
Our Culture of Contempt - swibbler
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html
======
towaway1138
As a lifelong liberal, I've sunk into despair at the firehose of hatred coming
from the left these days. And I talk to far fewer of my old lefty friends
anymore--if they've made themselves awful, I just don't want to know. I'd
prefer to remember them as they were.

Maybe this is just a phase, but it feels like we're going to a place from
which we won't return.

~~~
_bxg1
I support most of the liberal platform, but in recent years a large portion of
the party's base has turned into a cesspool of hatred, cynicism, and
thoughtless reactionism. We used to be the party of idealism and belief in
people's basic goodness. What the hell happened?

~~~
unclebucknasty
This comment, the parent, and many others on this thread sound eerily alike
and similar to those propagated by trolls and bots during the failed WalkAway
campaign.

------
elefanten
All political mud-slinging aside, all weighing and apportioning of blame
withheld, the main suggestions of the article are worthwhile.

1\. Don't allow yourself to slide easily or prematurely into contempt. We do
it too often these days.

2\. Disagree better. You can disagree, but make your case and engage in the
responses. Rhetoric has a place but it's being overused.

~~~
pjc50
There's a real prisoner's dilemma phenomenon going on here. If the two options
are "respect" and "contempt", and one side has ramped the contempt up to 11
and won the elections, what should the other side do?

I'm all for a winding-down of this process, because eventually it could
escalate all the way up to violence, but like nuclear disarmament, _you
first_. Or at least some plausible commitment to de-escalation that can be
observed to actually happen over a period of time, as a signal of good faith
for the next round of talks.

I think this is partially why people like AOC or Ilhan Omar have suddenly
achieved success; they know that, regardless of what they do or say, they will
never get anything less than total disrespect from Republicans and a large
segment of the media; so they're free to ignore that contempt. This comes
across in the other direction as contempt, when really it's just a refusal to
be intimidated.

Contempt is also being manufactured by a variety of media sources from foreign
intelligence agencies to all-American fraudsters like Alex Jones.

~~~
repolfx
That's not a prisoner's dilemma. That's exactly what the article is talking
about: saying there doesn't need to be a "you first" because both sides are
equally guilty, so someone has to put down their contempt and it may as well
be you (where "you" here means anyone at all). The act of one side being less
contemptuous is not useless in isolation, as would be required for a
prisoner's dilemma.

I would also caution against concluding that one side "ramped contempt up to
11". As a foreigner observing the US elections from afar, I saw a lot of
contempt in both directions, but especially towards conservatives in the USA
who were being routinely described as if they were mindless cattle, good for
nothing at all beyond slowly dwindling industrial production. Compared coldly
to the rest of the world, Trump's policies (some trade protectionism and
enforcement of immigration laws) are nothing special or unusual, not in
contemporary times nor historically. But somehow this position became held
with utmost contempt and was routinely described as the most hateful forms of
racism. You can see that as well with Brexit in which the majority of the
voting population has been routinely described as racist.

There's no word for this kind of rhetoric other than contempt - it's literally
what the article describes, in which the complexities and motives of millions
of people are considered in trivial moralistic terms of "you hate, i love".

------
athenot
The article is about how motive attribution asymmetry leads to contempt, first
for the "other political side" then eventually to individuals within that
other side.

But I think it could go further and question why things get polarized into 2
sides. Our modern society is way more complicated and contains way more nuance
than what a binary system can offer.

I don't know what the answer is but I feel that political parties as a
shortcut for evaluating individual policy goals is tremendously reductionist,
and increasingly harmful to society.

~~~
excalibur
> But I think it could go further and question why things get polarized into 2
> sides. Our modern society is way more complicated and contains way more
> nuance than what a binary system can offer.

It's not that great for the masses, but it's wonderful for the elite. If you
can persuade the vast majority to pick a side, then you don't have to worry
about engineering public opinion to your own benefit on each and every issue.
All you need to do is control both the red and blue teams. Then you can
regularly shit on the proles and retain their support, simply by blaming the
"other side" for their misfortune.

