|
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. |