A serious curiosity derived from something I’ve noticed more and more often lately:
What the hell has happened to nuanced thought? It seems every day- more and more, it’s either this or that, with us or against us, black or white. What happened to the complexity of thought? Why have we come to be so polarized about every single thing that exists? And it seems it doesn’t matter the subject! The moment a topic is brought up. Sides are immediately taken in the War of Being Right.
It used to be that we considered things. We were rational. Logical. Contemplative.
Now? Everyone seems so quick to arrive at hastily constructed arguments that have to be either for or against- where no argument was necessary or even called for to being with!
It seems to me, that we need to relearn what was once so easily understood, and it’s that life exists between the boundaries of one and the other.
nuanced discussion doesn’t excite/stimulate the nervous system the way self-righteous simplified discussion does.
It’s a multitude of causes, in my eyes.
Increased individualism, increased vulnerability, increased desire to be seen or heard, increased anxiety around self and being correct or valid, increased consumption over participation, increased distance through comments rather than community and discussion, incentives around voting pushing extremes, platitudes, emotionals, etc and inhibiting and often discouraging diverse views, founded reasoning, effort into these.
/edit: I just now deleted a comment that gave a reasoned answer to a broad question, after seeing it received down votes (which I interpret as not appreciated and deemed a negative contribution to the community). Sadge.
Contrary to other comments I don’t think Lemmy overall is and better than other platforms. It differs my instance and community, but we have the same systematic issues on here.
It still exists, but patience for it is rare, and smartphones aren’t conducive to it.
People on social media aren’t really seeking diverse perspectives to challenge themselves or they wouldn’t segregate themselves into different platforms according to their political alignment & try to block objectionable departures from accepted opinion to shelter their delicate worldview.
Simply posing Socratic questions will raise accusations of “just asking questions”. The norms of online discourse are hostile to probing inquiry & careful reasoning that doesn’t reinforce the critic’s opinion.
It’s better to persevere anyway, disregard the hostility, & relish the downvotes. If someone likes your shit, cool, but validation & satisfaction should come from an internal sense of your efforts, not from others.
MAGA and the rest of their racist/fascist bunch have zero interest in good faith discussion. As such, others who might have engaged in discussion in the past are no longer choosing to waste their time doing so. It’s too much like playing chess with a pigeon, but with substantial consequences.
The problem goes a lot further than just MAGA. Again, nuance. This isn’t a one-sided issue. Frankly, I’m noticing it a lot more here on lemmy than I am elsewhere if I had to be honest.
Very few people are willing to discuss/debate topics without polarizing the issue, and then attacking someone for having said things they never said to begin with.
I see it every day.
The problem goes a lot further than just MAGA
Yes, it does. And, if you’re willing to engage in a good faith conversation, we can have that discussion. Here’s the thing; MAGA and its leaders are patently bad. Not every person associated with MAGA is bad. We can talk in good faith about where the line is for the second group. We can talk in good faith about about what forces are in play that create this situation.
However, there is no good faith conversation to be had in defense of MAGA and its leaders.
Your turn…
Again, nuance. There are people from ALL political affiliations, and all walks of life that do this- not just MAGA.
I’m not going to turn this into a political debate as it’s not a political post. The point is that people seem to be too quick to argue, and not quick enough to use rational and nuanced thought before arriving at their conclusions.
I love how the people on this thread are just hard proving your point here.
I mean, that kinda sounds like whataboutism. The other person was talking about maga specifically and you said “people from…all walks of life do this”
But I think nuanced conversation is so much work. It takes so much energy and patience and attention and people just don’t have those things anymore.
edit just realized in this micro example that you were trying to speak in broad terms, and they were trying to be specific. So even tho you were trying to talk about the same idea, your scales were different. Now you have to spend time addressing this discrepancy instead of what you actually want to talk about.
That, but also- I don’t want to turn this into a giant political soapbox for people to air their grievances. The point is the lack of nuance, not let’s circlejerk about MAGA.
But yeah. It is a pretty good micro example.
What do you want to talk about, then?
let’s circlejerk about MAGA.
I agree. There’s no debate to be had. Just like there is no debate to be had about whether vaccines cause autism. However, you are refusing to engage. You could have said, "Yes, MAGA is awful and that’s not the conversation I’d like to have. However, you didn’t do that. You literally (intentionally or unintentionally) defended MAGA and then complained again that there just isn’t any nuance.
You aren’t seeing nuanced conversations because you’re watching one side disavow law, science, and decency and then pretending that we should give a rat’s ass what they have to say.
Again… you’re asking for rational people to play a high-stakes game of chess with a pigeon and then getting upset that, instead, they shoo away the pigeon. You need to respond that you understand this, that you disagree with it, or something. Again, your very behaviors are why you’re not seeing nuanced conversations – giving you the benefit of the doubt that this is actually what you want.
And, I propose that what you are doing is part of the problem and why you’re not seeing the nuanced conversation you’re seeking. You’re literally making excuses and space for MAGA. You are deflecting and changing the topic. You are coming across as disingenuous. Part of having a nuanced conversation is that you must participate in it and do so in good-faith. Don’t waste my or anyone else’s time with this virtue signaling. You are why people aren’t having the conversation you profess to want to see happening. Any further questions?
Reading is hard, huh?
I blame smartphones
It’s actually pretty decent on Limmy, I’ve found…
The only topic I’ve struggled with is the trans stuff. It goes without saying that there’s a depressing level of intolerance and hate out there, invariably ramped up by the media (distraction?), but also so much treading on eggshells, obfuscation and, frankly, attention given to a subject that the vast majority of folk may privately find a little confusing, but ultimately don’t have any great interest in.