~~~
rjf72
I think this is probably the main point. By dividing people into two camps you
help solidify your own grasp on power. Again the 2016 election is full of just
so many interesting lessons. How many people voted for Clinton thinking 'Yes,
this person genuinely stands for what I believe in and will make a great
president!' How many people voted for her because the alternative was simply
unacceptable meaning they feared 'wasting' their vote? And the exact same is
true of people that voted for Trump.

Think about how 'great' an achievement that is in terms of population control.
You, as a player in the entrenched powers, have managed to get people to not
only participate in 'your' democracy, but to actively vote for people they
don't even want in office, and to actively attack people that vote for third
parties. For instance already see the (rather orchestrated) massively negative
reaction against Starbucks' Howard Schultz announcing his intentions of
running for the presidency as an independent. How dare you run for president
unless you declare yourself one of these two parties that fewer people than
ever actually identify as, and that are ever more out of touch with the
population! How dare you!

------
vore
This is an argument you can make regardless of what is actually going on on
the ground. "The problem isn't policy, it's actually polarization" \-- but the
article completely fails to examine the causes of said polarization: What are
people feeling angry about? Which people feel angry about what? Are those
people justified in feeling angry? Are those angry people just doing it for
show or are their lives being actively ruined?

You end up having to view the conflict through an ideological lens, but
claiming there is some enlightened non-ideological view and the "real problem"
is contemptuousness is mega disingenuous.

~~~
discard0000
Created a throwaway account for this. As a foreigner who has spent significant
time living the US, indeed this seems like the kind of mealy-mouthed, somewhat
vapid meta-commentary about "unity" that offers nothing more than some
soundbyte call for some abstract value (in this case "better disagreement").

It doesn't address, for example, the fact that the two political factions in
America now accept _different versions of reality_. You cannot square that
circle with "better disagreement". You cannot paper over a disagreement on the
nature of fundamental facts with simplistic calls for a better discourse.

To offer the most salient example: the question of whether or not the
President of the country, with the help of his party and a major media outlet,
is conspiring with a foreign dictatorship to undermine the democratic
integrity of the country.

One demographic believes the above to be true. The other either does not
believe it to be true, or alternatively does not believe it to matter even if
true.

This is not some issue that can be simply bridged with "better disagreement".
I'm sorry, that's just something you don't get to do.

To offer another example: whether the former President of the united states
was indeed an illegitimate candidate due to not being a natural born citizen.

One side believes this to be true, the other does not.

This disconnect on reality exists across the spectrum, and the lines are
harshly drawn.

If Americans cannot acknowledge that this schism in their country is arising
out of a fundamental and deep disconnect on _facts_ and _reality_ that is
widening on a day by day basis, not some mere "communication issue", they will
never truly be able to understand and address it.

~~~
paulsutter
None of my conservative friends believe that nonsense about Obama, and none of
my democrat friends believe that Trump is a Russian spy. Both sides agree
Trump is a swindly buffoon, and everyone agrees the Russians have higher
standards when recruiting spies.

The difference is that some of my conservative friends think it’s ok - or even
funny - to have a swindly buffoon as president, and my democrat friends find
this appalling.

The New York Times on the other hand is making mad bank promoting a big
culture war, so make of that what you will.

~~~
duado
But the liberals think the conservatives are dumb enough to actually believe
that Obama is Kenyan. And the conservatives think the liberals actually think
that a guy like Trump is suitable material for a KGB asset.

~~~
justin66
> But the liberals think the conservatives are dumb enough to actually believe
> that Obama is Kenyan.

