Partisian thinking interferes with good judgment

I've spent some time now on various politically oriented message boards, and they always seem to have a similar flavor. It seems that the vast majority of people that post at such boards are either raging conservatives or an ultra-liberals. When did thought in this country become so polarized? Why do people insist on having such strong political opinions and--and this is, in my view, the more important point--also insist upon having such a low view of the other side? I've come to the conclusion that 95 percent of the mental energy that goes into the average american's political thinking process amounts to constructing an elaborate, intricate, and hopelessly flawed caricature of the mentality of "the other side." For example, to the left, the right is:

"Heartless, greedy, and imperialistic. They are obsessed with money and care more about corporations than people--the exhibit no compassion whatsoever for the poor or disadvantaged. They are self-centered, shortsighted, angry, and violent. They are anti-intellectual, hypocritical religious fanatics of generally of low intelligence. Their opinions are mostly the result of the propaganda they have been fed, rather than the product of rational though."

On the other hand, to the right, the left is:

"Naive, dishonest, and pandering. They are lazy pleasure seekers who exhibit a complete lack of morals. They want the government to fix and control everything, but have no real vision for how this should be done. They want to take away our most basic freedoms. They are anti-religious, pseudo-intellectual elitists of generally low intelligence. Their opinions are mostly the result of the propaganda they have been fed, rather than the product of rational thought."

This conclusion was drawn through both observation and personal experience--I've spent some time believing myself to be a "liberal" and convinced of the evils of the "conservatives" and vice versa. Now I'm convinced that subscribing to either of these labels, and setting oneself in opposition to the other, leaves a person largely hindered in his ability to think rationally about political issues. People will tend to form their opinions based on how they think of the other side, rather than through honest judgment. Look around at the threads you see here--half of them are complaints about conservatives. Nearly all the rest inevitably devolve into something of the sort. Take a look at one of the conservative boards, and you will see the same trends. Conservatives are obsessed with liberals, and liberals are obsessed with conservatives. No one seems too concerned with having good judgment, forming correct opinions, and providing reasonable arguments for those opinions.

I am not accusing each and every one of you of lacking the ability to think rationally, or lacking real intellectual foundation for your beliefs. Some of you strike me as quite intelligent. I'm only pointing to what I see as an awful trend in intellectual discourse in this country. People can become so polarized that they refuse to talk to one another--instead they prefer to bash the other side amongst themselves. On the rare occasions where genuine interaction with the other side occurs, emotions usually take over--the awful caricature of the other side rears its head (I speak from personal experience now), and rationality shuts off: "they are wrong and stupid (or evil) and will never be able to see things from the correct perspective, as I do." I think its a shame, because, in spite of all of this childishness, the issues at stake are really important.

Do you guys see this? Do you agree with me at all?

...but I blame the conservatives for the way the country's gone in the last 20 years.

:evilgrin:

...I think you're noticing some sort of fight-or-flight response at work.

When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s the kind of rhetoric that's now mainstream conservative thought was seen by most people as kind of kooky, and was sniggered at by pretty much everybody all across the political spectrum. There was some fringe talk on the left then too, resulting in things like campus buildings getting blown up. That wasn't mainstream, either.

Then Reagan came along, and then Newt and all the poisonous talk radio, and the most idiotic fractions on the right somehow became the new mainstream. Old style conservatives were forced from power. The new right-wingers were fighters, and they realized that there were gains to be made by capitalizing on their opponents' inherent niceness as long as that was gonna last.

Increasingly, their opponents -- people like us DUers -- realized that it's fight, or die.

So, yeah, calmly rational civil discourse is a thing of the past, for now. I suspect it's only gonna get worse in the short term. Sooner or later (I hope) plain ol' good sense will take hold and Americans will reject right-wing lunacy, and at that time we'll all start being nice and neighborly again. I just hope "we" do this before the right flirts too much with brownshirts and gulags.

And, yeah, everyone in this place is gonna be biased to a certain degree, myself included, but that's because we see real dangers when the other side lets its id run wild...

See my post below...We are on a similar stream of consciousness, I think...

It doesn't have to be limited to the political arena, mind you. It is a requisite of cognitive thinking that value judgements be minimized when it comes to our experiences.

That being said however, assumptions do serve a purpose and that is to save the amount of time trying to figure out what is going on in the world. They are something of a necessary evil and although it is a tedious process in challenging, tearing down, then subsequently rebuild those assumptions, the alternative is to simply not do so and be blinded to the point and being misled and manipulated.

In other words, I do agree.

"raging conservatives or an ultra-liberals..."

Well, welcome to DU, where there are moderates a-plenty.

I saw a website once that had a board for conservatives, a board for liberals and a board for people who really didn't affiliate themselves with either party.

Guess which board of the three had crickets chirping on it? And I mean ALL the time. That's right, the board for those who didn't have any kind of party or ideological label.

Look around DU before you make assumptions. Hell, there are REPUBLICANS who post here (I just got done talking to one). They aren't bush lovers, and they are generally pissed off with what is happening to their party, but they are here, they post and they've been here for quite a while.

And there are more moderates here than most people think.

on January 20, 2000 when the US inaugurated the first President in its history who didn't earn it. It's gone, er, downhill from there.

a germ of truth. I'm speaking of your 'to the right, the left is' and 'to the left, the right is' sections.

and not real knowledgeable about this board, in particular.

We did not begin in a vacuum. We were started by a few brave and dedicated souls that saw a Party of so-called conservatives that would resort to stealing elections and God knows what else. Well, we found found out "what else". They would also lie to our faces to take our country to war.

It became obvious to many here that only a naive person would stand for such devious tactics and not fight back. Call it whatever you want but we are fighting back. Because we have to...

of what you wrote or at least I understand the spirit of what you are trying to say.

other than that, your post is full of crap.

Great post and welcome to DU :hi:

When conversation consists of rapid-fire point and counterpoint, it's easy to degenerate into a polarization of the issues. Unfortunately, in the made-for-TV world and on the internet, this is the most visible form of discourse.

However, when you are working the phones before an election or meeting people at house parties, things don't often degenerate into shouting matches. There is a vast middle ground that can be discovered through rational debate in small groups and between individuals. Some of these conversations may even go on in the offices of Senators and Congressmen.

If you want to find the political middle ground, DU is not the place for you. However, if you are searching for a progressive or liberal middle ground, I think you will find that there are a great variety of Democrats on these boards that do not always agree on every issue. Stay out of the conservative-bashing threads, and find the ones where Democrats are arguing with each other.

It is where we disagree that we make progress, and that is where the most interesting questions are raised. Stop looking for things to get upset about and find the things you want to learn more about. I promise yoru stay at DU will be much more pleasant that way.