[asabjorn]

As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions.

The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostracizing of people that hold opposing opinions is ok when you hold the correct opinions and not when you don’t, and I strongly believe all sides should be held to the same standard of discourse.

[empraptor]

> The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostracizing of people that hold opposing opinions is ok when you hold the correct opinions and not when you don’t

I'm having trouble seeing how you got this impression.

[asabjorn]

In a case study like this I was hoping for an understanding of how we on the left contribute to a climate where it is ok to be non-factual, as it is much easier to change yourself than others and NY Times audience is clearly the left. Especially since it concludes that everyone "rushes for the safety of their ideological battlements". What are those embattlements? What are the factual nature on each side? My question if it is just taking one example in an ongoing tit-for-tat fight.

Maybe I should just accept that this a case study and every case study does not present a balanced analysis. It will seek to provide one example of a problem and it is up to you to generalize.

[ralusek]

How the left contributes to a climate where it's ok to be non-factual?

- When people on the left suggest that a black (or any other) individual has anything other than a statistically non-zero percent chance of being shot unarmed by a police officer. When people on the left say that there is a racial disparity in police shootings, when an honest evaluation of population size, population representation in violent crime, and population representation in police fatalities indicates that is not at all the case.

- When people on the left accuse industries such as engineering for having racist/sexist hiring practices, simply by evaluating the demographics of the workforce...completely ignoring the available pool of applicants.

- When people on the left accuse individuals like Jordan Peterson for "denying trans people's right to humanity," simply for his questioning the prospect of a government-mandated, forced usage of desired pronouns (what would be the first instance of government compelled speech in the western world).

- When people on the left claim that 1 out of 3 women get raped on college campuses by constantly attempting to redefine rape, and that our entire societal structure is set up in such a manner that can be described as a "rape culture."

- When people on the left can talk about a 23% disparity in pay between men and women when the countless studies controlling for job type and performance bring the pay gap to non-existence.

I absolutely despise conservatism, and I have never voted Republican, but to say that the American Left cannot be represented by a climate where it's okay to be "non-factual" is insane. The American Left is increasingly dominated by emotionally charged statements about privilege and marginalized communities, rape cultures, toxic masculinity, cultural appropriation, micro aggressions, safe spaces, victimization and outrage. It's no coincidence that "facts don't care about your feelings" is literally the tagline of the outspoken figure on the right, Ben Shapiro.

[soundwave106]

The article pointed out that two "liberal" bloggers / journalists retreated to "liberal" tribe disgust, when confronted with a "liberal" that expressed an actual positive values of the alt right. I saw it more as an article about tribalism; in tribalism, cheerleading and re-framing / spin are very important, and it was more this -- not "non-factual" per se -- that this article was discussing.

Though, Steve Pinker as far as I know really isn't a "liberal", so this article is somewhat guilty of the same tribalism. I'm not familiar with Ben Norton, but casual Googlings makes me wonder what exactly makes him "lefty". And, to be honest, tribalism-oriented cheerleading and spin are not something new to social media.

Whether the dominant social media forms exasperates this tribalism though is a good question to me (one this article doesn't really answer). Part of the reason I dislike Facebook and Twitter is that it seems like the form is not designed with nuance and depth in mind. It's all quick status updates or tweets, likes, follows, quick dopamine hits.

10 years ago, there was a strong long-form social media circle (blogs). These were not entirely free from dramas or tribalism, granted, but the format seemed to allow for more slices of political viewpoints than just two. At the very least, in the blogosphere, there wasn't the pure monetary incentives to create "clickbait". Which these days in Facebook / Twitter land, not only includes the usual celebrity fluff and bait miracle-cures and shock stories etc., but tribal oriented junk too ranging from "news" with a tribal framework, to outright falsehoods.

[Consultant32452]

My experience is that the left is less guilty of being counter-factual than they are of censorship. But that's really two sides of the same coin. The contents of the James Damore memo comes to mind. Twitter verified status has become a political weapon to punish people who don't toe the party line. Youtube de-listing, demonetization, and banning.

[asabjorn]

I think this is less about left and right, and more about extreme elements on both sides arguing for actions supported by rhetoric use of factual statements that are easily questioned and where studies are available that would put their view into doubt.

[Consultant32452]

So you feel that the majority of our national media with its treatment of DaMore, Twitter, and Google are extreme elements of the left? Or did you only mean to refer to DaMore and the banned people on various social media outlets are extreme elements?

