Did everything used to be as extremist, hyperbolic and toxic?

[ATieLikeRichardGere]

Maybe I’ve got false nostalgia for a time that never existed, but it feels to me like narratives in public discourse are incredibly extreme and toxic these days. When I open up the news or social media it seems like everyone is constantly fuming and insulting one another, with a substantial dose of mutual cancellation and usually accompanied by advocating some extreme ideologies. Am I imagining this? What’s happening?

My theory is that humans are only capable of tolerating a certain amount of disagreement.

Throughout most of evolutionaty history human social cohesion was dependent on everyone in the tribe believing the same things and people who persistently went against thise beliefs would be cast out. Therefore humans expect and need a certain amount of consesus of opinion amongst their social circle or else they experience psychological stress that causes them to react wth anger and hostilty.

The problem with the internet and social media is that it exposes us to a far higher degree of conflicting opinion than we are able to cope with, and so lost of people end up being much more angry and polarised than they were before.

It was pretty unpleasant in the 1970s from what I remember.

Well I agree with a lot of this and I’m glad it’s not just me. It’s just so draining.

In reality in general people are far less political now than they were years ago - think of the 70's when trade union power was at its height or the 30's with the depression and the rise of the black shirts.

These involved protests involving 100 000's on a regular basis. Even the anti gulf war protest 15 years ago attracted 1m people

Social media means you hear and see the conversations that used to be held in the meetings of the committed and people who are not that bothered jump on bandwagons

We also have an extreme government at the moment and things are always more heated when that is the case.

As others have said, 24 hour news and social media.

People are free to spew out bigotry, intolerance and hate online while protected by anonymity from the consequences of their behaviour. They are able to get away with saying things which which would result in them being punched in real life.

You only have to read certain sections of MN to see this happening every day.

No, I don't think it did. I recently saw an explanation of a term 'a purity spiral' and have been musing on it on and off ever since.

I started the job I am in in 2016 (following 3 years of a similar one in the same field). I can definitely put some pins in the timeline since then in terms of rapidly changing bench marks and more relaxed cultures tensing up.

@Upamountain43 that's a good point. Some people think posting an opinion on Twitter is equal to activism.

Unfortunately, businesses and even perhaps the government seem to think that Twitter and social media are an indicator of what the majority of people are thinking and it's not. It's a case of a small minority who are shouting very loud and why people were surprised at the Brexit result and Corbyn losing the last election.

@AndreaMarteau

I agree OP. I blame social media. Everyone has opinion and whatever that opinion is, they're in the right and they now have a platform and they're going to use it. They have a 'you're either with us or against' mentality and it's not a right or left issue because both sides are as bad as each other. There's no nuance either.

I also agree it's got much, much worse lately, probably because most people are stuck inside so this is the only thing to focus on.

This. Also the constant issuing of 'death threats' is very concerning.

We are creating free content all the time - the platforms get to stay neutral (and non litigious).

One thing that always struck me is that all information is being viewed through a media lens. A mass media lens. That by definition sees things a particular way. Setting up a serious of intellectual positions from which to view other info (feminist perspective, Marxist perspective, for example) has meant things are presented as truthful when viewed from a certain angle. Online this theory got abstracted out and instead the position was presented as the gospel truth. A whole generation have been raised on it and in their insecurities are telling the whole world that they got the message. The internet is a mass distribution system but because any formality or organisation was seen as censorship or against the non hierarchical nature of the spirit of the net, no structure is allowed. This then means all views are equal, all noise is equal (because to a benign network it is).

Pushing content that is then copied, slightly altered and magnified, add in bots and then targeted at someone who has searched for a key word means we get a hugely distorted idea of the original content and size of it.

There is a whole field of information mgmt (taxonomies, ontologies, etc) that organised how information is best distributed in line with the integrity of open access but it wasn’t employed (as it takes a lot of work). It means we get the cheap stuff for free but in order to get the ad revenue it needs to be contentious enough to get lots of coverage (a bit like the tabloids). As more young people have been pushed into creating online jobs the template was set by a particularly antagonist identity that was designed to challenge the status quo/tradition but in this instance the tradition was actually sensible.

It’s also a distraction I imagine from all the dark, murky stuff underneath. Keep us indignant about slights and we don’t pay attention to the real changes happening.

🤪

Social media has a lot to answer for. The venom and hatred coming from some people on SM is just unbelievable.
Chill out people ✌️
Lots of nit picking, twisting of words. Also, when you write something in text/on SM you cannot get the tone of the ‘voice’ of the person writing it.

I don’t think it’s nostalgia. I remember in the 90s talking to a historian about the 1800-1820ish era and he said ‘it was a very polarised age’ and talked about how people were always accusing each other of being at the extreme and there was lots of personal invective in the public sphere. This feels a bit like that in some ways, not exactly of course but the idea is right that public discourse in different eras can be more or less aggressive and polarised and right now for a number of reasons it is very much so.

