Escaping the Echo Chamber

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting New York Times profile of a Smith professor:

"What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?: Prof. Loretta J. Ross is combating cancel culture with a popular class at Smith College."

Ross, described as a "radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades," teaches a class called White Supremacy in the Age of Trump. She advises enrolling students that "If you need a trigger warning or a safe space, I urge you to drop this class."

I was most interested by this point:

"Multiple studies ... have found that shaming can make people more resistant to change."

Here's how the article ends:

"'You can’t be responsible for someone else’s inability to grow,' Professor Ross said. 'So take comfort in the fact that you offered a new perspective of information and you did so with love and respect, and then you walk away.'

'We have a saying in the movement: Some people you can work with and some people you can work around. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that the calling-in practice means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back.'"

[N.E. Brigand]

Pretty much everyone is a historian of some sort.

Just sayin'.

Good point. We all of us convey our interpretation of past events to others.

[RoseMorninStar]

Interesting New York Times profile of a Smith professor:

"What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?: Prof. Loretta J. Ross is combating cancel culture with a popular class at Smith College."

Ross, described as a "radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades," teaches a class called White Supremacy in the Age of Trump. She advises enrolling students that "If you need a trigger warning or a safe space, I urge you to drop this class."

I was most interested by this point:

"Multiple studies ... have found that shaming can make people more resistant to change."

Here's how the article ends:

"'You can’t be responsible for someone else’s inability to grow,' Professor Ross said. 'So take comfort in the fact that you offered a new perspective of information and you did so with love and respect, and then you walk away.'

'We have a saying in the movement: Some people you can work with and some people you can work around. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that the calling-in practice means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back.'"

I saw this article in my newsfeed and passed it up (there is only so much reading I can do in a day!) but it sounds like it's worth the read. I especially like the bit about 'how the article ends'. Thanks!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Pretty much everyone is a historian of some sort.

How?

See N.E.B.'s post.

[Sunsilver]

"What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?: Prof. Loretta J. Ross is combating cancel culture with a popular class at Smith College."

That makes a lot of sense. Pete Seeger often quoted Edwin Markham's poem, Outwitted which sounds like it might be what the Times is quoting in the article title:

He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

[Inanna]

Pretty much everyone is a historian of some sort.

Just sayin'.

Good point. We all of us convey our interpretation of past events to others.

True.

[Frelga]

Pretty much everyone is a historian of some sort.

Just sayin'.

Good point. We all of us convey our interpretation of past events to others.

That is pretty much the opposite of what the historian is supposed to do.

[N.E. Brigand]

Pretty much everyone is a historian of some sort.
Just sayin'.

Good point. We all of us convey our interpretation of past events to others.

That is pretty much the opposite of what the historian is supposed to do.

I doubt there's any historian ever who didn't bring their personal perspective to their work. Is that even possible?

Just by choosing which sources to reference when covering a particular period or event, any given historian is omitting information that another historian may believe to be crucial to proper understanding of that subject.

Should historians try to recognize the limits of their perspective? Absolutely. And they should be as transparent as possible about their understanding of their own biases.

[N.E. Brigand]

An important New York Times story on the subject of bubbles:

Facebook struggles to balance civility and growth

(Some key excerpts are here for those who can't access the article.)

A sobering reminder about how much control of information is out of our hands. Repeatedly over the past year, I saw lists showing the sources of the day's top ten U.S. stories on Facebook, as measured by views and shares and so forth, and often the whole list was a combination of Fox News, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, Mark Levin, and so on: entirely conservative perspectives. Then a few days after the election, Facebook adjusted a filter that it already had in place that was designed to give more promotion to stories deemed high quality. While those sources still often provide a majority or plurality of the content, there seems be be a lot more CNN and NPR and New York Times in the top-ten lists since then.

Similarly Facebook made tools to inform users when they had shared false information and to reduce the amount of "hate bait," but when they tested these tools on select groups, they found that people used Facebook less often, i.e., that Facebook would make less money, so they never put those tools into widespread use.

Now it may be argued that this shows the problem is with the people not with the media they consume: they're just giving us what we want. And we're back to the Gollum and the Ring analogy I cited way back in the early pages of the Trump thread, three years ago or more.

