How Should We Respond to Foreign Attempts at Sowing Discord and Violence

Thanks, vman. Please understand that I do not promote stopping or censoring speech. Like you say, censoring speech becomes a problem and gets at the heart of the 1 A. I also agree that limiting or controlling the volume and quality of information in not really a fix. It could be a short-lived fix in that if we turned off the internet and all the radio and television broadcasters--basically all sources of information, it would stop our exposure to most all information. But, as I said, it would be temporary, and not effective enough to call it a solution. And yes, the virtual wall is self censoring and should be something we work against.

As I see it, we need to fix ourselves first.

 

You make a good point, one that I'd normally agree with. However, in this case I'm referring to all of us as the problem because the issue revolves around the idea of divisiveness. It's an attempt to move beyond the us/them mentality that is at the core of my argument. I would say that those who most need to accept themselves as part of the problem are those who are certain the other side is the problem.

So much of what we argue is based on sources we find to support our arguments. And yet that information is second-hand in that we experience the events in question, we heard or read about them. This is where simple psychology comes into play. All humans have biases. We can't help that. Those biases guide how we think about or interpret events. Frank Luntz addressed that when he said, "it's not what you say, it's what people hear." As I said previously, certain words will trigger reactions in us. We may not be aware that those words have been chosen purposely to trigger that reaction.

When politicians and the media label groups as nationalists=white supremacists=racists=Republicans, or leftists=socialists=communists=Democrats, some people will begin to react automatically to each of those labels by thinking of Republicans as racists and Democrats as communists. Plus, the labels are used to trigger our emotional reactions (which separates us from the policies and focuses us on the people).

Even simple words can trigger reactions. A few years back, media pundits began frequently using the phrase, "you and your ilk." Not only does that drive home a division, but the word ilk is an ugly word. We hate it, and as used, we hate those who are labeled as ilk. If you want to exert those psychological powers of reaction, you don't say, "you an your kind, because kind is a nice word. It doesn't sound as ugly. Your kind are your kin. That's a positive word, so it doesn't have the power that ilk has to evoke dislike.

Sorry for the wordy explanation, but this is what I'm getting at when I say we're all to blame. It's not the fault of people using those trigger words on purpose, but our fault for not focusing on how people are trying to manipulate our thinking.

 

Ignore what?...

 

So then by 'political criticisms'... do you mean more along the lines of,
personal jabs against a politician's character, family, history, etc.
as opposed to policy-based objections?
I think I'm getting it now, if so...

-Meta

 

I don't know. Maybe. I can really only ever get so far into the minds of these people.
Not that one really needs to get too far in to realize the potential consequences if they were ever to achieve their apparent goals.

-Meta

 

Really?... ignore them?
What do you think would have happened if Montenegro had gone with that approach?

-Meta

 

Interesting idea, and pretty unique compared to a lot of the others.
Will definitely be adding this to the list. Thanks,

-Meta

 

You say that there's no solution... that the practice of foreign governments sewing discord can't be controlled,...
then in the very same post you give a suggestion on how it can be combated against??? Well... whatever,
perhaps you meant to say there is no perfect solution which completely eliminates it.

Either way, your suggestion seems sensible enough... educate the people such
that they can't be tricked incited and driven into violence. So then, how exactly
should we achieve that? What things in particular should the people be
educated to look out for when it comes to inciteful propaganda?

-Meta

 

All I'm saying is, we should not resort to something like that before we've exhausted all the other options, if then even.

-Meta

 

Maybe so. Though it could just be that not enough people ever ask them to come up with ideas and so folks aren't really used to it. So hopefully threads like this one, where coming up with ideas to solve the problem is the whole point, will help out a bit. If people really do have trouble coming up with ideas, then the questioning, asking what we can do to safeguard ourselves/respond to foreign incitement towards violence in this case, could be pretty good practice. Some posters start off by at least posting a general feeling on the matter and even though it may at first be too vague to qualify as a real solution, through further conversation other ideas can emerge. We actually have a pretty sizeable list of them at the moment (not that all of them are great or anything, but they're there),
and there are a few more I still need to add to that list.

-Meta