connected the radical Republics in California to Illinois Republicans, sparking the civil war. Telephone switch boards had a disruptive effect on monarch’s control of finance in 1915. We can look at cheap literature and rotary steam press, a primitive web site technology and its effect on manufacturing standards.
It is a recurring theme. Trade drives communication tech because price information can travel faster than goods. The inventor gets a hedge.
There is a whole literature devoted to the social unrest and disruption that the capability to cheaply print pamphlets unleashed in Reformation / Early-Modern Europe. Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain is a good one, with such chapters as, “This bookish partiall formall fierce factions animositous age.”
I like, “Animositous Age”, and if it feels like we’re living in one, bear in mind, it’s hardly the first!
None of that animosity was resolved by means of teaching self-restraint via awareness of man’s tendency to sin – er, I mean – indulge impulsively in one’s tribal, social-psychological instincts.
Look, until Cato gives me a call (quite the longshot!), it’s hard to justify devoting the time to drafting a rigorous refutation of the general counter-polarization position and Haidt’s specific case in particular.
That being said, I’ll make two quick observations:
1. In order to make the case that “It’s the Social Media, stupid!” one ought to provide some way of measuring “polarization” and demonstrating why “This Time is Truly Different”, as opposed to all those other times in history in which there was serious and acrimonious division over political and ideological topics.
Indeed, the cyclical patterns in History of centers of power splitting into several (usually two) main rival factions and coming eventually into violent conflict seems so common and well-established – as if they are natural endgames in the recurrent chess matches of political struggle – that it’s the more peaceful, stable, and moderate eras that demand explanation instead, as “vacations from history” as opposed to a historical “return to normalcy”, with normalcy not being very harmonious.
I don’t think the counter-polarizers have really even attempted to demonstrate this point, tending to restrict the range of consideration to the stoplight where the light is, that is, just the past few decades.
2. As I explained previously, the deeper problem with counter-polarization is that there is actually no escaping or transcending ideology, and that a negative attitude towards mass polarization over any particular set of ideas implicitly betrays another, rival set of ideas, but one the counter-polarizer neither admits nor explains why his perspective is superior or more worthy or less arbitrary.
Is the “abortion for art” offensive and worth getting outraged about, or not? Are some of those people right and others wrong, or nobody can ever be right and wrong about those kinds of things because meta-ethical moral nihilism is true, or what? Is there an alternative set of “things worthy of getting outraged about” that the counter-polarizer believes is more worthy, and if so, why?
Imagine an atheist in Iraq lamenting the ceaseless conflict between Sunnis and Shia in his country, and saying that it is ridiculous for such arguments to escalate into bloodshed. But saying it is ridiculous is already to tacitly insist on the metaphysical position that both Sunni and Shia Islam are false in their claims, or that there is a distinct moral truth of what is or isn’t worth killing over (which comes from where exactly?) and that both Sunni and Shia are false because at odds with that truth.
By the way, this “sectarian conflict” model is hardly a stretched metaphor for our current ideological disputes.
You see the problem. One can’t criticize the viciousness of the fight in the arena by floating above it all in the clouds. Amoral nihilism might be that perspective, but then it gives no particular reason to get all worked up over all the polarization and provide any kind of compelling motivation to counter it. One is always just standing on another point somewhere else in the ideological terrain, and must be prepared to explain why that particular position is better than the others.
At that point, one is inevitably going to come into some direct conflict with the moral and metaphysical truth claims of the ‘tribes’, and paint a giant target on oneself and kick a huge the hornets’ nest.
Look, I get it. I certainly understand why someone would be reluctant to do that! But it doesn’t do any good to pretend otherwise, mostly from the pragmatic consideration that one’s appeals can have no persuasive power if they can’t explain to either side what, precisely, they are doing wrong by getting outraged over this or that issue.
What does Haidt have to say to a Social Conservative on why they shouldn’t get outraged about the “abortion for art” issue, and why it is wrong for them to do so? What does he say to the progressive likewise about why they shouldn’t get worked up about the foul-mouthed racist?
It seems to me the answer is “nothing”. So why should any of these people stop doing it? In the name of some higher truth or values? Which ones, and why are they ‘higher’?
Haidt seems to think one can avoid these questions entirely and “abstain from voting on the matter” as it were. But one cannot: it’s a fatal conceit.
I liked Haidt’s recommendations to change the current social media.
“why should any of these people stop doing it?”
