Posted by: ultraguy | August 4, 2008

On Polarization and De-Humanization

A hearty endorsement for Elizabeth Scalia’s (aka, The Anchoress‘) latest piece over at Pajamas Media:

…“they” is us, losing a little more of our shared humanity every day, as we increasingly insulate ourselves away from the “others” who do not hold the same worldview as we do. We label ourselves as belonging to some respectable group of believers, or agnostics, or liberals, or conservatives, and we live, work, socialize, and blog — as much as life will allow — amongst our “respectable” peers, in our “respectable” echo chambers. We label the “others” as disrespectable and then commence disrespecting.

It begins with name-calling, which seems so innocuous, so sandbox. Well, name-calling is infantile behavior, but it is hardly innocuous. As marijuana is to heroin, name-calling is to diminished humanity — the gateway. It begins the whole process of dehumanization. Call someone a name and they immediately become “less human” to you, and the less human they seem, the easier they are to hate and to destroy…

Recently I asked rabid Bush-haters if they could manage to say “one good thing” about the president. Predictably, they could not… Conversely, when asked to name “one good thing” about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, some on the right were equally stymied.

Posted in anthropology, blogging, character flaws, depravity, human nature, people, psychology, worldview, writing

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Responses

  1. Good to ’see’ you again Hoots.

    I’m inclined to take a grand-biblical good-vs-evil perspective on this (especially in light of the various other eve-of-apocalypse type things going on in the world at the moment, e.g., Iran and the implications for that in this election). And thus I’m not surprised by the degree of polarization we’re observing in our little election here. The polarization that’s shaping up is far larger than U.S. presidential party politics or even politics itself for that matter.

    By: ultraguy on August 4, 2008
    at 3:05 pm

  2. I saw that, although I missed her “invitation.” It occurred to me that as someone who has been a critic of this president since before I began blogging I have from time to time posted a number of compliments and positive observations of the man. Perhaps that disqualifies me as “rabid.” Or even “hater,” for that matter.

    But had I seen her invitation I would be loathe to respond lest I self-label myself as both “rabid” and filled with “hate.” I think the language of what passes for “debate” has grown so inflammatory that the drift toward greater polarization is getting worse. That post and it’s presumptive conclusion illustrates the point.

    I had hope that this campaign might be see the birth of a new civility in politics because both candidates wore that mantle, probably because the US Senate is the best school on earth to learn and practice that art. Boy, was I wrong.

    By: Hootsbuddy on August 4, 2008
    at 2:32 pm


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