Works for me – i thought this was a useful, thought-provoking article.
Interestingly ( and possibly because) it did not use the two things known to make me shout at the poor dog: (i) describing the death of the fentanyl criminal GF as a “horrific murder” (which his death was not, despite Chauvin’s hasty subsequent conviction) and (ii) describing the events of “1/6” as an “insurrection” (which they clearly weren’t). So as predicted by the article…..
I am from the other side, and I am happy with ‘Capitol riot’ too. But I would have gone for the ‘killing’ of George Floyd. Never mind ‘horrific’, of course, but what do you think this event was?
Who would choose these conditions for deliberately killing someone … in a public place, in broad daylight, in circumstances where identification is inescapable (police uniform, badge number, police car licence plates), while being filmed by bystanders, and recording the events on your own police-issue body-cam?
An equivalent subthread has disappeared from below the ‘Asians Education’ article. So, if anyone can answer it here:
Would you say that
The actions of Derek Chauvin were a normal and acceptable part of policing; not contributory to the death of George Floyd; something Chauvin and colleagues should do again if they get the chance?
Or that it was unacceptable police brutality, but that the death of the (yes, in this case) victim was completely unforeseeable?
As the same thing happened before, although as the dead man was white it wasn’t given so much coverage, it should have been forseen. However, I’m still not sure if it were murder; but I’m not au fait with the US system so it could be under their laws.
Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds:
Voluntary—Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
Involuntary—In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.
I’d be curious to see any of the US debaters comment if they think this definition does not apply.
Peter LR
2 years ago
This is a sound analysis. However, I’m not sure about this generalisation: “though this tribe can more easily accommodate cranks” referring to the Right. I thought this comment from a senior Left politician was really cranky: “if a man says he is a woman, he(sic) is a woman”. They couldn’t even unconfuse their pronouns.
Spiked Online is an interesting exception: they are all very much on the Left but end up speaking on the side of most of the viewpoints deemed of the Right. Does this not show the danger of binning common sense and rational thought; does no one possess these anymore?
I hope the general population is wising up to emotive media manipulation; leaving all the howling rage to those who have sacrificed their rationale on the altar of party political obedience.
Yes, it’s as if in the woke, cancel culture environment of the media you almost have to make some snide comment about the right just to keep your job.
Penny Adrian
2 years ago
Thank You for this. I am a lifelong progressive Democrat who recently quit the Democratic party and registered as an Independent.
This is largely because the Democrats no longer represent my values: they express contempt for Victims Rights; contempt for the police; contempt for free and open debate; contempt for those who care about ending sex trafficking; contempt for genetic women (which is NOT the same as caring about trans women); contempt for the “wrong” kind of poor people; and contempt for acknowledging poverty as an axis of oppression that cuts across race and gender lines.
The Democrats cannot win without “wine moms” like me (I don’t even drink wine but I’m a “wine mom” because of my age and race) so they’d better be more careful about the slurs they use against us. Many – like me – might just stop voting for them.
It’s rather like the Labour party no longer reflects my values, its use of divisive politics does nothing to address inequality of opportunities (note: not equity, you can only control inputs not outputs) and poverty, By dividing along racial and age lines you can avoid the economically disadvantaged, black/white, young/old etc., from making common cause, which is all to the good of the economic elte,
Me too! Liberal left South African woman here. Homeless now.
Andrea X
2 years ago
Very interesting, as always.
One point, you say (and I think it is you talking here),
“…an emerging tribal Right — … this tribe can more easily accommodate cranks and dissidents of all political persuasions —”
Does it really or have you yourself bought into the mechanisms you are trying to expose?
Yes. I loved the implicit association between ‘cranks and dissidents’. And the word ‘Right’ is meaningless, unless contextualised (cf. the all-too-ready assocation of ‘right-wing’ with ‘F*scist’).
