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[sebastian_dangerfield]

You recommended a book. I said, what does it say? You pointed me to that article, for which thank you, except that I really can't tell from that article what the book is about, because the article is, as you say, word salad.

It gave you the nine main points of the book. You've more than adequate intelligence to catch the drift of them while ignoring the blog author's editorializing.

I don't know whether I like it or not because I still don't understand what the point is.

Here's another article that works pretty much as a Cliff's Notes of the book: https://heterodoxacademy.org/coddlin...american-mind/

Maybe you missed it, but I referred to both-sidesism because that author (not you) literally said "both sides" were doing something.

And I commented on your doing so because you do so so often it's almost a shock when you don't.

I don't have any problem with the idea that there are phenomena that cut across both major political parties. For example, I just posted in this thread about the way that changes in publishing technology have resulted it epistemic foreclosure.

That said, it seems foolish to me to insist that both sides are equivalent in some important way, because they representing different parts of society and tend to act and be affected in different ways. For example, with regard to the changes in publishing technology that I described, conservatives tend to feel unrepresented in the mainstream media in ways that liberals do not, and tend to have more access to ideologically aligned sources of capital, and so they have created conservative media institutions that parallel the mainstream in ways that liberals have not (the Washington Times, Fox News, etc.). When liberals have tried this, it hasn't worked (Air America).

If conservatives have created a conservative media similar in influence to that of the mainstream media, and the mainstream media trends left, and the conservative media trends right, then there's equivalence.

You might say the mainstream media does not trend left. This is incorrect. Even mainstream media people will admit it does. And a cursory search of honest articles on the subject acknowledge the fact. (That the mainstream media pays enormous attention to Trump does not refute this. The attention it pays to him is almost exclusively in the form of criticism.)

You might say the right wing media has a disproportionate effect because it nakedly lies, while the mainstream media does not. There, you'd be correct. But the right wing media is much smaller than the mainstream media, so any enhanced influence it gains from peddling propaganda is met if not overcome by the mainstream's much broader reach. Also, the propaganda only works on the right wing base. It actually precludes the right wing media from gaining a bigger audience, as moderates and intellectually honest conservatives and independents find it distasteful.

For this reasons, arguments that "both sides" do something are usually an effort to absolve one side by suggesting that whatever they're doing is ubiquitous, and/or an effort to signaling centrist virtue. Or both! How can you tell which? Sometimes the preening gives it away.

It is ubiquitous. The extreme left and right are both refusing to live in a factual world.

If everything is a game, then the value of pointing out that people are playing a game is nil.

Some people, apparently you included, think there's significant earnestness among the advocates of the extreme left (and perhaps the right). I think that applies to some of them, but not to the people who are shaping and pushing the agendas of these groups. They are gamers.

It's a useless and stupid thing to say. There are liberals and conservatives, and there are people who are deluded and there liars. So what? That .ppt slide has zero explanatory power.

The usefulness of it was in describing both groups in total. Again, you seemed to be arguing there's a significant amount of earnestness behind the extreme left's anti-speech behaviors. I see very little of it. I see lying by refusing to allow any discussion that might refute their narrative and delusion (to earnestly align hard right or left, one has to be delusional).

No, it's not true that both are lying. Accusing some There certainly are instances where people use claims of bigotry to shut down discussions, but even in that case it's really a form of ad hominem attack rather than lying. Which is to say, it's different.

If you use an ad hominem as the left and right do, you are trying to avoid having a discussion on merit for a reason. that reason is because you fear you may not be able to sustain your argument on the merits. You are precluding the uncovering of a weakness in your position. Perhaps that's not lying. Maybe there's another word for it. But it shares 99% of the same DNA with a lie.

Moreover, it's certainly not the case that any responsive claim of prejudice is an ad hominem attack that is an effort to avoid a conversation. I will give you an example, one you know well. When Ezra Klein said to Sam Harris, if you're going to talk about Charles Murray's ideas, you really need to acknowledge and discuss the racial context. There are people who try to silence Murray, but that is not what Klein was doing. Rather than avoid a conversation, he engaged in a lengthy debate with Sam Harris, which is the opposite of refusing to engage.

I would not place Klein in the category of the extreme left. I believe he engages in some sophistry here and there, but I'd never lump him in with people who wish to live in their own narratives and ignore facts which they dislike.

You could be understood as suggesting that any claim of prejudice that doesn't start a conversation is necessarily poor or intentionally bad reasoning. I don't think you mean that. You could think I mean that any claim of prejudice is necessarily made in good faith and is inherently not poor or intentionally bad reasoning, but obviously I don't mean that either. So I'm not sure what your point is.

My point there was simple. You asserted that the people who were seeking to squelch debate were merely "insisting [things be considered] in a broader context." The people on the right and left which Haidt assesses are not doing that. At all.

This idea that Trumpian gaslighting is somehow similar to political correctness -- I think that's what you mean -- is totally nutso. You should explain that one.

Sure. Political correctness demands that people not say certain things that, even though factual, are deemed hurtful, impolite, or would undo certain academic views of how society should be arranged. This precludes a full view of reality. Trump just flat out bullshits. His reality is not reality. But neither is the reality political correctness seeks to mold. In both cases, you're not seeing What Is Actual. That Trump's lies are truly in bad faith and more absurd than many PC lies doesn't change the fact: Both revel in the non-factual. In the end, bullshit's bullshit, however you get there. And it's all bad.