
Partisanship is a toxin and a potent mind-altering drug - laurex
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/407889-partisanship-is-a-toxin-and-potent-mind-altering-drug
======
rectang
I'm allergic to these anti-partisanship missives that keep being voted up.

As Martin Luther King put it,

> _" First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely
> disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable
> conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward
> freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but
> the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who
> prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace
> which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in
> the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;"
> who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's
> freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro
> to wait until a "more convenient season."_

We live in a time of bitter struggle. I may scrupulously avoid partisan
statements on HN, but elsewhere, damned if I am going to fight with anything
less than all I have.

~~~
grzm
There's an important difference between being principled and giving in to
tribalistic views of us vs. them. The point of many "anti-partisan missives"
is to recognize that there are many things we can—and must—work together on to
be effective, and that we often limit ourselves when we stop ourselves from
listening and understanding each other because of the labels we place on each
other.

Yes, there are things people disagree on, but there are also many that we
actually _do_ agree on, and can work to improve if we look beyond
partisanship.

~~~
nicoburns
Amen to this. Additionally, there is room for dissent within a group that is
working together (e.g a political party). If everybody is focussed on towing
the party line, then it is very easy for the views of the party to become
unchallengeable dogma. Of course there are constructive and unconstructive
ways of doing this, but disagreeing shouldn't necessarily be seen as negative.

------
resters
I think there are two kinds of partisans. Some simply choose to join the "big
tent" that is closest to their own beliefs and do so as a strategic choice.
Others adopt a strongly ideological view and allow their logical mind to be
overtaken by arguments that support partisan goals.

I think this is analogous to how scientists who were under theocratic rule
tried hard to incorporate religious notions into their experimental findings.
There is a lot of social and community pressure to go all in and devoutly
believe that the people are all good and the policies all reasonable and
helpful, even when many of the policies are obviously motivated predominantly
by powerful interest groups.

The first kind of partisanship is fine, the second is much more akin to a
religion or a clique member and is thus not as likely to act in the interest
of democracy.

------
ggm
Australia is suffering from a governance crisis in part caused by one prime
minister who said 'the role of her majesties opposition is to oppose' and
proceeded as leader of the opposition to do exactly that: he caused opposition
to rational policies his own party would otherwise normally have backed,
including ones which go to foreign policy, a long held space of bipartisan
politics.

He even set out to undermine his own leader, when he was replaced. (An
attribute he shared with the labor party leadership, thus not exceptional, but
undoubtedly hypocritical since he claimed not to do so)

It's only marginally hyperbolic to say that Tony Abbott's time in opposition
as leader laid the seeds for a decade of political gridlock. (Including the
trashing of climate policy and science based decision making)

The Westminster system has always admitted that some governance issues can and
should be shared by government and opposition. It takes an opposition willing
to share to do it.

------
1gor
The article's study found that "people really don't want to confront
information that could potentially disrupt their worldviews."

This thread's comments against "anti-partisanship" articles show that people
also don't want to confront information about them not willing to confront
information... etc.

~~~
dvtrn
So Murrow was right. "we have a built in allergy to uncomfortable and
diaagreeable information"

------
dstroot
I believe we all need to be reminded to open our minds and get out of our
bubbles. I know I have a hidden bias to read things I already agree with. It’s
hard to really try to understand conflicting views without simply dismissing
them.

------
lukev
Fair enough, partisanship in itself is fairly obviously a negative
psychological and mental force.

But I do worry about claims of anti-partisanship used as a smokescreen. Some
issues are merely partisan differences of opinion. Others are matters of life
and death.

I don't object to child incarceration, denial of refugees or revocation of
citizenship for minorities because I love the Democratic party, I do it
because it's _wrong_ and to cast these issues in the light of mere "partisan
politics" is to deny their significance.

Yes, partisanship is a strong cognitive bias. That should be uncontroversial.
But that still doesn't mean that at a particular moment in history, a
particular political party can't be very VERY clearly in the moral and
intellectual wrong.

Given arbitrary points A and B, you can't just state that an unbiased person
always adheres to (abs(A-B)/2). That's ridiculous, and makes you susceptible
to all kinds of goalpost and Overton-window shifting.

The whole point is that you have to address each issue on its own intellectual
merits, and I feel like a lot of the anti-partisan content out there this year
(particularly from conservative/libertarian sources like this one) is less
focused on the truth of the matter and more on granting a patina of legitimacy
to ideas that would otherwise be, well, wrong.

~~~
tomrod
You nailed my thoughts. This comes across as a well written, verbose "all-
sides-are-the-same" article.

Generalizability in these types of studies should always be questioned.

------
jstewartmobile
Partisanship is our salvation.

When our DC overlords come together to sing the Hallelujah chorus... _that_ is
when you should start to worry.

ex: 1999 bank dereg, Iraq/Afghanistan, TARP, Libya/Syria.