Of course some of the things in Damore's memo are easily questioned. But that's not the problem. The problem is that his memo, which is well within the mainstream of accepted modern psychology/sociology was treated like the Nazi manifesto. If it can be easily questioned, then easily question it rather than censor it. And there's no need to put the national spotlight on this poor schlub to try to ruin his life, even if I totally support Google's right to fire him.

[asabjorn]

I think being inclusive of viewpoints is incredibly important, even if they contain something factually incorrect, so I am not advocating some sort of thought police.

There will always be some fringe elements, everyone has a crazy uncle/aunt, but I do not believe for a second that anything close to the majority is crazy so the desired way to advocate an action is through agreement in the democratic process. If you can't convince and compromise maybe your opinion is not the right on balance for society.

What I am suggesting is an effort to protect the democratic process and that we do not let any group use extrajudicial measures to enforce an action. Anyone that treats it as war needs to see that this has consequences and should not be celebrated.

[indubitable]

There's a phenomenally interesting article that goes into details on this very question: "The Bad News About the News" [1] by Robert Kaiser. Kaiser is a 50 year veteran of the Washington Post having worked as a reporter and editor over the decades. He chose to retire shortly after the newspaper was purchased by Bezos.

There's enough nuance and detail that I think cliff notes would likely just mangle the points made. One related thing I would observe is that there are plenty of level headed articles that try to view things impartially and without bias or prejudice. Yet these articles seem to rarely gain traction and visibility in social media, which is where those all so valuable clicks derive from.

[1] - http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...

[asabjorn]

Thank you for the link! This one looks interesting.

[avenius]

You make a good point - they appear to make themselves part of the problem, which in my view is the increasing polarization of topics. There no longer seems to be any middle ground in the public discourse, instead everyone is entrenched on their respective poles. It's immensely frustrating.

[Consultant32452]

I hit this hard the other day. There's a TV show I really like called the Runaways. On Hulu, where I watch that show, they seem to constantly run this one commercial cheerleading how great it is that the show is so diverse. I commented on social media that the commercial felt like it was trying to lecture me and has ultimately detracted from my viewing experience. It didn't matter that in the context of this conversation I was talking about how this particular show, which happens to be very diverse, is one of my favorites, the fact that I rebuffed the SJW cheerleading instantly turned me into a Nazi.

[boomlinde]

> The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions.

On all sides, sure, but saying that "violent reaction to opposing views" isn't necessarily the result of holding "extreme opinions" seems a bit oxymoronic. Or what exactly do you mean by "violent reaction"?

[humanrebar]

People often violently overreact to relatively minor social or legal offenses. Like when bad parents who get caught on video get death threats. It's not an extreme opinion that kids should have good parents.

[boomlinde]

It's a normal and widely held opinion that kids should have good parents, but it's not a normal and widely held opinion that bad parents deserve to be killed or threatened with violence, at least not outside self-defense and law enforcement.

It's not "I believe that fair taxation, transparent government and high standard public services" that is the extreme, abnormal opinion—it's "because you don't, you should be sent to death camp".

In a society where the norm is to value individual security, liberty and bodily inviolability, "violent reaction to opposing views" is necessarily preceded by an extreme opinion. Maybe that opinion only exists in a brief, heated moment, and it's certainly not limited to extremists, but extreme nonetheless.

[asabjorn]

I think this comment is a bit off base as we are clearly not talking about physical violence. The violent intolerance I was pointing out is the pattern of seeking to ostracize and remove the livelihood of people that don’t agree with your view, or question factual statements used to justify it.

[humanrebar]

I'm not sure I would call anything that's not physical "violence". There are other words for that: oppression, tyranny, bullying, verbal abuse, corruption, etc.

[coffeeacc]

It seems there's no such thing as objective journalism. Was there ever, is this new, or just worse? Philosopher-based journalism might be an improvement, but sometimes even philosophers seem to be committed to a point of view.

[boomboomsubban]

This is an op-ed article, it isn't claiming to be objective or journalism. Yes, there is objective journalism, there's just plenty of crap too. I have no clue what you mean by "philosophy-based," something about logic I'd guess?

[daodedickinson]

Because the editor think it aids the agenda of the paper.

[hkmurakami]

Sadly your view, which is the same as kind, seems to be seldom held by our peers.