How the hell did it get so polarized? (NOT DU but people in general)

[uppityperson]

(edited to clarify I'm not talking about DU but about people in general)

I've been off du for a bit, got burnt out on some nastiness a while back and needed a break so have been looking at other websites and reading news and wondering how things have gotten so polarized all over (not talking Du but people in general)?

Have people gotten more ignorant than they have ever been from needing "news" in 30 sec max sound bites, with rapid internet access for news and rumors? Are so many more people struggling and scared and manipulatable? Has Big Business poured so much money into controlling local/state/fed elections and brainwashing of the masses?

What has happened? How has this extreme polarity and "instant-expertise" (strongly held opinion based on emotions?) happened?

What can we do about it?

[defendandprotect]

1. Perhaps we might have to hope that the polarization will wake up more people .. .????

It's possible . . . ???

[spanone]

2. with the internet, any viewpoint can find like minds...nutty or not

it's the ultimate anonymous machine

[KonaKane]

3. Back when we had a common enemy in BushCo

it sort of held us together. Now?

I guess this goes to show that nothing pulls you apart like success.

[uppityperson]

4. I don't mean DU, I mean everyone, everything. People in general are so polarized.

They all talk about "the enemy", they fear and hate each other, it is just wrong and scary.

[KonaKane]

9. My theory is that we are on the brink of an enormous social change

I mean epic. Not just the push and pull of centuries. I think people can feel this, and there is a large contingent who fear this change on a visceral level because its all they know and all they WANT to know.

The rising rancor comes from that.

[Newsjock]

12. Please elaborate

I think I might be of similar mind, but I'm curious to hear more about just what you think is on the way.

[KonaKane]

22. First off, the crash of capitalism as we know it.

That's a biggie. Once and for all the infallible facade of the megacorp business is going to come crashing to the ground, as if it isnt already in the Gulf.

* A fracture of the republic. This nation will break into several smaller entities, based on their local cultures, ties and values.

* Economics will balkanize. Microeconomies will emerge with loose ties to one another, rather than the huge megacorp monstrosities you see today.

* A paradoxical internationalist connection between people - via the internet and changes in world communications. Small communities will be able to trade with any part of the world and not need a large national government entity to expedite the association.

* A marriage of science and spirituality. This is already happening but too big a topic for this thread.


Those are the high points. What do you think?

[Newsjock]

24. Yes, I think we're in basic agreement here

Depending on my mood du jour, I see this as either: (a) one of the most exciting times in human history, and I want to be part of it; or (b) the end of everything, and I hope I die before it comes to fruition. And no, I really don't have much of a middle ground.

[Mojorabbit]

25. Exactly

I feel it also and it is a common comment I hear. Big change coming. Everything unsettled. It sounds weird but it started before the financial collapse, that just amplified it with the people I know.

[bigwillq]

5. I don't think, among Democrats,

that the situation is as polarizing in real life as it is on DU. I don't take DU too seriously, so I really don't have an issue with a lot of the division that's been on display on this board in recent months. We're all free to our opinion and should be free to express it on a message board. Yeah, there's some nastiness, but, again, I don't take it seriously on a message board.

On a message board, I really don't think anyone can do much about it. We'll see how it goes when the new rules are implemented.

[bigwillq]

6. Sorry, thought you meant DU

Your first sentence in your OP sounded like you were talking about DU.

Don't really have an answer for you as far as what we can do in real life.

[Cleita]

7. Propaganda and carefully crafted propaganda to make sure

one side hates the other.

[blondeatlast]

39. Exactly. It hit its stride in the Reagan years, then took off running

with the ReBPublican full-on assault during the Clinton years. It was engineered by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz--and of course, KKKarl Rove.

It's no longer what is good for the country, but what's good for the Party, and I think it applies to both of them, although the Dems are woefully inadequate at it.