Last edited 2 years ago by Arnold Grutt
Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
2 years ago
‘a corporate and political establishment aligned around enforcing curated, Left-wing patterns as the de facto consensus view of reality — one that combines a technocratic emphasis on “facts” and “science” with a tribal moral narrative about the existential threat posed by racists and white supremacists,…’
And yet this view of reality includes the denial of biological sex and the affirmation of gender self recognition – about as scientific and fact based as the assertion that the earth is flat.
I have concluded L is for deLuded and R for Realist.
Last edited 2 years ago by guadalv
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
But in the case of the truckers it seems pretty evident to anyone with an objective eye that the ‘far right’ are actually right and the Canadian government’s hysterical and authoritarian response is entirely disproportionate. This is not a case of ‘both sides are just as bad as each other (eye-roll)’ it is a very clear abuse of power against one’s own citizens who have EVERY RIGHT to object to actions that are affecting their lives and who have been ignored and slandered to the point that direct action was necessary. I can’t help but think there has been a distinct pattern emerging. Whenever the working classes stand up for themselves and don’t do as they are told they are demeaned and called every name under the sun to try and demoralise and squash them. Brexit. Trump supporters. The Gilets Jaunes. The Truckers. It’s the same pattern over and over.
Malcolm Knott
2 years ago
I can’t speak for the USA but in the UK the only place you are likely to encounter far-right extremists is in the comment pages of the Guardian – and of course on the BBC when it is striving for ‘balance.’ By way of contrast, far-left extremists and their fellow travellers are with us here and now, in flesh and blood, far too numerous and often far too powerful. These are the people who can – and do – deprive other men and women of their living for daring to utter biological facts or declining to utter biological falsehoods.
When I read about Left-wing patterns of thought emphasising “facts” and “science” I reach for my ‘O’ level biology textbook to remind myself what it says about males and females.
Last edited 2 years ago by Malcolm Knott
Kiat Huang
2 years ago
The presumption that “Twitter forced us to hate” is simply wrong. It is that institutions (Media, Gov, Businesses, Tech, NGOs) have accepted Twitter as the #1 bellweather of their particular constituents or the communities they want to “reach”, adopt or not offend.
It is the institutional acceptance that then feeds the regurgitated Twitter angst back at us, into a continuous, escalating feedback loop. The effect is that small numbers of Twitter users (in the USA 90% of all tweets are produced by just 10% of users) can get their cause amplified so that it seems that more people care about it than they really do. It is why “woke” activism pays off on Twitter. It turns marginal issues into public ones.
But Twitter is intrinsically nothing new – before it, the internet had bulletin boards and forums, but as they dwelt before the smartphone became ubiquitous with its camera, apps and internet – they had limited use and missed a generation. There was the same hotbed of opinions, activism and reaction to news – but it had to wait until you got on your PC or laptop and the masses, the public, simply didn’t know about it or weren’t interested and neither were the institutions.
Twitter made institutions pay attention, take notice and adapt their way of reacting to the world around them. It helped that the social media professionals were, by and large, left-leaning millennials mirroring the early adopters before Twitter became very mainstream (the average age of US Twitter users is now almost 40 years old).
I rest my case . What say you? Do you have an alternative theory in mind?
Jean Nutley
2 years ago
I have to take issue with the headline to this article. Twitter cannot force anyone to do anything, but perhaps it can enable hatred or any other emotion to become entrenched. Like minds seek out other like minds, so can convince each other that their hatred is righteous, even when it isn’t!
Dick Illyes
2 years ago
Confirmation of the insights set out by Martin Gurri in his The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Most Unherd readers would find him interesting.
Humans will find ways to deal with what this explosion of technology has brought. I hope it brings a desire to apply basic simple ideas such as non-aggression.
My favorite version says that to have the best possible human society, no one should initiate force against another, or deceive them so that they do something they would not otherwise do.
The proper role of government is preventing force and fraud.
Beyond this government itself becomes the problem.
