From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 08:42:39 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> ....
>
>It used to be a standard Extropian belief that the left-right spectrum was
>totally inadequate to properly describe modern or transhuman politics. I
>find it regressive that we are falling more and more into these old-style
>political divisions on this list. We used to be in more agreement on some
>issues and have more diversity in others. Nowadays, it seems like were are
>stereotyping into two opposing camps and straying further and further from
>the topics of the future.
>
>--
>Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC, IBMCP
><www.HarveyNewstrom.com> <www.Newstaff.com>
>
Basically, I feel that it's still true. But when one comes up against a
binary decision that it framed in the traditional forms, some will be
coerced into one side, and some to the other. Once people adopt a
position, they tend to feel obligated to defend it, and usually the only
way to defend one of these artificial bifurcations is by adopting the
mindset that created it in the first place (or at least a close analog).
An example of this was the recent invasion of Ira?. (I can never keep
those two straight.) Before the decision was framed as a binary choice
there were many views. After it was framed, the viewpoints tended to
reduce, eventually those with viewpoints other than Passifist/Militarist
began to be ridiculed. Naturally those with the militarist view were
more agressive in their comments, so they came to dominate the
discussion. (Samantha is noteable for not being stifled despite being a
minority voice.) Many just tuned out of what had become a collection of
rantings. Some started campaigning that all notes on the topic should
include a notice in their header, so the threads could easily be
filtered out. Thus those who refused to fit into the
passifist/militarist dichotomy left the discussion. (So did most of the
passifists, as being outshouted isn't a pleasant experience...and if you
don't really enjoy shouting back, it isn't worth the effort...nobody is
listening to what you say anyway.) And it turned into a bunch of
militarists arguing over details of why the whole thing was right and
proper. Nobody had changed their opinion, but the loudest voices had
clearly dominated the thread, and that proved that their views were correct.
This is normal primate politics, and one shouldn't expect anything
different. The improvement is that this discussion didn't physically
injure anyone.
If you really want to get away from this, you need to insist that
choices not be phrased in a binary fashion. There's nothing
intrinsically wrong with binary choices, but people seem to have certain
mechanisms that get turned on when they appear. If there aren't at
least four major choices (meaning ALL views are in a substantial
minority), then you need to expect the "dominant group" mentality to
emerge...which tends to put an end to rational argument on any of the
features which are dogma to the dominant group. A nice thing about
mailing lists is that one has an easy chance to observe this in a
non-costly environment.
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