Edit: new keyboard; yipes! :rofl:

[time_has_come]

8. OK THAT'S IT I'M LEAVING!

[Mr Generic Other]

10. our corporate-capitalist system supports such polarization.

as does the increasing disparity in wealth in our nation.
we are thrown so few scraps anymore that we are all fighting over who gets what little there is to be had.
we know that when another gains it is at our expense.
its a great way to keep us in check.

[donco]

11. It all started 25 years ago with the Fairness Doctrine.

Prior to 1985 radio stations were expected to serve their communities at the risk of loosing their license if they didn't. Today with the CORP owned stations and the brainwashing going on its surprising that its not worse than it is .If it wasn’t for the internet it would be.

[RKP5637]

15. That's what I think too!!! And mixed in with it all is a lot of disinformation. n/t

[uppityperson]

29. Propaganda, manipulations indeed. Part of the problem of the internets is

that people use it to find unhappy things, to post unhappy things. For example, personally, being hypothyroidic, I can find lots on people being unhappy with certain treatments but most people don't go to websites and post about how happy they are. Likewise people get together to complain about things (yes, even DU) and it can become a spiral or a cycle.

A lot of what is on "news" is manipulation, propaganda, slanted very much while proclaiming it isn't. I don't know what an answer to that is beyond legislating what and how "news" or even local stations should do (like the poster you replied to, talking about prior to 1985). I don't see how to legislate it fairly though.

Educating people in all encounters is necessary, including doing our own manipulating like mocking them ("I can't believe you would fall for such obvious lies...").

[MadMaddie]

17. I agree with that but I also think it was the era of Reagan

and his anti government anti worker tirade. Reagan ignored the Aids crisis and made it okay for everyone to ignore it and hundreds of thousands died because of his arrogance.

But maybe it goes back to Nixon and his cronies, if Ford would have pursued prosecution most of the rat bastards that we saw in the last administration would have never shown their faces again. Rummy, Cheney, Wolfowitz all of them......we might not have entered two wars.

[summerintx]

18. There's definitely a connection

to the loss of the Fairness Doctrine. When we heard real dialogue on all sides of an issue, we understood one another's points of view better. Now as a society we don't have an understanding of where others are coming from - because we rarely hear a respectful discussion, especially in the MSM.

How can wise public policy result from one-sided decisions? Policies that are set without full consideration of the ramifications for everyone are bound to chafe and be heavy-handed for many of us. That leads to push-back and destabilization.

The 1960s and 1970s were politically tumultuous - but the dialogue among leaders on television seemed to be civil ones even when there was lively disagreement.

Rudeness and incivility seems to me to be a social disease. It's spreading. Media policy changes that allowed one-sided claims and attacks to air without challenge took the brakes off. Over time, more and more have adopted the same kind of style of expressing their opinions - with extreme partisanship and disrespect for other views. Liberals are not immune. Many of us have caught it too. But research shows there''s a connection with an increase in violence in the American workplace. 1.8 million incidents of violence occur annually (anything from shoving to murder), and the vast majority, it turns out, began with incivility.

So what can we do about it?

[mmonk]

13. A Fox and a Rush.

[Jakes Progress]

14. Ratings.

All the news shows. All of them. They are in in for profit. Ratings go down when they have two knowledgeable people discussing the pros and cons of an issue. Ratings go up when you have two red-faced, sputtering, loud mouths yelling at each other.

News programs are there to make money. The higher the ratings, the more they can charge for advertising. There is zero incentive to be honest and productive in the news biz.

[uppityperson]

30. True, "news" programs are there to sell air time, to make money.

It really sucks and I don't know how to change that. How do we reach people, to educate them?

[Jakes Progress]

41. I don't know, but I remember

a phrase from my youth in the sixties. "Come the revolution..."

[RainDog]

16. The Civil Rights Act of 1964

led to the rise of fundamentalist church schools in white suburbia - white flight. These schools led to mega churches where people could further segregate themselves and not have to hear any truth or reality.

These preachers have used their congregations to spread hatred of the best things this nation stood for for generations.

But this era is, hopefully, drawing to a close. The evidence of this is the backlash now from atheists, agnostics and mainline religious people in response to the abuse of power and attempts to impose theocratic bullshit in our science curricula, our private lives and in our institutions of power.

