@dredmorbius Hmmm…

@dredmorbius Been thinking about false dilemmas quite a bit, especially in view of ethnography’s potential for divergent thinking. But it's been difficult to engage with some people on the wide array of alternatives. When you love complexity, it's easy to be brushed off or to get people to tune off.

@Enkerli I think part of the problem is in finding people who are interested in common ground. Call that the zeroth requirement of dialectic discussion. You've got to at least get to zero.

If the mission is /only/ promoting their own priors and premises, you're not going to get very far.

I've largely given up trying to persuade the unpersuadable, but if I find someone open to discussion, there are topics I'm interested in talking about, whether or not we agree on them.

@Enkerli It's actually generally better if we don't -- one of us stands to learn something.

Though fundamental agreement combined with different domains of knowledge or experience can also be fruitful.

@dredmorbius From your links, fell into a bit of a rabbithole. Part of it is indeed about reasonable and thoughtful disagreement. But my nagging feeling is that much of this is contextual.
Obviously not saying that things are better elsewhere. And, clearly, the in-group/out-group dynamic can be observed anywhere (taught enough Intro to Sociology to realize this). But there’s diversity in how such dynamics are handled.

@Enkerli /Everything/ is contextual.

If you're going to engage in dialog, the first question you've got to ask yourself is "what is the purpose of this discussion?" Is it:

* To learn something, or arrive mutally at a common understanding of truth? (Dialectic)
* Only or principally to persuade the other side of something? (Rhetoric)
* To express or establish power?
* Merely to entertain?
* To (re)establish a social or friendship bond?
* To (re)align a group generally?

@Enkerli I'm pretty sure that list isn't complete, but it's a set of communications patterns I've seen. Some additions:

* To misinform, distract, or confuse.
* To set or establish an agenda for communication.
* To create the base set of models and worldviews through which reality itself is interpreted.

@Enkerli I see a great deal these days through a set of lenses:

* Power and power relationships. Establishment, maintenance, subverting, overthrow. With this: punching up vs. down, or a match of equals.
* Cost, price, and value: Behaviours are very strongly influenced by the full true real costs, the apparent price, and the perceived value. Changing perceptions or realities of these are profound levers.
* Information-theoretic, systems, and cognitive systems.
* Epistemology.

@dredmorbius Hadn't noticed this one (maybe because of the quirks of federation?).
We're probably thinking along somewhat similar lines, on this one. But, to me, dialog needs not have a singular endgoal for all participants. Or, in fact, any clear teleology for everyone involved.
Having said that, my approach to intersubjectivity is mostly about epistemology, ways of knowing, building understanding, gaining insight.

@Enkerli It's quite possible that everyone doesn't have to be on the same page, but rhetoric vs. dialectic is oil & water.

@dredmorbius The “page” thing, to me, is mostly about signs that we may actually be discussing the same phenomenon. #Metadiscursive function. (Part of my background is in semiotics and ethnography of communication.)

@Enkerli Recognising the type of discussion you've entered / invited / fallen into is a critical point. I've made the error of thinking I'm in a dialectic discussion when in fact it's been rhetorical.

And if any one member of the discussion is engaged in rhetoric, it's exceedingly difficult for the others to proceed with dialectic, unless they can exclude the rhetoricians. Otherwise you've got to apply counter-rhetoric.

Sociology is a good background, I need to read more.

@dredmorbius Speaking of Fabian and #intersubjectivity, this might be too anthro-specific but it might give you an idea of the kinds of issues discussed in my #SphereOfAgency. https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau4.1.008/649

@Enkerli Thanks, taking a look.

@dredmorbius Your handshake, negotiation, and common ground ideas do sound commonly shared in certain groups, including some which oppose one another (say, Libertarians and Democrats). But it also sounds like there are other worldviews/paradigms/epistemes.
Funnily enough, “negatiation” was part of my own version in a discussion of intersubjectivity involving Johannes Fabian, only to be challenged by him.

