| curl-6 said: The results showed that the views of those on the left were closely clustered, those on the right were more varied and included a wider range of beliefs and attitudes. |
Well, I have theories. Social media kinda fostered a way of developing a 'one true truth', and any deviation leads to group exclusion. This was generally more a right-wing thing in the past, for instance church had people excluded even on slight disagreements.
| Tober said: Not surprising. From a historic perspective the political left is more keen to emphasize the group, where the political right emphasizes the individual. |
What do you talk about? Historically the left is anti-authoritarian and that lead to massive splintering in many, many groups. Histroically (and that was in my lifetime as I am a bit older), it is said that the right collects the big man that shows the way, while the left is split in 100 groups and political parties, fighting with each other. The massive alignment of leftist groups is a pretty new thing and seems for me strongly connected to social media, which allowed to finetune ideas into a whole and easily find people disagreeing on even one point and excluding them.
| SeaDaVie said: That’s because most things that leftwing people believe in are actual facts and basic truths, and there can’t be much deviation on that. Like if you believe in climate change then believe in climate change. If you believe in equality then you believe in equality for all, no exceptions but the biases and intolerances of the right are many and varied(some dislike foreigners but are ok with gays, some despise both, some just hate Jews, some are even relatively tolerant and just believe in traditional conservative values in relation to things like government size and tax). The right encompasses the traditional fiscal conservatives, the religious extreme, the religious moderates, the conspiracy theorists, poor rural people that believe electing billionaires will be good for them etc. |
Nah, this is a general error of thinking facts and science are determining politics. They never did and never do. Science describes the world as it is, politics is about shaping the world the way you want it to be. In the past often the right used this fallacy, talking about the *natural* way or whatever.
But we have to understand that different politics doesn't spring (mostly) from differences in understanding the world, but from differences in the goal on how the world should be. Facts can only help us decide if certain policies are *useful* and *effective* to reach that goal. Which currently the left is getting worse at. One example: there currently is a strong believe in the left that language and speech has major influence. Science is very reluctant here and doesn't really support this, at least not in the degree that many on the left claim it is. So, following the science would mean that all efforts to shape language in an attempt to shape society would be deemed ineffective policy and we should move to different policies. But I don't see the current left finding that conclusion (the left I remember from the 90s scoffed at the idea and wanted material change instead).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmZdGo6b5yA
So no, the left and the right are using science and facts the same way: emphasizing which fits their worldwiev, twisting or ignoring what doesn't.
