The "Other Side" is not dumb

[alarimer]

I'm posting this here because I have become so disillusioned at the internet echo chamber. We are increasingly divided into smaller and smaller silos and nobody talks to anyone they disagree with. Anywhere, whether it's here or other discussion boards, or Facebook and Twitter, we are locked into a hateful trend of dismissing other people as dumb, or worse. And they may in fact be wrong some or most of the time. BUT WE ARE WRONG TOO. I wanted to emphasize that, yes, sometimes (maybe a lot of times) we are wrong too. I hate what the internet has become. I hate what WE as a people have become. I have seen the worst of this behavior here; I have seen it elsewhere. It is not exclusive to any particular website. It is ALL of us.

We've gotten so far past the ability to even see the other side of an issue. Too often it centers around this or that politician, and it isn't really about that. We have become "smug assholes" when we think we are better than everyone else because "we're right." We don't even really discuss things. We recommend or thumbs up or "like" things, but we studiously avoid trying to see where other people might be coming from. To be sure, they are not doing much to see where we are coming from either.

There are many paragraphs worth quoting here.

https://medium.com/@SeanBlanda/the-other-side-is-not-dumb-2670c1294063#.plit726eh

What is emerging is the worst kind of echo chamber, one where those inside are increasingly convinced that everyone shares their world view, that their ranks are growing when they aren’t. It’s like clockwork: an event happens and then your social media circle is shocked when a non-social media peer group public reacts to news in an unexpected way. They then mock the Other Side for being “out of touch” or “dumb.”

Snip

This is not a “political correctness” issue. It’s a fundamental rejection of the possibility to consider that the people who don’t feel the same way you do might be right. It’s a preference to see the Other Side as a cardboard cut out, and not the complicated individual human beings that they actually are.

What happens instead of genuine intellectual curiosity is the sharing of Slate or Onion or Fox News or Red State links. Sites that exist almost solely to produce content to be shared so friends can pat each other on the back and mock the Other Side. Look at the Other Side! So dumb and unable to see this the way I do!

Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that we’d rather be smug assholes than consider alternative views. It signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like them, than try to understand those who are not.

[elleng]

1. Try this: The cult of ignorance in the United States:

Anti-intellectualism and the "dumbing down" of America

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016163175

[LongtimeAZDem]

2. Well said!

[gordianot]

3. Some claim a duck quack does not echo.

Unfortunately that is not true. Those who maintain it does not echo are in their own echo chamber. The problem is not they are dumb they are merely willfully ignorant a situation that has a remedy.

[yurbud]

4. in your view is there some objective truth to found?

[Igel]

5. Humility, introspection, critical thinking.

Pondering to understand the other side instead of just saying, "Gotta be wrong because if it was right we'd already know it."

Usually good things. Even if you finally conclude you're right, it's a good exercise because a fair percentage of the time you won't be. Perhaps you're wrong. Perhaps there's something you missed that produces a fairly large correction. Perhaps there's some insight that isn't earth-shaking but rather minor, but still makes you stop and go, "Gee."

[cprise]

6. False equivalence isn't smart, however.

It led us straight into the Bush II era.