Via The Corner, something I always knew deep down, but never had succinctly coalesced into a single paragraph.
In 1999, Cass Sunstein wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review entitled “The Law of Group Polarization.” Its thesis was simple:
In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon — group polarization – has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, “radicalization,” cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the Internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism.
I suppose this explains why extreme measures such as erecting thousands of expensive and sometimes operating windmills that blight the landscape, are often attractive to the global warming movement.
Imagine the howling if somebody wanted thousands of natural gas well derricks on the same plot of land in California, yet they would produce far more energy and help far more people, at a lower cost.
Oblique low-altitude aerial photo of wellpads, access roads, pipeline corridors and other natural-gas infrastructure in the Jonah Field of western Wyoming’s upper Green River valley. Photographer: Bruce Gordon, EcoFlight – Image via Flickr
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That wind farm looks like a shot of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings.
“…..it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism.”
Group polarization is TRIBALISM
Quite
And of course Cass Sunstein is one of the more favored courtiers in the house of Obama.
Group think has no space for skepticism…
We see that over the next few weeks if Arctic ice falls below certain levels. No allowance will be given for the fact that it is being measured using different systems to last year or that unusual weather systems have been in operation this year. Nor will the Warmists note that all of the melt will freeze again (as they didn’t for Greenland recently) and of course they will completely ignore the increase in ice in the Antarctic. Warmist group think allows for nothing that challenges their belief, and they will shout all the louder as the moment of dissonance gets closer. If it wasn’t costing a fortune in lost jobs and futures I would feel sorry for them, instead I have nothing but disdain.
Very true. Unfortunately some people use this phenomenon to manipulate people. It’s called “community organizing”.
Identify an issue most people will agree on (e.g. something small and local, problems with garbage collection, anything).
Organize a group to discuss it.
The group must not fix the problem themselves.
Steer them towards lobbying the authorities to do it, with protests etc.
If they force action from the authorities the group feels empowered and bonds.
Now you’re ready to steer them towards other issues -issues which many members would not have cared about before joining the group.
Keep control of the group. Isolate any members that strongly oppose your take on the new issues or don’t show sufficient signs of groupthink. Have some members shout them down, encourage them to leave the group.
Use these tactics on grassroots and you can start a prairie fire.
There is a certain beauty in the Jonah Field photo.
Hmmm. What about us who fully believed in global warming that we went looking for more information and ended up switching sides? The theory in the paragraph necessitates that people only chat with those that reinforce their notions does it not?
John M Reynolds
It’s getting so bad, that even in non-climate forums I’m getting banned for even mentioning the topic in Australia.
Quite right, Anthony, and those windmills look like something out of a SF/horror movie – ugh!
As well as self-reinforcing groups, also look to extremist statements or representations from members of one group pushing people the other way. For example, how many sceptics started on their personal journey towards scepticism by having the ludicrous hockey stick held up as brilliant science, rather than held up to ridicule? If little alarm bells go off inside someone’s head, they start checking the facts, and – voila! – another sceptic.
Yup. That’s why deniers should read some of the actual research reports, instead of simply believing Fox.
REPLY – Do you really think we have not “read some of the actual research reports”? ~ Evan
Power and MONEY [Grants] that is all . . .
why is Atwood allowed to troll?
Bruce Atwood says:
August 18, 2012 at 6:52 pm
And there you have the main reason for polarization right there.
The problem with this thought process is this. Most people are sheep, they are followers, they are lead about by whatever they are told, by whomever tells them, without ever questioning the validity of what they are being told.
Published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, 2002.
A take-home lesson from the end of the article: “One of the most important lessons is among the most general: It is desirable to create spaces for enclave deliberation without insulating enclave members from those with opposing views, and without insulating those outside of the enclave from the views of those within it.”
In that light, look at for what the AGW extremists strive: First, they consistently attempt to insulate AGW enclave members from opposing views. They go about this by excluding opposing views from journals and the press, and by pervasive evasion of opposition by recourse to in-group reviewers.
Second, and at the same time, rather than insulating those outside from their views, they work to insulate the large population outside their enclave — namely the general public — from any views except those inside their enclave, i.e., from the views of anyone but themselves.
Sunstein doesn’t talk about this latter strategy as one of extremist enclaves, but the two together seem to me the road a committed minority commonly takes to achieve tyranny.
Is that picture ever UGLY! Reminds me of what Spindletop used to look like back in 1901. Nowadays, it doesn’t take that many oil or gas wells to produce the energy, because of the technological changes in methods of extraction. Not only do you not need a lot of derricks, the few “derricks,” i.e. wells, you need still outproduce wind energy by leaps and bounds.
cui bono says:
August 18, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Quite right, Anthony, and those windmills look like something out of a SF/horror movie – ugh!
We could use that to our advantage. Instead of an adorable little clown fish, we could have a cartoon sparrow, bobbing and weaving, through the propeller field. Will he make it through alive?
A message so simple even a child will understand.
How’s this. Frodo and Sam are making their escape from the volcano of Mordor on the backs of a mighty eagle…
Then THWACK.
David Ross says: “Very true. Unfortunately some people use this phenomenon to manipulate people. It’s called “community organizing”.”
And “consciousness raising.”
Bruce: “Yup. That’s why deniers should read some of the actual research reports, instead of simply believing Fox.”
That’s right. You don’t have to watch Deliverance to know that the Appalachian kid beat the City Slicker at ‘Dueling Banjos’ since you already know the City Slicker was playing a guitar. And what fool would do that, I ask?
Bruce Atwood: I find it interesting that you use the term “denier”. Surely you realize the irony of using a polarization term in a posting on polarization?
Regardless, my database, as of today, contains 1635 references, mostly to globally warming, mostly that dispute some tenet of CAGW, and mostly peer reviewed.
Oddly, in spite of your assertion, exactly zero of my references are from Fox.
If you want to understand Mr. Sunstein and his crowd you must learn about Mr. Saul Alinsky and read his book, Rules for Radicals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
That is all.
The windmills reminded me of Signal Hill when I was little. Chavez Ravine to a lesser degree.
The Sunstein-Alinsky-Cloward&Piven-Soros connection has been obvious to me for a long time.
Ah Tim, I saw you on the programme organized by the ABC. I wished that you had stuck to your guns a little more. The show was about “People changing their minds.” The subtext was that “people with crazy ideas can possibly be reached by the enlightened.”
From Global Warming to Climate Change to “any extreme weather event can be blamed on coal” the zealots in this argument cannot be influenced because they shift their goalposts whenever the game looks like going against them.
Tim, in spite of whatever criticism you receive, know that you are well respected generally and whenever you voice your opinions it adds to the level of disbelief in Australia.