Thursday, March 01, 2018
Semi-semi
Semi-formed thought, seems semi-valid.
Everyone assumes that group membership works only one way: You automatically favor members of your group and hate others.
This is true in high-pressure situations, real or fake. When bullies or enemy armies attack, our natural tendency is to defend our own tribe. When Deepstate creates fake pressure by cultivating two oppositely charged groups to weaken the Deplorables (eg Christians vs Muslims or Antifa vs "alt-right"), each group responds by defending its own.
But this is NOT true when the pressure is off. In situations where rationality can reach the surface, we tend to be HARDER on members of our own group.
I noticed this sharply a few years ago in jury service. Most of the 12 people had no particular connection to either the plaintiffs or the defendant. I was similar in some ways to the defendant, so I found myself treating him more harshly than the rest. One young woman was similar to the plaintiffs. Same lifestyle, same habits. She was prone to disbelieve their claims because she understood how things work in that part of the culture.
In both cases the attitude was more or less "I can do this without going off the deep end. Why can't you?"
Now I'm seeing the same distaste for betrayal among the rapture visionaries. The white ones are harder on Antichrist Trump, the black ones are harder on Antichrist Obama.
When you know what someone is thinking and feeling, you also know when they ought to do the right thing. When you're looking at an unfamiliar creature, you're less likely to apply the ought, more likely to impute external causes for their bad behavior.
Labels: Asked and badly answered
¶ 1:12 AM