The Republicans elected a prominent birther so this should not be especially
surprising. To look at it a little more precisely, depending on which polls
you prefer, somewhere around half of them are, in your words, "dumb enough to
actually believe that Obama is Kenyan:"

[https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-
republican...](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republicans-
kenya-744195) [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-
persiste...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-
partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446)

~~~
justin66
Sorry for the meta, but it's interesting that the "points" on this post have
fluctuated up and down quite a bit more than my others (that I've noticed).
It's interesting to me because while that sort of thing isn't rare with
political posts, this was the post where I was actually sharing data.

------
malandrew
I chalk a lot of this up to the fact that journalism is no longer such a great
career and increasingly a precarious career choice due to layoffs. This leads
those in our society with the largest megaphones to increasingly spout
discontent because they feel discontent.

I bet you that if journalism suddenly provided a comfortable and safe living,
that within 5 years the entire attitude of the country would change just
because the attitude of the cultural influencers would turn to contentness and
they would spread that contentness.

~~~
rjf72
I don't think it's the journalists in and of themselves. Journalists do not
have much power. An individual on here posted about being contacted by the NYT
to write an "opinion" piece based on a comment he wrote related to
cryptocurrencies. [1] He followed up and eventually did publish the piece. I'm
going to avoid commenting on that other than to say that the NYT forced him to
endorse opinions he did not hold in an article that was supposed to have been
written by him. It's best to read the exact examples than my probably biased
tl/dr. And that sort of stuff is what they do to one-off writers. Imagine what
they do to (and whom they recruit) for their regular staff! The journalists
are just mouthpieces for the executive team.

I think the problem is that the media is dying, but they've found that in the
mean time provoking and agitating for a 'culture war' is sending profits
skyrocketing. So you don't need to change the media, but you need to change
people that eat this nonsense up. Unfortunately, that's probably impossible.

[1] -
[https://www.rosshartshorn.net/stuffrossthinksabout/nyt_opini...](https://www.rosshartshorn.net/stuffrossthinksabout/nyt_opinion/)

------
tptacek
This is a superficial and unhelpful piece from someone who, despite
appearances to the contrary, is in fact a US political partisan. That doesn't
make his opinion worthless! But it does make his high-horse stance a bit much
to take, to say nothing of the ahistoricism of his thesis (ask someone who
appeared before HUAC if partisanism is boiling over in 2019).

That said, I come not to bury Arthur Cooke but to praise him, for while his
arguments clearly have not survived condensation into an NYT op-ed, they're at
least thought-provoking in longer-form media, and I can recommend as an
alternative to this dumb article his lengthy podcast interview with Ezra Klein
on many of the same topics:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJuZlTtXVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJuZlTtXVU)

~~~
repolfx
He starts his article by saying he's a political conservative who works for a
think tank in DC. What 'appearances to the contrary' do you mean? I've never
heard of him but having read his article knew immediately he was a political
partisan, because he told me so!

I'm also unsure why his arguments have not survived. The op-ed appeared cogent
and internally consistent to me. If you wish to argue his writing is
superficial, unhelpful, ahistoric etc, why not do so directly instead of just
asserting that these things are so.

~~~
tptacek
I disagree that he made his background clear. The first graf is written
flippantly, in a "you say potato, I say potəto" sort of way (also, "I'm not a
politics junkie"). The second graf buries the lede --- he's a professor, a
former symphony musician, heads a think-tank... and, oh, by the way, that
think tank happens to be AEI, one of the two most prominent centers of
Republican conservative thought.

I also made a direct argument as to the ahistoricity of the piece.

I don't think this is especially important --- my original comment stands on
its own --- but I'm a nerd and can't resist clarifying and defending my
arguments.

------
usermane
Notice that it all got really serious when the fight fired up between
ethnonationalists and xenophiles. It seems to hit people at a more basic level
than merely arguing about health policy or gay marriage.

Plus, you get the extra magic of this same schism happening in the West
generally.

I'd say there's a lot more to this than US domestic politics.

------
zzzeek
I wonder if the president of the American Enterprise Institute felt it so
important to stress how both sides have "contempt" for one another back when a
plurality of his politcal party of choice thought the president was secretly a
Muslim born in Kenya.

------
TheOperator
The author of this article is a conservative. Noticed how he went out of his
way to appear politically neutral. Notice how one of the two comments to this
post is attacking him on a reputational basis.