Lee Patterson
2 years ago
Excellent article, thank you. While I agree with much of the analysis, I have reservations concerning the conceptual context which gives that analysis its frame of reference. So, although it’s beyond dispute that Twitter (and other popular social media platforms) create echo chambers that isolate cultural factions and render them unable to understand each other’s world views, I think you vastly oversimplify the groupings into tribal factions.
The obvious example is your adoption of the threadbare dichotomy of Left vs Right. This distinction may have been useful, as a convenient approximation, at some time in the past. Now, however, it rarely achieves better than 50/50 accuracy, with regard to predicting many substantive policy positions. Consider environment, free speech, women’s rights, law & order … on and on. Sure, there are a small handful of issues that typically follow the legacy faultlines such as abortion, gun control (at least in the US), concerns over social programs. But even within these reliably left-right bellwethers, the dividing lines are splintering.
When you relinquish reliance on rigid presumptions of allegiance along traditional, clearcut divides like Left and Right, you start to see new patterns forming. The most striking aspect of these patterns is their complexity. And that observation fits remarkably well with your central thesis: the fractures are driven largely be social media. The big difference is that they are fracturing along new and unfamiliar fault lines.
One example is gaming culture and, perhaps, technology-centric sympathies more broadly, including fascination with crypto currencies.
It’s tempting to fall into another popular way to dichotomize, by pointing to a new “elite class,” significantly defined by educational achievements. But this also seems too simple, as there is no shortage of freshly-minted lawyers and doctors, eager to occupy all kinds of ideological niches.
Everywhere we turn in this brave new world, complexity has swallowed the old order and we scramble to discern a new simulacrum of sanity. So, it’s no surprise that we find ourselves aligning with increasing passion to groups with whom we feel some degree of understanding, allegiance, and some poor substitute for community.
It’s also not surprising that the new sociocultural contours resemble the old as little as Twitter resembles the daily paper.
Works for me – i thought this was a useful, thought-provoking article.
Interestingly ( and possibly because) it did not use the two things known to make me shout at the poor dog: (i) describing the death of the fentanyl criminal GF as a “horrific murder” (which his death was not, despite Chauvin’s hasty subsequent conviction) and (ii) describing the events of “1/6” as an “insurrection” (which they clearly weren’t). So as predicted by the article…..
I am from the other side, and I am happy with ‘Capitol riot’ too. But I would have gone for the ‘killing’ of George Floyd. Never mind ‘horrific’, of course, but what do you think this event was?
I don’t think it was a deliberate ‘killing’
Indeed.
Who would choose these conditions for deliberately killing someone … in a public place, in broad daylight, in circumstances where identification is inescapable (police uniform, badge number, police car licence plates), while being filmed by bystanders, and recording the events on your own police-issue body-cam?
I think ‘death in custody’ is the most appropriate term
An equivalent subthread has disappeared from below the ‘Asians Education’ article. So, if anyone can answer it here:
Would you say that
As the same thing happened before, although as the dead man was white it wasn’t given so much coverage, it should have been forseen. However, I’m still not sure if it were murder; but I’m not au fait with the US system so it could be under their laws.
Indeed. I’d call it manslaughter and have done with it, but some of our fellow commenators seem to object to that.
Manslaughter is my take on this and also that of a solicitor friend, but that’s in the UK.
From Cornell law school, Legal Information Institute.
Sounds about right to me. But anyway we agree about the concept – UK manslaughter. The rest is a question of US semantics.
I’d be curious to see any of the US debaters comment if they think this definition does not apply.
This is a sound analysis. However, I’m not sure about this generalisation: “though this tribe can more easily accommodate cranks” referring to the Right. I thought this comment from a senior Left politician was really cranky: “if a man says he is a woman, he(sic) is a woman”. They couldn’t even unconfuse their pronouns.
