Unnamed comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: Unnamed 30 August 2012 02:44:49AM 15 points [-]

I am thinking that one possible asymetry between "the left" and "the right" is that the former is a rather homogenous group, while the latter is heterogenous. [...] The left is a fuzzy blob in the concept-space, the right seems like a label for points outside of this blob.

Beware the out-group homogeneity effect. People tend to see their own group as more heterogeneous than other groups, as differences that look small from far away look bigger up close.

With left and right, I have also heard the exact opposite claim: that the "right" represents a narrower, more coherent group. In the US, the "right" is based in the dominant, mainstream social group (sometimes called "real America"), drawing disproportionately from people who are white, male, Christian, relatively well-off, straight, etc., while the "left" is a coalition of the various groups that are left out of "real America" for one reason or another. Alternatively, conservatives are the people who support the existing social order and want to keep things roughly how they are; liberals are the ones who want change - and there are more degrees of freedom in changing things than in keeping things the same.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 30 August 2012 01:57:15PM *  0 points [-]

Seems to me there could be a common pattern:

If a political group X, identified as A in {"left", "right"}, becomes very powerful in some era, the following things happen:

  • people see X as a prototype of A;
  • other A groups are seen like less successful variations of X; if that is impossible, the cognitive dissonance will be solved by reclassifying the incompatible group as non-A;
  • after a while X (and therefore A) becomes the default position for people who don't think too much about politics.

Later, when the political group X loses some power:

  • simple people still identify as X (A), which is reinforced by seeing the past with rose-colored glasses;
  • new opinions are automatically classified as non-A, because they don't pattern-match X;
  • therefore smart people begin to identify as non-A, to signal intellectual superiority and independent thinking.

In USA, X = Republican / religious right, and A = "right". In Eastern Europe, X = Communist, and A = "left".

This is very simplified, but it explains why sometimes the same person could self-identify as "left wing" in USA (to express their incompatibility with the religious right), and as "right wing" in Eastern Europe (to express their incompatibility with the communists). On the other hand, people mostly compatible with the religious right or with the communists can self-identify the same in both places.

In Eastern Europe the distinction between "support the traditional model" and "support change" is rather confused, because it is not clear whether the traditional refers to the era before the fall of communism, or to era even before the communists. In some sense, both religious right and communists are literally the conservative parties here.

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