This is the problem I see and likely the problem the author sees even if he's
veiling it. The left wing specifically keeps disregarding other peoples views
wholesale on a reputational basis. When I make posts online left-wingers
regularly dig into my post history to find a reason to discredit me while
right wingers don't even bother looking. If I'm making a right-wing point just
like the author I go to pains to obscufate the fact I'm making a conservative
argument. Otherwise making the argument is pointless because your intended
audience, those with left wing views, won't read it.

I don't mean to make a completely partisan shitting on the left post. I have
voted left wing in every election I've been a part of. I blame the uptick in
politically motivated violence on the right. I believe "scientific racism" is
increasingly becoming mainstreamed on the right through "red pills" as an
explanation for say why inequity in employment/crime stats exists and is fair.

However holy shit merely talking to the right these days can cause a whole
bunch of people to hold you in contempt. It ultimately will and has backfired
because it's entrenching intellectual blindness which is bad for the left and
bad for society.

~~~
towaway1138
> the uptick in politically motivated violence on the right

I haven't looked closely, but it seems like the preponderance of such violence
has been coming from the left these days (ignoring people with obvious mental
health problems). Charlottesville is the obvious exception, but clearly
overbalanced by the guy that attempted to assassinate a bunch of Congressmen
at that ball game.

Are there lots of examples I'm missing?

~~~
archgoon
Pittsburgh massacre.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-
pittsbu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-
synagogue-shooting.html)

Also, the bombs sent to a number of democrats, funders of democrats, and Trump
critics:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/25/bomb-
timeli...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/25/bomb-timeline-
list-people-targeted-with-packages-devices/?utm_term=.8a62f06173f1)

That said, individual events aren't particularly helpful, the media might be
omitting major events (or more likely, a lot of smaller ones). So you can
refer to this study by the Cato Instititute:

[https://www.cato.org/blog/terrorism-deaths-ideology-
charlott...](https://www.cato.org/blog/terrorism-deaths-ideology-
charlottesville-anomaly)

After Islamic Terrorism (9/11 unsurprisingly had a pretty big impact), you
have right wing nationalists being the biggest contributors to murders by an
order of magnitude.

~~~
towaway1138
I'd chalk Pittsburgh up to mental illness rather than politics.

The Cato study is interesting, but unfortunately covers a period of decades. I
was referring to the last couple of years or so, which unfortunately this does
not break out.

~~~
pjc50
There seem to be an awfully large number of mentally ill people who read
rightwing material, post on rightwing message boards, and then engage in
political murder.

~~~
towaway1138
I guess. How many political murders are there in the US each year, though?

------
tailrecursion
Ben Shapiro acts respectfully when answering students and debating BLM or
other persons. I've seen so many instances of bad behavior on the part of his
conversation partner, yet Ben remains cool and professional. The worst I
remember is that instance where he refused to use a pronoun on Television. If
I recall the trans person in that situation behaved very badly.

Jordan Peterson remains cool, even with interviewers that treat him badly.

Dave Rubin says repeatedly he's willing to talk to people, and that people
refuse him and don't invite him.

Tim Pool keeps his cool in the midst of online and real-world dust-ups.

Tarl Warwick is also calm cool and collected. He'll talk to anyone.

Any leftist who wants to engage others productively can look to Pool as a good
example.

Jimmy Dore is on the left (according to himself at least), and he's civil.

My impression is that most anyone on the spectrum will talk to anyone else,
except for Resisters, who seem to have a visceral dislike for Trump that
clouds their reason; and the far left, who object more or less to the entire
western way of life, or capitalism, or something that would require a large
amount of dismantling. It takes a lot of dissatisfaction to want to start from
scratch, and these persons seem to be the most badly behaved. So my guess is
they feel most of the contempt and also are the ones who receive the most
contempt -- because of their abusive behavior. In fact, if the far left has
any lasting principle at all it would appear to be that contempt is a
wonderful club to use against anyone who isn't responding properly to their
dogma.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
> Jordan Peterson remains cool, even with interviewers that treat him badly.

I had no idea about Jordan Peterson until his name popped up in the pronoun
controversy. Being sick of all the bickering in this space I never watched it
until I stumbled over some old lectures of him on addiction last week. Some of
the best content I've ever come across to understand human psychology. His
dissection of Pinocchio¹ is absolutely top. I can't say that I agree on
everything he says (e.g. his view on abortion gets me riled up like nothing
else), but nor do I have to. Whatever his views outside his work in psychology
have little bearing on his work and should be judged independently. If society
nails everyone to the cross that we disagree in 1/20 topics then there won't
be any people left. Peterson actively reaches out to right wingers in order to
help them and include them in the conversation. I think this is the way to go
- the alternative can only lead to violent outcomes.

¹
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN2lyN7rM4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN2lyN7rM4E)

------
_bxg1
Hillary's "deplorables" comment was the embodiment of this problem. And I
wouldn't be surprised if it was what tipped the election for Trump in the end.