Haidt says why:
a few right-wing social-media platforms have enabled the most reviled ideology of the 20th century to draw in young men hungry for a sense of meaning and belonging and willing to give Nazism a second chance. Left-leaning young adults, in contrast, seem to be embracing socialism and even, in some cases, communism with an enthusiasm that at times seems detached from the history of the 20th century. And polling suggests that young people across the political spectrum are losing faith in democracy.
What the current social media polarized users are doing wrong is: moving towards Nazism on the right and towards Communism on the left, and away from democracy, from the young. I agree with Haidt that all of these are wrong directions.
But Haidt deliberately conflates the fringe fake-right Nazis, which all elected and most public GOP folk are against, with “right-leaning”. This allows him, and often Kling, to complain about extremists on the left and right. Neither any at Fox, nor Rush L, nor any Republican is at supporting any Nazis.
On the left, where Haidt is, most of the elected Dems ARE supporting socialism, and are against Free Speech, and against innocent gun-owners – they’re explicitly supporting “democratic socialism”, which is actually the police state that Venezuela has, they are in favor of racism (using race preferences) and demonize all who oppose racist policies as “racist”.
Handle is absolutely right that one cannot complain about the polarization without showing how a neutral position is better than either polarized position. His (1) point about the historical abnormality of non-polarization is important – most of US history, and world history, has lots of polarized people.
I would claim it’s because of the Pax Americana plus super-bourgeois Industrialization after WW II, which gave Americans a “unifying” external communist enemy, combined with abnormal increases in middle class numbers and absolute income. — another rant.
The anti-polarizers don’t address, in any serious way, the history and trends of polarization.
Handle’s point (2) on ideology is, in theory, not against any of Haidt’s recommendations:
1) Reduce the frequency and intensity of public performance
2) Reduce the reach of unverified accounts
3) Reduce the contagiousness of low-quality information.
But in practice, any true believer will want the anti-(1), will want more frequent and more intense public performance.
The single most polarizing issue in America has long been abortion, with most big-gov’t supporters who are against abortion being kicked out of the Dems and stuck with, or taking over, the Republican party. The pro-life true believers have been having a March for Life, every year since the Roe v Wade “non-Constitutional Amendment” was decided by the SCOTUS, not by lawmakers, nor by the Amendment process. The pro-choice true believers won that argument, at that time — but are now about to lose, as science, and especially ultrasound, show pregnant women the “verified” truth about their human fetal babies.
Has the polarization gotten worse?
Or is it that Haidt’s side of soft communism is starting to be more rejected?
Much like Althouse’s “Civility Bullshit”, where calls for civility are essentially calls to stop the other side from insulting our side.
Finally, Haidt writes
if we want the idea of democracy to regain respect in an age when dissatisfaction with democracies is rising—we’ll need to understand the many ways in which today’s social-media platforms create conditions that may be hostile to democracy’s success.
I flatly don’t believe it’s a social-media problem.
It’s an elite and the elite education problem. For democracy to have respect, there must be respect for both sides of argument. For decades, US colleges have disrespected Republican and pro-life professors, and have not hired them.
Social polarization will only increase, regardless of social media changes, as long the colleges get huge gov’t support to be anti-Republican. Haidt’s leftists have also made the “personal, political”, which increases political polarization, and sensitivity.
I agree with your final conclusion. Gurri might say that social media has merely made the masses explicitly aware of how leftist, haughty, and inept our elites are, especially in the media and in education and in government. Rightists have little recourse other than to act as the aggrieved mob from time to time. The gates of these institutions are firmly shut against our people and ideas. The resentment grows as our noses are rubbed in this truth daily.
“Reduce the reach of unverified accounts”
Easy for Haidt to say.
Look, I use an “unverified account” (actually just the bare minimum of a screen, not much of a security firewall actually), because, unfortunately, my capacity to live a normal life while expressing my honest sentiments – and regardless of my degree of rigor or civility – absolutely depends upon it.
And look, a lot of people around here think it’s perfectly ok for one’s livelihood to depend on it! If I, say, agree with James Damore and point out that Damore got fired for openly saying it, a lot of libertarians or conservatives will say, “Oh, a private company is perfectly within its rights to fire someone over that, and furthermore, the government can also fire a civil servant for saying it, if it generates offense or creates a hostile work environment.”
By that standard, with regard to ideas I think are true, my fellow travelers are telling me its best to keep my mouth shut, or fall on a sword, or stay anonymous.
But now Haidt says that if I want to stay anonymous, then it’s ok for him to censor me and to put special restrictions and controls on my ability to communicate with other people? Well, isn’t that rich of him.