Limbaugh would not have had a following without the am radio preachers who brought audiences in who were already so fecking stupid b/c of religious indoctrination that they would believe anything.

the GOP has exploited the stupidity of the religious right ever since the "southern strategy" of the Reagan era. Reagan was the closest thing we've had to an "anti-christ." He broke unions, divided rather than trying to unite people in this nation, gave money to the Pharisees, the rich and spit on the poor and helpless.

I hope good old Ronnie is rotting in his grave while maggots eat his testicles.

... does that explain it? :)

[RKP5637]

31. I think it explains a lot. n/t

[Lilyeye]

19. I am glad you asked OP because I've been asking for the last two years.

[EFerrari]

20. I watched a program with Salman Rushdie the other night

His main topic was radical Islam but went back and forth on different ones.

At one point, he seemed to say that anti-intellectualism gives rise to barbarity -- yeah, he was that blunt.

It's here if anyone is interested. I love listening to him even when I don't agree with.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/194917-1
Video, transcript at link. :hi:

[Skittles]

21. I am a realist

I see things the way they truly are and it gets tiresome dealing with people who insist on staying in la la land

[RKP5637]

32. Same here! And America perpetuates the myth that we are in la la land, but

we just need some adjustments here and there.

Rather than making an assessment of incredible problems and addressing them with meaningful fixes, we get a lot of bantering about, name calling, power plays, religious fundamentalism and finger pointing.

Hence, the American way to solve a problem is to magnify the polarization, because one side must be right and the other wrong. The fallacy in this is none of the problems really have right/wrong answers, they are mostly in gray areas.

The way we approach problems is to encase them in BS, so much so that the original problem is minor in comparison to the BS generated. ...but one side must be right, the other wrong, so just get this one in with all of their baggage and we'll be back in la la land.

Combine this with the growing ignorance in this country and no wonder we have such a mess. And the internet and MSM are giant distortion amplifiers often drowning out logic and reason.

And the MSM drones on 7x24, blasting out whatever crap sells best.

The best solution to all of this IMO is more education, a citizenry that can think rather than follow polarized MSM sound bites and religious charlatans.

[Hydra]

23. The polarization here and off the Net seems to be coming from a surprising source

Less and less people are buying in to the forced narrative.

I remember back in the age of the Red Scare- our Gov't could do no wrong, had NEVER done wrong and 90% of the people would tell you so.

Now, with the mask coming off and the window dressing disappearing, we have 4 general camps:

Told ya so's(The people who have been trying to get the word out on corporatocracy- My camp, although I didn't grow up a thinking rebel)
Holy Crap!(s)(people who are just starting to get it due to recently getting burned- Gulf Victims of BP come to mind)
Quit shouting and get in line!(s)(People who believe that will more support the people in charge will do the right thing)
What's going on?(s)(self explanatory)

Yes, my position is "slanted" because apparently the truth these days is "slanted." I'd like to know how that happened, personally.

[snot]

26. Watch Adam Curtis's brilliant "Century of the Self"

It explains, pulls everything together, and then some:

https://s14-us2.startpage.com/do/highlight.pl?ah=1&l=english&cat=web&c=hf&q=adam+curtis+century+of+the+self&rl=NONE&u=http:%2F%2Fadamcurtisfilms.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F09%2Fpower-of-nightmares.html&rid=LJLMRRMRKRLR&hlq=http%3A%2F%2Fstartpage.com%2Fdo%2Fmetasearch.pl%3Fcat%3Dweb%26language%3Denglish%26query%3Dadam+curtis+century+of+the+self%26pl%3Dff

[flvegan]

27. Ignorant? Somewhat. Selfish? Oh, yes.

"strongly held opinion based on emotions" being the key.

[hfojvt]

28. How polarized are we now?

For the most part I see people walking by each other at the grocery store or department store. Maybe there would be heated arguments if people discussed politics, but for the most part we don't. We talk about the weather, the lates sports contest, our kids and other kin, etc.