~~~
justin66
> Hillary's "deplorables" comment was the embodiment of this problem.

I'm always fascinated by the fact that some people believe this.

I remember a decade ago, in a heated time during an actual war, Sarah Palin
would go on and on about "real Americans," a group which she made clear does
not include me. Just one memorable example of the rhetoric she used toward
those outside her tribe. She was a huge hit and hugely influential in her
party.

Clinton let fly _once_ with a comment exhibiting the same level of contempt
that prominent Republicans use _all the time_ and she suddenly became exactly
half the problem.

~~~
_bxg1
I would say "deplorable" is far more contemptuous than "not a 'real'
'American'". It suggests that one isn't even a valid person, just something to
be hated. And even if it were the same, the entire point is that saying "but
look what _they_ did" is a race to the bottom.

~~~
justin66
But that's not what I said, is it? "They" constantly, intentionally do what
Hillary did on her worst day. In light of that, nothing you're saying makes
any sense.

~~~
_bxg1
It's my experience that the average person - or an entire 50% of the
population, if you prefer - isn't a monster. "They" aren't fundamentally worse
people than "us". That's the mistake that underpins this whole problem. Maybe
on a given dimension, or in a given span of years, you could construct a score
sheet that puts them in the red (so to speak). But those on the other side are
not holistically morally inferior. Not in parties as old, far-reaching, and
evenly-populated as ours.

------
throw2016
This is rich coming from the head of AEI, an organization which is part of a
network of think tanks funded by the likes of Koch that have been bootstrapped
to promote corporate interests and a worldview where there is no society only
'wealth creators' and workers. [1]

Wendy Brown, Philip Mirowski and Nancy Maclean [2][3][4] have gone into
immense detail on how these organizations are created and operated behind the
scenes to fund and spread self serving ideology and propaganda.

They have huge problem with collectives of workers but see no problems with
organizing themselves into 'groups' to not only lobby Congress, but sponsor
university economics departments and hire thousands of people to push these
self serving views in the press for decades on end. This itself compromises
this project for untenable self serving hypocrisy. Its for individuals who buy
into these narratives to question if organizing to promote and further their
interests for decades is good for the wealthiest why is is not good for
workers?

There are thousands of people whose job it is to come up with decontextualized
words like 'wealth creators', 'job creators' to create a halo narratives for
corporate interests and undermine society, citizenship, the social good, the
environment that make 'wealth creation' even possible. So all those take a
backseat to 'wealth creator' interests. Since you can't create wealth without
society these two cannot be separated but since there are no civil, citizen or
worker groups and structures to counter these anti-social narratives you don't
get balance but a one sided self interested perspective.

In the AEI world the only thing that matters is people like Kochs business and
personal interests and making sure government is not 'impinging on their
freedom'. And to achieve this they propagate a fundamental anti-human
narrative and create an environment where ordinary people and workers are held
in contempt for even expecting living wages and conditions and their access to
basic achievements of western democracy like education, health care and living
conditions is consistently hollowed out to promote privatization and become
'entitlements'. And we are left with a decontextualized unstable
individualized view of the world that exists in a collective but is forcefully
detached into a context less existence.

[1]
[https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_In...](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_Institute)

[2]
[https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP23-Mirowski.p...](https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP23-Mirowski.pdf)

[3] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-
demos](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-demos)

[4] [https://www.theoryculturesociety.org/review-wendy-browns-
und...](https://www.theoryculturesociety.org/review-wendy-browns-undoing-the-
demos-neoliberalisms-stealth-revolution-by-nicholas-gane/)

[5] [https://history.duke.edu/book/democracy-
chains](https://history.duke.edu/book/democracy-chains)

[6] Wendy Brown -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eowEmcS75JM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eowEmcS75JM)

[7] Nancy Maclean -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQ_dIjr3uU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQ_dIjr3uU)