Spiked Online is an interesting exception: they are all very much on the Left but end up speaking on the side of most of the viewpoints deemed of the Right. Does this not show the danger of binning common sense and rational thought; does no one possess these anymore?
I hope the general population is wising up to emotive media manipulation; leaving all the howling rage to those who have sacrificed their rationale on the altar of party political obedience.
Your last paragraph neatly sums up exactly why there are no statesmen left. Woke cancel culture has destroyed integrity, and honest speech.
Yes, it’s as if in the woke, cancel culture environment of the media you almost have to make some snide comment about the right just to keep your job.
Thank You for this. I am a lifelong progressive Democrat who recently quit the Democratic party and registered as an Independent.
This is largely because the Democrats no longer represent my values: they express contempt for Victims Rights; contempt for the police; contempt for free and open debate; contempt for those who care about ending sex trafficking; contempt for genetic women (which is NOT the same as caring about trans women); contempt for the “wrong” kind of poor people; and contempt for acknowledging poverty as an axis of oppression that cuts across race and gender lines.
The Democrats cannot win without “wine moms” like me (I don’t even drink wine but I’m a “wine mom” because of my age and race) so they’d better be more careful about the slurs they use against us. Many – like me – might just stop voting for them.
It’s rather like the Labour party no longer reflects my values, its use of divisive politics does nothing to address inequality of opportunities (note: not equity, you can only control inputs not outputs) and poverty, By dividing along racial and age lines you can avoid the economically disadvantaged, black/white, young/old etc., from making common cause, which is all to the good of the economic elte,
Well said.
You’re not the only one. Ex Labour and Remain voter here. Now considered far right scum LOL
Me too. There are many of us.
Me too. I experienced great guilt when I voted for neither party in the last election but now I am much more aware of policies and guilt free.
And count me in as well. Politically active for a lifetime, now politically homeless.
Me too! Liberal left South African woman here. Homeless now.
Very interesting, as always.
One point, you say (and I think it is you talking here),
“…an emerging tribal Right — … this tribe can more easily accommodate cranks and dissidents of all political persuasions —”
Does it really or have you yourself bought into the mechanisms you are trying to expose?
Yes. I loved the implicit association between ‘cranks and dissidents’. And the word ‘Right’ is meaningless, unless contextualised (cf. the all-too-ready assocation of ‘right-wing’ with ‘F*scist’).
‘a corporate and political establishment aligned around enforcing curated, Left-wing patterns as the de facto consensus view of reality — one that combines a technocratic emphasis on “facts” and “science” with a tribal moral narrative about the existential threat posed by racists and white supremacists,…’
And yet this view of reality includes the denial of biological sex and the affirmation of gender self recognition – about as scientific and fact based as the assertion that the earth is flat.
I have concluded L is for deLuded and R for Realist.
But in the case of the truckers it seems pretty evident to anyone with an objective eye that the ‘far right’ are actually right and the Canadian government’s hysterical and authoritarian response is entirely disproportionate. This is not a case of ‘both sides are just as bad as each other (eye-roll)’ it is a very clear abuse of power against one’s own citizens who have EVERY RIGHT to object to actions that are affecting their lives and who have been ignored and slandered to the point that direct action was necessary. I can’t help but think there has been a distinct pattern emerging. Whenever the working classes stand up for themselves and don’t do as they are told they are demeaned and called every name under the sun to try and demoralise and squash them. Brexit. Trump supporters. The Gilets Jaunes. The Truckers. It’s the same pattern over and over.
I can’t speak for the USA but in the UK the only place you are likely to encounter far-right extremists is in the comment pages of the Guardian – and of course on the BBC when it is striving for ‘balance.’ By way of contrast, far-left extremists and their fellow travellers are with us here and now, in flesh and blood, far too numerous and often far too powerful. These are the people who can – and do – deprive other men and women of their living for daring to utter biological facts or declining to utter biological falsehoods.
