Thread by @normative

A good & thoughtful piece that reminds me a little of something I wrote ages ago about what I called the “those assholes” problem… And should probably rechristen something more genteel, like “The Identity Feedback Loop Problem” gawker.com/culture/identi…

The idea was that polarization, and the fear of either being mistaken for or lending support to the outgroup, undermines self-correction mechanisms that help protect groups from veering into extremism or being exploited by grifters.

So if you’re a decent person who recognizes that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc are serious problems to be fought, you have very little incentive to speak up about abuses of those values. You don’t want to bolster (or be mistaken for!) “those assholes”...

…who don’t even think those things are problems. But this creates a feedback loop: “those assholes” end up being the only people speaking up when someone invokes those values disingenuously or mistakenly, & you REALLY don’t want to be the outlier allying yourself with them...

Obviously you see the same dynamic on the right. If you break ranks, you’re helping the Left (and maybe even a secret Leftist, or at least angling for invites to semi-mythical Georgetown cocktail parties). Which is why a lot of people who manifestly knew better in 2016...

…ended up ultimately lining up behind Trump & being totally unwilling to critique the grifters in his orbit, even when they’re shamelessly fleecing other conservatives.

Everyone is very good at spotting this dynamic on the other side, but most of us are reluctant to acknowledge that every really large group—however good & right—is going to attract grifters & people who go off the rails, including yours. And that requires internal correction.

The right’s self-correction mechanisms are at this point so completely broken that it’s probably easier on the left to conclude it’s not a problem here, where they’re at least sort of functional by comparison.

Here’s the original post I was referencing at the start of the thread, from way back in 2015. juliansanchez.com/2015/01/27/cha…