As you know, I've been shouting this message into the void for over 100 episodes of my show now. It's a very difficult message because, as normal humans, when we hear it, we immediately see it applying to others, to our adversaries, but we don't see it in ourselves, or in those "on our side". It's not like we actively block it out, it's just that our views makes so much sense to us, it's common sense, "how could anyone see it any other way" – we just assume we're saying something everyone else agrees with; and if they don't, there's something wrong with "them". I always hope that events like these can wake us up. I think Charlie Kirk’s murder does tell us something deeply meaningful about our country: that things are too hot and we need to lower the temperature and find an "US" in the U.S. even with our differences.
Thanks for the article. I mostly agree. A few comments...
First... "the other side is always to blame".
Yes, this is a very sad dynamic to watch unfold. In the Charlie Kirk killing, it has been pretty clear that Tyler Robinson was very probably driven by left wing concerns and killed Kirk because of Kirk's organizing against trans causes. Instead of acknowledging this and moving on to a balanced discussion of how we reduce political violence generally, it became very popular on the left in social media to share memes trying to prove he is actually super far right (likely fueled by Russian social media interference). While some are now trying to pivot to " well, even if he had left wing thoughts recently, he's a product of right wing gun culture", others are still trying to push this. By denying even the possibility that maybe sometimes one's own "side" is the problem, first, one sets up the wrong argument and second, one sets oneself up to lose that argument if the objective is to be convincing to people outside of one's identity group, rather than virtue signal within one's group. (the better argument would be evidence based reasoning about relative frequencies of ideological violence by ideology ... the subject of a recent blog post of mine)
The way i have been describing this for years is that people in an emotionally activated, defensive identity group tend to represent the most dysfunctional and extreme versions of "the others" as representative of the others, while simultaneously downplaying or denying the existence of the worst and most dysfunctional versions of their own "side". this denial is usually transparently obvious to anyone outside the identity group, making the identity group appear less trustworthy to those outside of it... both those in some polarized "other" group and simply those non-aligned, center, etc..
Second... keeping score
On the one hand, i definitely agree that keeping score as in a game where one is trying to win is dysfunctional to say the least. That said, i think it is important to see where politically motivated and hate driven violence is coming from so we can design effective interventions to decrease it. If we are going to do that, we need to get into the details. (again, subject of my recent blog)
third... political violence is rare.
yes and no. I actually have a graphic on this in my blog which starkly shows the "yes" part. looked at in the overall context of homicides in the US, hate crime and politically motivated homicide is almost invisible.
The no part is that it does have outsized effects on politics and so the comparison to other forms of violence is not necessarily the right contextualization. If the fear is for personal safety, sure, but if the concern is the effect on political dialogue and open discourse, it gest more complicated.
fourth... the US as an exceptionally peaceful place. That entirely depends on to what one compares it. For a wealthy country, the US is a very violent place. Several US cities, like New Orleans, are actually more dangerous to live in, with higher death-by-violence rates than Kharkiv, near the front of the war in Ukraine, despite the regular drone and missile attacks (I did the calculation a few weeks ago). I think this is actually an important part of the discussion on ideologically driven violence... that it is at least in part a symptom of wider issues of violence in the US. (at some point i'd like to see a comparison of countries with ratio of hate crime violence to violence overall)
Please have a look at www.realdialogue.org because we offer a free course (that includes APA-approved credit for CE for mental health professionals) on this very topic of polarization. Yes, the problems are emotional entanglement and it is universal because human infants have to learn to take “emotional control” of their caregivers or they won’t survive. Before language or culture affect us, all of us learn how to get our needs met emotionally and we have the deeply felt experience that “I need you to do what I need right now” and then, in adulthood, a majority of people remain at an adolescent level of development, needing group identification and approval to thrive — they will do whatever their echo chamber says because they identify with the echo chamber for security. And yet, humans can also learn from their self-awareness. At the Center for Real Dialogue we teach a skill for speaking and listening that lowers emotional threat levels while allowing people to speak freely and authentically. It works! Polarization and repetitive conflict undermine trust at home, at work and in the world. Most people have no skill for breaking through and many nations and large corporations are happy to trigger polarization in small groups to keep people fighting about small potatoes while distracting them from larger schemes that run against our interests. If we don’t stop the polarization, it will undermine civilization on many levels, and potentially lead to much more dangerous situations than we are now in. Continue your good work and check in on The Center for Real Dialogue.
Human beings have a compulsion to be part of groups and then blend in. That’s often beneficial to our species. Not always, as we see iwhen it results in binary thinking.
When we become aware of our unconscious group-based reactions, we have the power to return to equanimity and resourcefulness.
