It might be at least interesting to see the hypothesis tested in a multi - party - system or countries with a less polarised society. Even similar polarised countries might be an interesting study subject as an parallel experiment..
And again, American political system is rather unique in the Western world. At least it should discussed in the discussion chapter.
Did you mean nation as in ethnicity? Because otherwise I think the US's identification with the nation is pretty strong across both camps.
> And again, American political system is rather unique in the Western world.
It is? Even with multiple small parties, you'll still largely get ideological camps. It's rare that you have parties that pick their ideas from all over the place.
Nation can be seen as an consensus ideology and if you share some opinions you can get along better on other topics.
In some sense, it's the job of public education, particularly through the curricula of history and $local-official-language, to establish that consensus ideology - to create unity by exposing everyone to the same large landscape of stories, opinions and beliefs, so that any two people of a nation can quickly establish some common ground between themselves and get along.
Or, in other words: to the same reality (it doesn't matter whether it's factually accurate, only that it's widely shared).
Is there a way back to more shared reality without one side wiping out the other? A common threat that just makes the differences in perception meaningless next to the shared perception of that threat? Aliens invading would probably help, at least temporarily. Maybe, if you keep that up for two generations, they'll have forgotten most of the ideological identities that had divided them, and will only rediscover them after some amount of lasting peace?
But my guess is: it wouldn't have mattered. I don't believe that we get that behavior because Facebook enables us to be petty. I believe that we get that behavior because of the circumstances (i.e. rapidly changing economical and cultural environment that make people fearful and uncertain and will make them fall back on their core values) and people realizing that you can convince/manipulate others better if you deliver your messages in a short, meme-style format, appeal to their emotions, play into identity politics and "own" the other side. Even if you outlawed Facebook, once politicians, activists etc realize that this works, they'll use it in whatever media you allow.
The only winning move (individually) is not to play, at least that's my experience. You can tune out, concentrate on whatever you deem important and the world won't fall apart just because you're not spending your time and energy explaining to people that they're being manipulated, because after all, most things move slowly. Before each election, everybody speaks as if this was the one that matters. As if, should they lose this time, all is lost because they will destroy everything. And afterwards, everything just trots on as it always has (Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, but in most countries the situation isn't exceptional). And if you do play and try to educate others about their manipulated intellects, all they'll see is that you are being manipulated and you're now trying to manipulate them. It feels great sometimes to tell them off and get applause, but you won't change hearts and minds, and you should be aware that it's a game.
On the other hand, I firmly believe: if you want to improve society, hug the bitter aunties, ask them how they've been and share some traditional food you can bond over, that'll make it much easier to communicate and find common ground.
Because American "ideologies" also correlate strongly to city vs rural, skin color and ethnicity, and other factors, which is not necessarily the case in many/most countries whereas there might be more choices, and the kind of people believing in each more equally diatributed...
And in any case, why would you expect this to not be the case? Should people in different living circumstances magically have the same beliefs, interests and desires?
Magically no, just practically. Which is often the case, because the ideologies concerned don't touch on rural vs urban "beliefs, interests and desires" but other divisions, like progressive vs conservative, environmental vs economic push, nationalist vs regionalist, and others. Sometimes the "beliefs, interests and desires" are even irrelevant, as dominant parties offer the same kind of programs, and it's just party loyalty that gets one to one or the other.
Germany has 5 parties in parliament (with sizable representation), the US has had two for a good while (with insignificant independent inroads). German party ideology is much more segreggated and divided among states than in Germany. Germany is much more homogeneous by population. And many other factors besides.
Just because some country has no empire to project the ugly, doesent mean its not there.
>If anything, humans are remarkably similar, and that similarity transfers even to the ugly of racism, sexism etc.
Which is neither here, nor there.
Nor does every country/culture has the same levels of racism, sexism, etc. Same way they don't have the same levels of religiousness, mass shootings, and so on.
Its all been there and it has been widespread, though not always in this shape and form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel
The religousness of the US and its conservatives are not that rare either. Iran comes to mind.
I think it's a worthwhile reminder as it provides an example of two things: 1) religiosity is not synonymous with conservatism and balkanization, and 2) diversity is not synonymous with an inability to cooperate or share an identity.
https://www.google.com/search?q=weird%20research%20
They could test religious ideologies, wonder if they would get the same thing.
What is interesting to me is this part of the abstract:
…revealing that polarization can arise from differences in the brain’s affective valuations of political concepts.
I wonder if things are reversed in the sense that consuming the same sort of news content causes those peoples’ brains to end up with the same affective valuations. I know nothing about neuroscience but it seems if we took someone with centrist or left leaning views and subjected them to only political news from very right wing sources for a long time maybe their brains would be altered.
Is it reasonable to wonder if similarities in brain responses to political concepts comes from consuming the same sort of media messages? Is Fox News (or left wing equivalent) unwittingly changing our brains (brain washing)?
That being said, psychology is a pseudoscience so who knows what anything is anyway.
This commitment arose from their conversion experiences and their gradual, conditioned acceptance of ethical misbehavior.
I don’t have a formal definition of “brainwashing”. That term, to me, is akin to gradual, conditioned acceptance. From my reading of the article the author and I seem to have different perceptions of what the word “brainwashing” means. He does say that people are moving away from the term “brainwashing” and using terms like “coercive persuasion”.
This line too stood out to me:
We don’t say that soldiers are brainwashed to kill other people; that’s basic training.
I actually would say that soldiers are brainwashed. I use that term in a colloquial sense. I use in the sense of the video linked to below.
Let me state my question in a different way, does gradual, conditioned acceptance change one’s brain in any significant way?
Then explain political realignments. I personally have completely switched political parties in the last year, and I am not a 24 year old who’s brain wasn’t developed.