~~~
specialist
The appeal to civility is the last step before starting the cycle of rhetoric
anew. Rinse, lather, repeat.

------
iron0013
Just FYI: "Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute". Many
people find the agenda that AEI pushes to be loathsome, and I'm not surprised
that Mr. Brooks finds himself the object of contempt on a not-infrequent
basis.

------
unclebucknasty
Yes, "both sides" lie incessantly, embrace dictators, attack our norms and
institutions, engage in voter suppression, and deploy bots and trolls to
engage in earnest, non-contemptuous discussion (including right here on this
thread).

~~~
int_19h
This is kind of an amusing list, because you clearly meant it sardonically,
but it's literally true.

Embrace dictators - check; remember Obama rushing to Saudi Arabia?

Attack our norms and institutions - check; Dems are talking about killing the
filibuster in the Senate for good right now, and of course they were the first
to start the process of dismantling it back when they removed it for non-SC
judicial appointments under Obama.

Engage in voter suppression - Maryland is one of the worst gerrymandered
states in the Union, and it wasn't done by Republicans. Democrats controlling
the state are fighting against the courts (which slapped their scheme down)
right now, in a lawsuit filed by Republicans.

Bots and trolls - I dunno about bots, but there's no shortage of left-wing
trolls.

The usual answer to all this is, "but it's all for a good cause!", or
sometimes, "but we're doing less of it than they do!".

The first one can be valid, depending on one's perspective, but then it would
be hypocritical to attack the other side for doing all the same things. If
your problem is their goals rather than their methods, then just say so:
"they're bad because they want to suppress the minority voters, and we want to
suppress racists and bigots".

The second one is broadly true (i.e. left vs right as a whole, as opposed to
comparing distinct subcultures in either), but it's not an excuse - it just
sets up a lesser/greater evil dichotomy. If those things are valid reasons for
contempt -- and I'm not saying they aren't, by the way - then both sides
deserve it, just in different proportions.

~~~
unclebucknasty
These what-aboutism arguments are so disingenuous that they are the product of
either bad faith or a pathological measure of rationalization.

Whatever the reason, such facile rants are now the go-to technique--an
entreaty to engage in a tit-for-tat, ignoring context and degree, thus
normalizing awful behavior.

But I won't do it. I think you are well-aware of the difference in degree and
of who is clearly and presently wielding power in a manner that runs roughshod
over our norms, values and institutions.

~~~
int_19h
That I'm well-aware of the difference in degree was explicitly spelled out in
my original comment.

My point isn't that "both sides are equally bad" or some such - I don't
believe that. It's clear that Republicans, by now, are engaging in all of
these practices to a far greater extent.

My point is that you didn't make any distinction about the degree at all. You
just said that these are all the things that those people did, and that's what
makes them contemptible. I merely showed you what happens when that bar is
applied consistently - Republicans end up looking really bad, but Dems still
end up looking somewhat bad. If you don't like that result - and reject the
notion that your team engaging in those same things on a smaller scale is
still bad, just less bad, but enough to feel contempt over - then consider
that perhaps your bar isn't where you articulated it to be.