@Enkerli Read the introductory paragraphs of I.F. Stone's "Holy War" (1967) NY Book Review article: it's of a volume on the Arab-Israel problem, written by both Arabic and Israeli authors. Less a dialog than dual monologues, as Stone puts it.

You can go back through history -- I found a wonderful example of an ideological debate concerning English vs. American publications of an encyclopedia in the 19th century.

Religious differences, particularly Protestant v. Catholic...

@Enkerli In reading back over the history of freedom of speech and expression, a prominent area of early exception to that principle was in allowing equal time to "Papists", as Catholocism itself observed a principle of intolerance to all other Christian religious view.

I've been starting to dig into the history of the Inquisition, from its first origins in about 10th c., its full establishment following the printing press (and Luther) in the 15th, and expiry. In 1965....

@Enkerli The Inquisition is, in one view, the struggle of an organisation to maintain control over a worldview, in an information and social environment in which that was increasingly infeasible.

The Index Liborum Prohibitorum makes for a fascinating reading list and study. Organisations have two principle motivations: fear and greed. The ILP largely reflects the Church's fears. Its inclusions, and /exclusions/ (Marx, Darwin, Hitler, amongst others), are quite revealing.

@dredmorbius There’s a fascination for those institutions, and noticed continuity with contemporary ones. But a discourse which makes me weary is the one in which differences between those institutions are interpreted to mean that we’ve covered all the possible options.
As a hint to my thinking: often reminded that most human beings lived in very small nomadic groups of foragers until very recently.

@Enkerli You've mentioned sociology. My view is that individually or grouped, human behaviour changes slowly if at all over time, and may very well be rooted in far deeper systemic dynamics, going beyond animal behaviour and biology even (though including those).

What I'm trying to say: the roots are deep.

I'm not presenting A-I or C-P interactions as all that need be studied. But useful and well-documented exemplars, often exterior to contemporary disputes, though behaving like.

@dredmorbius By the by, a significant part of social science is on the mechanisms behind group formation. Without addressing them, mentions of “tribes” can sound like essentialist thinking. Very common, but quite tricky.

@Enkerli Going back to the ILP: what /most/ concerned the Catholic Church were doctrines challenging its own core doctrines, or authority, or infallability. Giordano Bruno came under particular attack, and was one of that last heretics actually burnt at the stake by the Inquisition itself (the practice was significantly franchised for some time afterward and proved popular in certain districts).

Again, the study of what /was/ and /was not/ listed is instructive to concerns.

@dredmorbius As you say, well-documented.

@dredmorbius Speaking of RW and LW… Is math author Jordan Ellenberg on your radar? He's a FoaF (through another mathematician). Ellenberg’s “How Not to Be Wrong” resonated with me as a qualitative researcher (as do our mutual friend’s thoughts on “math envy”). To a qual, quants can sound quaint. ;)

@Enkerli I don't recognise the name, though I may have run across the book.

@dredmorbius Thanks. Got started on the Toxoplasma one. Will have to mull these things over. Not to sort out my own feelings about the polarization, but to suss out the best way to handle these situations.

@Enkerli Simplistic approaches, tribalism, ignorance of history, psychology, cognition.

It's a messy field.

@dredmorbius Again, hmmm…
Already have a lot to say about the first few paragraphs of one piece. Especially about the context. Some basic components of these attitudes may be common, but they feel exotic to me. Which might explain my discomfort in a number of situations.
Wonder if Scott Alexander has discussed militant atheists, for instance.

@dredmorbius By the by, found a lot of hope in the #Berkana Institute Theory of Change. Instead of attacking people, building a bridge for them to move to more appropriate action. http://berkana.org/about/our-theory-of-change/

@Enkerli I'd like to see some success cases.

I'm starting to think of discussion between fundamentally opposed groups as, at best, protocol negotiation -- think of modem handshakes. You've got to find the highest level of discourse at which you /can/ agree.

