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by archagon
3814 days ago
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I don't think it has anything to do with "Western society", but rather the nature of internet discussions. They're impersonal. They're amenable to favoritism and the echo chamber effect. You can't interrupt somebody in the middle of a soapbox lecture to ask for clarification or offer counter-arguments. The atomic unit of discussion is the paragraph, at best, and your audience numbers in the hundreds. Basically, it's Permanent Debate Club. In my experience, people in the real world are far more kind and open even when discussing the most controversial of topics. |
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Sure enough, just about anyone can get caught in the idea "Well, if my opponent thought about it, then surely they'd agree with me. They don't agree with me, so therefore they're not thinking people, and I need to use something other than reason to make them change their mind." But the difference is that the left are currently much more willing then to apply theories of social norms instead of arguments.
Terms such as "climate denier", "evolution denier", "free-thinker" (you wouldn't want to disagree with our opinion on religion, and show you're not a free thinker, now would you?), etc, were coined deliberately for rhetorical effect. Similarly, social movements on the left are usually quicker to play the game of rhetorical escalation. Can I find some rhetoric by which to portray my opponent's opinion as "sexist" or "ignorant"? So that regardless of what their reasoning is, the pressure to avoid being socially viewed as ignorant is an incentive for them to change their mind.