I can tolerate anything except the outgroup

Author:: slate star codex Link:: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ Tags:#media/article psychology group dynamics

• Summary::
  • easy to flip judgements based on your personal view of what is virtuous, better to have a consistent view. Easier to deride people who are close to you rather than people away from you or yourself
• notes::
  • from chesterton’s Secret of Father Brown, you need to be consistent in your virtues and forgiveness, antithesis is townspeople teeter between diff extremes
  • you have to forgive things that you are hurt by and think are wrong, if you think it’s ok you don’t have the right to forgive it

  • I think it’s fair to say you only earn the right to call yourself ‘forgiving’ if you forgive things that genuinely hurt you

  • Freud spoke of the narcissism of small differences, saying that “it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other”

    • like Rene girard and concept of closeness for role model
      • “When our role model is far away, we continually praise them and draw comparisons between ourselves and them whenever possible. But when our model is close – if they’re our peer, or coworker, our neighbour, or even a family member – we do the opposite. We desperately hide the fact that they are the model for our admiration and jealousy.” ^dSURhqtQ1
  • terms are overloaded to become code words for some specific subset of people

    • But I think the situation with “white” is much the same as the situation with “American” – it can either mean what it says, or be a code word for the Red Tribe.

    • american = red tribe
    • white people = red tribe
    • gamers = gray tribe