Oh, we know the retort, “But Russian Collusion Bots!” Or whatever. That’s the whole point about rights – if you let the “But X!” argument work, then the right is at the mercy of the discretion of someone with interpretive power over you who will apply bias and favoritism and abuse discretion with plausible deniability. Which is to say, ‘the exception swallows the rule’.
This is, after all, what the Post-Liberal Progressives have to say about Free Speech, isn’t it? “But Oppressive Bigots! Why let them speak at all?” Well, Haidt: Why?
Moreover, our society and civilization has a long history of valuable commentary being published under pseudonyms out of necessity and for other entirely legitimate and justifiable reasons.
The Federalist Papers are a prominent example from American history. Thomas Payne originally published Common Sense anonymously, as Malthus also did with his essay. What about A Warning?
If we’re going to bring up Nazis, the infamous book was published quite openly under that era’s equivalent of a “verified account”, but probably not one with a “blue checkmark”.
The great social media scare provides a comfortable perch from which to sit comfortably smug. A red herring to distract from the institutional incompetence and zero-return featherbedding that defines the age. Radical transformation is the answer.
One potential confounder to Gurri’s thesis is the possibility that the elites / TPTB in certain countries really have become significantly less competent, effective, and fair in the administration of those basic responsibilities salient to the average citizen during the last several decades, and that this was merely concurrent and coinciding with the widespread adoption of new communications technologies, which allowed people to complain about how bad the elites had become.
As an example, imagine what a law-abiding taxpayer thinks about the capacity of the lawful authorities in San Francisco to keep public areas safe and sanitary. For the whole system of government-and-private-sector to, say, consistently and reliably “keep the lights on” in California? Not an encouraging glimpse into our national future!
Imagine a simple model where “legitimacy” is a function of two factors: Real Results and Thought Control.
Real Results is in turn a product of Elite Competence and what we might just call “Uncorrelated Fortune” (that is, factors that are mostly independent of interventions from TPTB). People are apt to ascribe credit or blame to the elites for good or bad results respectively, but usually with little justice, as they tend to overlook to significant role of good and bad luck, something the elites encourage when things go well.
For example, in a primitive agrarian society, a plentiful harvest may be a result of favorable weather over which the elites clearly have no impact. Nevertheless, the medicine man will say it was because of his praying and rain dancing, and the villagers may believe it.
Now, Gurri says the Revolt of the Public (i.e., a general and widespread decline in the perception of legitimacy and competence of elites) because of a decrease in the power of Thought Control. However, Real Results are crap in some areas (quite literally, in the case of San Francisco!), and in a way that is clearly – even clear to the the lowest-information residents – not a matter of mere bad luck, but fairly attributable to elite ideological preferences (which is, in practical terms, indistinguishable from “competency”).
If Elite Competence collapses along many dimensions at the same time that the degree Thought Control is at least arguable in flux, then it’s possible to mis-attribute the entire blame to something like social media.
China seems to have high scores on both Real Results and Thought Control. One can try to grade various disruptive movements around the globe according to these measures for each country.
Probably the best outcome would be High Legitimacy as a result of good Real Results with a minimum of Thought Control. Maybe Singapore or Switzerland.
Gurri says Thought Control has collapsed and the toothpaste can’t be put back in the tube, especially in the West. But I disagree, and say it has bounced back with a vengeance (after A New Hope, then The Empire Strikes Back).
And so, the worst outcome would be Low Legitimacy as a result of bad Real Results but still a high amount of Thought Control, which is what it seems like we’re heading towards. Have a nice
dayThanksgiving weekend.Real Results & Thought Control are an excellent pair of axes to think about this issue.
China is a leader in Thought Control, with help from Huawei, Google, Apple, and other hi-tech investors of commie thought-police China.
The “inequality” debate will continue to increase because whereas many shareholder ROI and profit indicators show the health of many world companies, the median wage stagnation from 2008-2017 meant that the top 10%, and especially top 1%, have found ways to get the most rise out the “rising tides” that lift all boats.
Wealth tax is one of the coming polarizing issues, along with the problem of how to measure income or wealth inequality well, and even what “good” changes look like. If the income of the top 10% or 1% is increasing faster than that of the median worker, the Real Results are not good enough – tho the super rich might be quite happy with such results.
”if you throw the mandate of heaven in the trash dont be surprised if the trash suddenly succeeds in a coup against you“ – turrible_tao on Twitter