@PerspicaciousGreen

People have always been like this, it's just that now anyone can post anything for free on a worldwide forum instantly and anyone else can read it and post their opinion on it.

Before, you'd have to physically turn up at the WI coffee morning to hear everyone talking shit about each other and giving their nonsense opinions on stuff they know nothing about.

Look up Victorian murder reporting - the sensationalist tabloid made up crap of their day.

Human beings don't change.

^This. I read a book about the history of divorce in England between 1530 and 1987. Victorian newspapers eagerly reported any proceedings. A famous lawyer gave an elaborate account of his client in court and then fainted with enormity of it all. More recently, highly divisive issues like Enoch Powell's Rivers Of Blood speech, the 1984 Miner's strike, The Greenham Common protests etc have promoted vicious rhetoric on each side. If you really want to see vile hatred - have a look at some of the sectarian divides in Northern Ireland and Scotland. I am not casting aspersions upon anyone but we have a long history of hatred and vilification in these islands.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

But the internet is a completely different beast. We take it right into our personal, physical space. We take book and papers into that space but they are not ‘charged’ in the way a device is. I can’t be the only one who physically feels the tension and aggression behind the angry words?

There has been a history of gossip papers, paparazzi, society news, etc but it was carefully circulated - and whilst verbally gossip fed into an echo chamber it could be denied, argued against, etc. There is something fixed about online life and since it has been identified as a source for profit (often unregulated) it attracts much greater attention.

It was always there.

Its just that now social media amplifies it and brings people together in their mutual hatred.

It also presents the past, the future and the present into one single space that we engage with in an unusual way- in short, it’s too much information to deal with continuously without employing intellectual barriers, shortcuts and pauses in the way we traditionally approach large volumes of complex data and the attempt by people who understand this is challenged as reductive when actually it would bring clarity and meaning. Creating a one dimensional tool and feeding complex, multi dimensional material through it was always going to create a simplicity that was redundant.

(I am doing my thesis on Shannon’s theory of communication).

Suppose that's why the term "Keyboard warrior" was invented. Both bullying and activism can be conveniently done from the comfort of one's home - Tweet a few memes, share a few quotes, post a few opinions and SHOUT AS LOUD AS YOU CAN IN ALL CAPS with loads of exclamation marks thrown in!!!!!!!!

people.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf

I do think social media is a big problem. It polarises debate and seems to push people to the more extreme end of any issue.

I know it's tiresome, but the trans issue is the obvious example. Online it's no longer enough to be happy for people to live their lives as is best for them as long as they're not hurting others, you now have to believe that the biological sexes are a social construct and if you don't you're suspect. Social media has led to that.

People just end up shouting at each other across a wider and wider chasm, until people won't even condemn death threats against those they disagree with.

It also encourages the worst kind of one-upmanship around who is suffering more, which is incredibly unhealthy.

There's *a culture of your either with us or against us
*
That's hit the nail on the head.

No one seems to be able or accepted for having differing opinions on many differing things and those who speak a lot of sense on some topics and are great advocates in those topics don't seem to be able to accept people may disagree with other things they believe in and some people think if you critique a view that person holds you aren't a true supporter.

It's pretty much what happened with Piers Morgan.

YANBU. I think a number of things are terrifying. Polarised extreme views on SM and how this leaches out into the real world and changes policy. Cancel culture. Trial by social media is not a good way of running your justice system. The spread of lies and misinformation is terrifyingly easy.

On the other side is the fucking trigger warnings brigade. I am reasonably on board with a warning if you are going to discuss something particularly unpleasant or graphic but it's getting ridiculous now. In one FB group I am on someone was calling for a trigger warning when anyone mentioned dieting. And EVERYONE was agreeing. Because you know feelz! How do these people get through their day if they can't cope with people having very normal conversation. And since when did people get to ask everyone to consider that there might be something completely random that might upset them and to therefore warn everyone before they start speaking. Are they demanding work colleagues or friends provide a warning during normal speech. What is ridiculous is that avoidance (which is what this is) is actually very counterproductive to people's mental health so it's actually unhelpful. But we are all seemingly on board with avoiding accidentally hurting someone's feelings whatever the cost and whether it's logical/helpful to do so.

It all feels very repressive to me. And you can't get away from it yet by avoiding SM.

We also have an extreme government at the moment
@Upamountain43 if you think that this government is "extreme" then you have led a very sheltered life. Boris isn't Franco.

People are uninformed really - there is so much black and white media crap - people jump on usually the wokest one. Eg, Tories hate poor people, BLM etc etc
But in fact most things are nuanced in real life. But SM makes it one or the other. As does MN often.

Also meant to say that things should calm down post covid and lockdowns - when there are normal every day life events to discuss instead of clickbait.

@Sundances

Also meant to say that things should calm down post covid and lockdowns - when there are normal every day life events to discuss instead of clickbait.

Yes I think so, and when more of our interaction is back to RL instead of online.

Trial by social media is not a good way of running your justice system. The spread of lies and misinformation is terrifyingly easy

I agree