I remember a Bloom County comic strip where Milo the reporter was looking for the latest "trend" and Opus said "maybe the public is tired of media generated trends". Milo chews on that for a second and then shouts "this could be a trend!!" Is the divided country reality, or media hype? (and also media creation, and something that makes the purveyors of hostility very wealthy)

Secondly, if you look at the past, we were much more violent amd divided. I was watching the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" which set of DVDs are at the local library, and holy cow, the 1950s and 60s. Marches and riots and national guard troops. Things are pretty darn peaceful and united now compared to that.

Third, I remember a couple of seeming traditions from my childhood. There was a common bumpersticker after every election "Don't blame me, I voted for (the guy who lost)" Heck, in 1964 Democrats made buttons that said "In your guts, you know he's nuts". A certain amount of division and hostility has been normal in this society.

[JerseygirlCT]

33. Lee Atwater -------> James Carville -------> Karl Rove

In short.

The media just follows along for the ride.

[lunatica]

34. I've been wondering the same thing

I suspect that the hate radio and tv have given the racists and ignorant a sort of 'permission' to out themselves. Sarah Palin has certainly given life to the viscerally racist types.

[The2ndWheel]

35. Diversity

It's pretty messy when it works.

[Sparkly]

36. I ask myself questions like that a lot!

I agree that it's rooted in emotions. That tends to happen when we're making progress on social issues (the regressives get scared).

At first glance, there don't seem to be any huge social changes going on, but think of this as building over the past 35+ years. In many ways, as someone else has said, it's still a struggle between the 1950s and the 1960s. (It's also, of course, a struggle about money and power, which leverages social changes and emotional unrest as manipulative tools.)

From the time of the witch hunts against President Clinton until now, it's the same damn people and organizations exposed by David Brock in "Blinded by the Right." It's the same stupid rhetoric, the same greed, the same tactics, and the same funding sources. They align themselves with religion and make noise about "culture wars," and now with our first black president, they find leverage in harkening back to really ugly American fears and resentments, in the guise of defending against "socialism."

There are more than enough gullible people to follow along. These people have become experts at propaganda, and they've so infiltrated culture and media, their lies are presented and accepted as a healthy "balance" against the truth.

What scares me is the extent to which consolidated Money and Power ARE the United States of America -- to the point that the government itself is crippled by it. I sometimes wonder how we can get a healthy, functioning economy again. And nothing seems possible as long as half the people are willingly fired up on fear and outright lies.

[KittyWampus]

37. It isn't polarized. Evidence proves USA's population is growing Leftward.

Message boards on the internet and tv are deceiving.

[uppityperson]

42. Congress seems quite polarized.

[AngryAmish]

38. The answer is complex, but it is how our brains are made.

Plus the proliferation of media.

People like to have their prejudices confirmed. Thus, some people go to DU, some people go to FR. Along those same lines, people are impervious to the truth. For example, look at all the anti-vax nutters around here. You can show them, repeatedly, that while all vaccines have an element of danger, it is dwarfed by the danger of skipping vaccinations. So a reasonable person would balance the dangers and get the vaccination - right? Of course not. The anti-vax nutters have a notion that vaccines are dangerous and they cling to that notion despite the overwhelming evidence. We discard or modify facts in our heads to conform to our preexisting notions. That is the way we are made.

[SoCalDem]

40. I think it crystalized for many people with the Bush v Gore "election"

No matter how much people wanted "their guy" to win, it used to be just "oh well" we'll just have to put up with :
Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush 1-Clinton (it started to get nasty then..with the advent of 24-7-365 "news" getting all "politicky")

BUT with the Bush v Gore debacle, people finally saw behind the curtain & they woke up.. The internet gave us all a real chance to connect and to kvetch-at-will, as we all started doing our own research & got involved in the process..
I think it showed us all how it's "always been", but we never had the wherewithal to check it out for ourselves until recently.

[11 Bravo]

43. Electing a brother to the highest office in the land may have had something to do with it.

Just maybe.