[RoseMorninStar]

Does FB still post a news page? I thought they dropped that long ago.

[N.E. Brigand]

Does FB still post a news page? I thought they dropped that long ago.

I'm not on Facebook, so I don't know how it works.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm not generally a fan of New York Times columnist David Brooks, but I think there is some merit in this paragraph:

"What to do? You can't argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief. The only solution is to reduce the distust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it. And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree."

That said, it's not just people without college degrees who have bought into Trumpism.

And Mitch McConnell is likely to do everything he can to keep life from becoming more secure for the disadvantaged.

[Alatar]

Not sure how thats escaping the Echo Chamber NE?

[N.E. Brigand]

Not sure how thats escaping the Echo Chamber NE?

Sorry if I was unclear: Brooks, a conservative (but one who has rejected Trump), is addressing the stark divide between the two sides, and is pointing out what one shouldn't do (and he's not the first to say this) to bridge the gap: you can't throw facts at those who disagree with you. It doesn't work. When confronted with facts that undermine their deeply held beliefs, true believers only dig in more.

(And it can be seen on both the right and the left.)

[RoseMorninStar]

I read the full article. It is a good one. The problem it points out is that we're not dealing with just a difference of opinion in which there is an equity of (diverse) ideas in which it's possible to see the others point of view, even if you disagree. If one 'side' is divorced from reality and deals in delusion and misinformation it is what Brooks calls an "epistemological crisis". Interestingly he doesn't lean toward social media and the internet to blame but, although he doesn't quite say it in these terms, but the growing social and wealth inequality, if I understand him correctly.

[Frelga]

This reaction from Tom Nichols, a Project Lincoln adviser.

David Brooks is one of many columnists who is never going to admit that Trumpism was about cultural and social resentment, not about economic anxiety or “a sense of place” or the Forgotten Towns or any of the other bullshit rationalizations.

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status ... 27617?s=19

[RoseMorninStar]

This reaction from Tom Nichols, a Project Lincoln adviser.

David Brooks is one of many columnists who is never going to admit that Trumpism was about cultural and social resentment, not about economic anxiety or “a sense of place” or the Forgotten Towns or any of the other bullshit rationalizations.

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status ... 27617?s=19

The article does mention cultural and social resentment. What he fails to mention is the connection to racism/'otherism' and the willingness to believe in delusional conspiracies to justify it. The point of the article is that the divide is not about a difference of opinion or policy, it's that some have embraced ideas which are divorced from factual reality which allows for the embrace of anything, no matter how baseless or false. As the article states, " If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want." It would be like speaking to someone who has been brainwashed by a cult. One does not 'escape the echo chamber' in an attempt to meet someone half-way/understand their point of view by giving equal weight to ANY idea even if lacks basis in reality or is a conspiracy or delusion.

[Alatar]

I thought of posting this story last week and decided against it.

Here's the story as it ran on the 24th:
https://carlow-nationalist.ie/2020/11/2 ... ow-school/

I spoke to my kids about it to get their feedback. They are 22(F), 19(M) and 15(F) and they all were militantly offended. I then asked them if they felt there was a line to be drawn, as in, what if a female student wears a boob tube and hotpants to school. (We agreed that there isn't really a male equivalent unless you count Speedos in the pool). They said that the school had every right to enforce a dress code, but not to shame the girls or say that it made male Teachers uncomfortable, which we all agreed on. I was impressed that they could see both sides to the argument and that the problematic point was inappropriate comments, not the dress code.

Anyway, here's what I read today.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/educati ... -1.4419309

Social media has a lot to answer for.

[RoseMorninStar]

It's popular these days to blast 'Main Stream Media' but a good media source will do actual reporting prior to publishing, as the Irish Times did. One of the problems with social media is that there is no reporter checking the facts, no one getting statements from both sides. Many are too eager to see something 'go viral' and sometimes it's monetized. There is too much reward for sensationalism, notoriety, attention, being their own 'reality star'. It's very unfortunate.

Boob tube? That's what we sometimes call a television.

[Alatar]