The last time I recall having engaging, thoughtful discussions on the internet was way back in the days of forums. And that was so long ago I’m skeptical of my own memory of it.
Lemmy comments may be different from Reddit comments, but they’re not better. I’ve concluded it’s structural. This format simply does not produce useful conversation.
None of the other social media formats produce it either. Perhaps it’s the result of optimizing for attention, which all social media does, whether by deliberate design or natural selection. Platforms that get attention grow. Those that don’t, languish. It may be that things which gather attention to themselves best are repellent of deeper, slower, more careful thinking.
Actually, maybe I can think of one example. I’m stretching the definition of social media, and I haven’t firsthand experience, but the way that Wikipedia operates may be a clue toward how to build a platform that produces useful dialogue.
Online discourse stopped being about changing minds and started being about farming clout.
Most replies aren’t written to the person they’re replying to; they’re written to the invisible crowd that hands out upvotes. The goal isn’t persuasion, it’s applause. That’s why nuance is dead: nuance doesn’t get you 500 upvotes and a gold award. A savage one-liner that owns the libs / the chuds / the tankies does.
If you actually believe your view is correct, the morally consistent move when you meet disagreement is to engage and try to convince the other person (ideally while staying open to being convinced yourself). That requires listening, steelmanning, and sometimes admitting “yeah, you’ve got a point there.” None of that is rewarded here. What is rewarded is the quick, brutal dunk that signals “I am safely on the correct side” to the rest of the hive.
So people don’t debate in good faith anymore; they perform righteousness. It’s easier, it feels better, and the points roll in. We went from trying to do good to trying to feel good, and the karma counter is the drug that keeps the whole circus running.
There was also a flood of bad faith discussions with every fallacy in the book from belligerent actors. Like Cambridge Analytica and similar scandals including Xitter’s most recent offshore Maga influencer revelation, any significant media audience is ripe for astroturfing.
Edit: at the slightest hint of a disingenuous discussion, the cutting barbs come out.
Yeah. I’m inclined to see it this way as well. I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons, but this one resonates.
My theory is that: With social media people are exposed to more and more stuff, specially bad stuff due to algorithms, and when things happens, you usually feel a need to form an opinion on them. The quicker you have the form an opinion, the more nuance you lose, if you don’t form an opinion now, the next thing will arrive and you will be outdated. People are having to choose quantity over quality when it comes to their opinions.
Again this is based on not much and utterly unscientific but I think it makes sense kinda.
In my experience when I try to have a nuanced take, people (intentionally?) misinterpret my nuance and use it to put words in my mouth and build a straw man.
Also hot takes are just way more entertaining, and what is social media if not a new form of entertainment?
That’s exactly what happens to me! It’s as if people have no point to make until they rewrite yours.
If it’s purposeful. It’s a brilliant strategy. Keep people defending against shit they never said and not pressing them to back up their points? There’s no way to lose. And in their minds, that’s what conversation is- something to “win.”
It used to be that we considered things. We were rational. Logical. Contemplative.
Almost forty years on Earth, and I’ve never once experienced that. Humans have always been irrational, judgmental creatures, given to tribalism and social pressure. Maybe we’ve gotten more vocal about it as a result of the Western world being mostly peaceful for four generations, or maybe social media has made us more likely to interact with more people than we used to. But when were we rational? When our ancestors hanged or shot people over horses? Were they being contemplative while they burned people (or otherwise killed them) at the stake because they didn’t conform to the tenets of a book?
Was it rational and logical to force whole societies to perform certain tasks, and then deride them and try to harm them for performing those tasks?
It’s always been a crab bucket. It’ll always be a crab bucket. All you can hope is that you’re high enough up to keep your shell intact but low enough down that you don’t get grabbed for the stewpot.
Yeah, for me some of it is that I got more nuanced and forgot the places I used to be black and white / aim for a harsh burn. Not that I’m not still ignorant with plenty of black and what thinking.
And I think that besides people chasing upvotes, there is also more organising of movements online and by pushing issues into ethical framings that demonise the other side you create anger that keeps a movement going and can be directed but then large groups lose the ability to talk with nuance about that topic
I think people spend less time have long conversations with people that they trust, which are best space for nuance and exploring ideas honestly. If you’re messaging on social media, or even writing articles for blogs or publications, there’s a whole bunch of incentives and barriers that push people away from nuance.
That’s fair point. I hadn’t considered that.
Platonic 1s and 0s are easier to process (even a computer can do it!) than the nebulous but realistic middle grounds. People are just dumb in general but now, with the decline of the West (I assume you’re on mostly Western sites and not VK or Nairaland, for instance), they’re also scared/emotionally compromised which clouds their judgment, so I guess this makes sense.
Fair point.
Some amount of that is literal psyops. Every major country is intentionally trying to cause at least some division in their geopolitical rivals. There’s also internal psyops where governments will try to fracture any movements that might cause political change. At a smaller level, there’s echo chambers built by people that are already sucked into an ideology, hoping to propagate that ideology. This recent thread that had simple biological truth downvoted to hell is an example:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/50387688/22307005
All in all it’s not new though, it’s just gotten more efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism is one example of how it’s always been this way. Isaac Asimov also had a pithy quote:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
When you have your basic needs met and aren’t starving to death, you can afford to be irrational and embrace comforting lies. It’s just the human condition.
Is it less common than it used to be or are you just becoming more aware of it?
I feel it’s less common. I could be mistaken, but I don’t recall seeing it nearly as much as I have more recently.