And this presumes the parties /want/ to agree.

I've personally encountered bad faith descending to the definition of "the" in such attempts. If there's no will to find common understanding, common understanding won't be found.

@dredmorbius After reading both of these and getting down several paths from them, my key takeaway is actually that Scott Alexander was getting self-aware about #groupthink. And my key problem is that he makes it sound like a “vaguely universal” phenomenon, if that makes sense.
The situation is very typical of Anglo-American interactions. But quite foreign to me (as a Québécois Africanist of Swiss descent).

@raucao Interesting. It usually doesn't sound that premeditated, but you might be on to something.
The thing which gets to me is the hate itself. Really takes a toll.

@Enkerli I don't think it's "premeditated". Just intellectual laziness plus tribalism.

@raucao Sounds like the gist of what Scott Alexander wrote in those pieces shared by @dredmorbius
https://mastodon.cloud/users/dredmorbius/updates/192839
My social science reflex is to get to the construction of those “tribes”.
In other words, there might be something behind the “just” in your comment.

@raucao @Enkerli Not even intellectual laziness. It's inherent to communications, knowledge, and understanding.

We understand the world through world models we build in our heads. Some are inherent, some are taught and learned, some from direct experience. Large and complex models are built from simpler ones.

There's a path-depdency based on learning and experience.

There's also a wetware limitation to the complexity and depth we can handle.

#greshamslaw

@dredmorbius @raucao Now we’re getting closer to something. Not that convinced by the determinism, especially since this type of polarization varies tremendously. But it’s more than “just” a phenomenon.

@Enkerli @raucao Very much.

Media is absolutely /not/ my field, but I've been taking a deep dive into it over the past six months, trying to understand the past couple of years. And, as I'm realising, a considerable period prior to that.

@dredmorbius @raucao Glad you mention the media angle. Some commenters are very quick to assign “blame” to some amorphous “mainstream media” world. At the same time, it’s quite obvious that much of the polarization happens through institutionalized means of communication.
As you might expect, there’s pretty useful material in sociology of media which can help people grasp these issues. Even (open) textbooks have some usefulness there.

@Enkerli @raucao Morbius's Razor: Never attribute to Malice what can be adequately derived from Emergent Systemic Phenomena.

@dredmorbius @raucao Cute.

@Enkerli @raucao True.

If you're dealing with a large group of people, that group has its /own/ intrinsic, emergent limits to coping with complexity, based on a greatest-common-factor / minimum viable complexity element.

There are only so many news-minutes in a day (about 40 for most people), limited vocabulary, pre-constructed models, stories and narratives that the group, including, individually, reporters, editors, advertisers, and audience, can accommodate.

@Enkerli @raucao
2/

At /best/ it's a space which can accommodate only so much complexity.

Add to that tribalism, self-identification, the group's own feedback as to what deviations are considered acceptable or not, and you end up with, as a collective, a distinctly limited conceptual space in which to even begin to understand the world, and an outright rejection of models which question or challenge the orthodoxy and its foundations.

This is extremely deeply rooted.

@Enkerli @raucao
3/

@dredmorbius @raucao As for “tribalism”, the very notion makes most anthros cringe. https://savageminds.org/2008/01/13/talking-about-tribe/

@Enkerli @raucao I'm not a member of the Anthropology Tribe. I don't play by the tribe's antitribalist rules.

Identity is ultimately governed by _behaviour_. A thing /is/ what it /acts like/.

When we say that light "is" both a "wave" and a "particle", we mean that its /behaviour/ at times matches that of a wave, and at times that of a particle.

@dredmorbius @raucao Convoluted.

@Enkerli @raucao You've got my number.

@dredmorbius :wink:
By the by, you do realise that archæology is part of anthropology, right?
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193
(My guess is, you’re probably not @dpasewark on birdsite.)

@Enkerli No. I have no Birdsite presence at all.