the contagion of outrage: outside influences, part 2

[dichroic]

This is the second part of me maundering on about how my feelings and opinions are affected by discussion online. In the first part I talked about how sometimes I get too affected by other people’s discussions of their very real problems, like a medical student with hypochondria. That is entirely my own problem. Not only do I not want other people

Comments

[sartorias]

In total agreement here.

[sartorias]

(And yes on Rowling--Voldemort seemed Standard Bad Guy, but Umbridge was truly scary.)

[joycemocha]

The psychology of mobbing doesn't necessarily know a particular ethos. I totally agree with what you've said here, including the part about Umbridge.

FYI, I've friended you...thanks for the excellent analysis.

[asakiyume]

Here via Sartorias. Very interested in your thoughts here.

A few things I've observed when these eruptions of outrage occur are (a) a jump to extremes in criticism and accusations (b) a battle over who has been more wronged, in the situation, and (c) attempts to understand a diverging mindset being seen as a bad thing.

[dichroic]

b) there seems to be particularly pernicious. "But this group wasn't nearly as bad as that group!" is no excuse for the first group's behavior. a) and c) may be part of a general tendency to try to understand everything in terms of absolute black and white, and that probably contributes to the whole defensive mindset - when you have someone who is trying to make a nuanced point and they immediately get shoved into the same box as extremists on one side or the other, it makes it impossible to find common ground or have much discussion beyond name-calling.

[skogkatt]

Hey, would you mind if I link to this from the Outer Alliance blog?

[dichroic]

No, go ahead; my general theory is that f I post in public it's open to be quoted (preferably with attribution!) or linked by anyone who wants to