As you know, I've been shouting this message into the void for over 100 episodes of my show now. It's a very difficult message because, as normal humans, when we hear it, we immediately see it applying to others, to our adversaries, but we don't see it in ourselves, or in those "on our side". It's not like we actively block it out, it's just that our views makes so much sense to us, it's common sense, "how could anyone see it any other way" – we just assume we're saying something everyone else agrees with; and if they don't, there's something wrong with "them". I always hope that events like these can wake us up. I think Charlie Kirk’s murder does tell us something deeply meaningful about our country: that things are too hot and we need to lower the temperature and find an "US" in the U.S. even with our differences.
you either recognize that Trump injects violence into our politics with his hatred (it’s fascism duh) or you don’t.
Thanks for the article. I mostly agree. A few comments...
First... "the other side is always to blame".
Yes, this is a very sad dynamic to watch unfold. In the Charlie Kirk killing, it has been pretty clear that Tyler Robinson was very probably driven by left wing concerns and killed Kirk because of Kirk's organizing against trans causes. Instead of acknowledging this and moving on to a balanced discussion of how we reduce political violence generally, it became very popular on the left in social media to share memes trying to prove he is actually super far right (likely fueled by Russian social media interference). While some are now trying to pivot to " well, even if he had left wing thoughts recently, he's a product of right wing gun culture", others are still trying to push this. By denying even the possibility that maybe sometimes one's own "side" is the problem, first, one sets up the wrong argument and second, one sets oneself up to lose that argument if the objective is to be convincing to people outside of one's identity group, rather than virtue signal within one's group. (the better argument would be evidence based reasoning about relative frequencies of ideological violence by ideology ... the subject of a recent blog post of mine)
The way i have been describing this for years is that people in an emotionally activated, defensive identity group tend to represent the most dysfunctional and extreme versions of "the others" as representative of the others, while simultaneously downplaying or denying the existence of the worst and most dysfunctional versions of their own "side". this denial is usually transparently obvious to anyone outside the identity group, making the identity group appear less trustworthy to those outside of it... both those in some polarized "other" group and simply those non-aligned, center, etc..
Second... keeping score
On the one hand, i definitely agree that keeping score as in a game where one is trying to win is dysfunctional to say the least. That said, i think it is important to see where politically motivated and hate driven violence is coming from so we can design effective interventions to decrease it. If we are going to do that, we need to get into the details. (again, subject of my recent blog)
third... political violence is rare.
yes and no. I actually have a graphic on this in my blog which starkly shows the "yes" part. looked at in the overall context of homicides in the US, hate crime and politically motivated homicide is almost invisible.
The no part is that it does have outsized effects on politics and so the comparison to other forms of violence is not necessarily the right contextualization. If the fear is for personal safety, sure, but if the concern is the effect on political dialogue and open discourse, it gest more complicated.
fourth... the US as an exceptionally peaceful place. That entirely depends on to what one compares it. For a wealthy country, the US is a very violent place. Several US cities, like New Orleans, are actually more dangerous to live in, with higher death-by-violence rates than Kharkiv, near the front of the war in Ukraine, despite the regular drone and missile attacks (I did the calculation a few weeks ago). I think this is actually an important part of the discussion on ideologically driven violence... that it is at least in part a symptom of wider issues of violence in the US. (at some point i'd like to see a comparison of countries with ratio of hate crime violence to violence overall)
https://open.substack.com/pub/karlfrost/p/ideologically-driven-homicide-in
Please have a look at www.realdialogue.org because we offer a free course (that includes APA-approved credit for CE for mental health professionals) on this very topic of polarization. Yes, the problems are emotional entanglement and it is universal because human infants have to learn to take “emotional control” of their caregivers or they won’t survive. Before language or culture affect us, all of us learn how to get our needs met emotionally and we have the deeply felt experience that “I need you to do what I need right now” and then, in adulthood, a majority of people remain at an adolescent level of development, needing group identification and approval to thrive — they will do whatever their echo chamber says because they identify with the echo chamber for security. And yet, humans can also learn from their self-awareness. At the Center for Real Dialogue we teach a skill for speaking and listening that lowers emotional threat levels while allowing people to speak freely and authentically. It works! Polarization and repetitive conflict undermine trust at home, at work and in the world. Most people have no skill for breaking through and many nations and large corporations are happy to trigger polarization in small groups to keep people fighting about small potatoes while distracting them from larger schemes that run against our interests. If we don’t stop the polarization, it will undermine civilization on many levels, and potentially lead to much more dangerous situations than we are now in. Continue your good work and check in on The Center for Real Dialogue.
Human beings have a compulsion to be part of groups and then blend in. That’s often beneficial to our species. Not always, as we see iwhen it results in binary thinking.
When we become aware of our unconscious group-based reactions, we have the power to return to equanimity and resourcefulness.