When I read about Left-wing patterns of thought emphasising “facts” and “science” I reach for my ‘O’ level biology textbook to remind myself what it says about males and females.
The presumption that “Twitter forced us to hate” is simply wrong. It is that institutions (Media, Gov, Businesses, Tech, NGOs) have accepted Twitter as the #1 bellweather of their particular constituents or the communities they want to “reach”, adopt or not offend.
It is the institutional acceptance that then feeds the regurgitated Twitter angst back at us, into a continuous, escalating feedback loop. The effect is that small numbers of Twitter users (in the USA 90% of all tweets are produced by just 10% of users) can get their cause amplified so that it seems that more people care about it than they really do. It is why “woke” activism pays off on Twitter. It turns marginal issues into public ones.
But Twitter is intrinsically nothing new – before it, the internet had bulletin boards and forums, but as they dwelt before the smartphone became ubiquitous with its camera, apps and internet – they had limited use and missed a generation. There was the same hotbed of opinions, activism and reaction to news – but it had to wait until you got on your PC or laptop and the masses, the public, simply didn’t know about it or weren’t interested and neither were the institutions.
Twitter made institutions pay attention, take notice and adapt their way of reacting to the world around them. It helped that the social media professionals were, by and large, left-leaning millennials mirroring the early adopters before Twitter became very mainstream (the average age of US Twitter users is now almost 40 years old).
I rest my case . What say you? Do you have an alternative theory in mind?
I have to take issue with the headline to this article. Twitter cannot force anyone to do anything, but perhaps it can enable hatred or any other emotion to become entrenched. Like minds seek out other like minds, so can convince each other that their hatred is righteous, even when it isn’t!
Confirmation of the insights set out by Martin Gurri in his The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Most Unherd readers would find him interesting.
Humans will find ways to deal with what this explosion of technology has brought. I hope it brings a desire to apply basic simple ideas such as non-aggression.
My favorite version says that to have the best possible human society, no one should initiate force against another, or deceive them so that they do something they would not otherwise do.
The proper role of government is preventing force and fraud.
Beyond this government itself becomes the problem.
Excellent article, thank you. While I agree with much of the analysis, I have reservations concerning the conceptual context which gives that analysis its frame of reference. So, although it’s beyond dispute that Twitter (and other popular social media platforms) create echo chambers that isolate cultural factions and render them unable to understand each other’s world views, I think you vastly oversimplify the groupings into tribal factions.
The obvious example is your adoption of the threadbare dichotomy of Left vs Right. This distinction may have been useful, as a convenient approximation, at some time in the past. Now, however, it rarely achieves better than 50/50 accuracy, with regard to predicting many substantive policy positions. Consider environment, free speech, women’s rights, law & order … on and on. Sure, there are a small handful of issues that typically follow the legacy faultlines such as abortion, gun control (at least in the US), concerns over social programs. But even within these reliably left-right bellwethers, the dividing lines are splintering.
When you relinquish reliance on rigid presumptions of allegiance along traditional, clearcut divides like Left and Right, you start to see new patterns forming. The most striking aspect of these patterns is their complexity. And that observation fits remarkably well with your central thesis: the fractures are driven largely be social media. The big difference is that they are fracturing along new and unfamiliar fault lines.
One example is gaming culture and, perhaps, technology-centric sympathies more broadly, including fascination with crypto currencies.
It’s tempting to fall into another popular way to dichotomize, by pointing to a new “elite class,” significantly defined by educational achievements. But this also seems too simple, as there is no shortage of freshly-minted lawyers and doctors, eager to occupy all kinds of ideological niches.
Everywhere we turn in this brave new world, complexity has swallowed the old order and we scramble to discern a new simulacrum of sanity. So, it’s no surprise that we find ourselves aligning with increasing passion to groups with whom we feel some degree of understanding, allegiance, and some poor substitute for community.
It’s also not surprising that the new sociocultural contours resemble the old as little as Twitter resembles the daily paper.