| The author is here and responding to some comments (great article, larsiusprime!). Presumably better than I can. But I think this is the money quote that comes at the end: > Accusing your opponent of belonging to a Dark Mirror ideology is a weird narcissistic exercise, and a failure to develop a coherent theory of mind. It's also counter-productive. Dark Mirror ideologies may exist but if you feel tempted to identify your ideological opponent as subscribing to one, you should examine that temptation carefully. In Tolkien you have Morgoth opposed to Iluvatar, why? They differ on a key contention, which is that Iluvatar thinks he's the only one who gets to determine the shape of the music of creation, Morgoth says "Why's it only you who gets to drive the bus?" and everything falls apart from that deep ideological difference. In Star Wars you have the Sith opposed to the Jedi, why? They differ on a key contention, which is that the Sith feel you should embrace your passions and the Jedi feel this is a destructive can of worms; to which the Sith respond that the Jedi are just trying to control people and putting a velvet glove around an iron fist, therefore they are no more moral than the Sith. In real world politics you often have people divided over fundamental concepts like realpolitik and whether the ends justify the means. "Is Problem X so serious that certain sacrifices need to be made?" The point is that the "Dark Mirror" interpretation in all of these cases would be wrong, nobody says "We have all the same priors, I'm just evil," but they do frequently ascribe that worldview to their enemies. In actuality the counterparties disagree on some very deep-rooted principles, but the character of your average online debate looks something more like "Team X obviously agrees on my same worldview, they're just evil people, so they want to do the bad things!" This is inherently a pretty narcissist way of looking things, there is no effort to understand what the other side is really trying to accomplish, and even if you're utterly committed to destroying them either way, "Know Thy Enemy" is still good advice. So the Dark Mirror approach to ideas you don't like is ultimately self-defeating. It's interesting (and troubling) how these ragebaiting, Dark Mirror style positions used to be a bit less common but with the advent of social media have absolutely exploded into the dominant form of political discourse that now determines elections. |