{"id":28115,"date":"2014-10-10T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T04:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28115"},"modified":"2014-10-04T17:52:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T21:52:03","slug":"qotd-when-bashing-america-is-just-code-for-bashing-the-red-tribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/10\/10\/qotd-when-bashing-america-is-just-code-for-bashing-the-red-tribe\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: When bashing America is just code for bashing the Red Tribe"},"content":{"rendered":"

[A]lthough liberals and conservatives live in the same area, they might as well be two totally different countries or universe as far as level of interaction were concerned.<\/p>\n

Contra the usual idea of them being marked only by voting behavior, we described them as very different tribes with totally different cultures. You can speak of \u201cAmerican culture\u201d only in the same way you can speak of \u201cAsian culture\u201d \u2013 that is, with a lot of interior boundaries being pushed under the rug.<\/p>\n

The outgroup of the Red Tribe is occasionally blacks and gays and Muslims, more often the Blue Tribe.<\/p>\n

The Blue Tribe has performed some kind of very impressive act of alchemy, and transmuted all of its outgroup hatred to the Red Tribe.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Spending your entire life insulting the other tribe and talking about how terrible they are makes you look, well, tribalistic. It is definitely not high class. So when members of the Blue Tribe decide to dedicate their entire life to yelling about how terrible the Red Tribe is, they make sure that instead of saying \u201cthe Red Tribe\u201d, they say \u201cAmerica\u201d, or \u201cwhite people\u201d, or \u201cstraight white men\u201d. That way it\u2019s humble self-criticism<\/em>. They are so interested in justice that they are willing to critique their own beloved side<\/em>, much as it pains them to do so. We know they are not exaggerating, because one might exaggerate the flaws of an enemy, but that anyone would exaggerate their own<\/em> flaws fails the criterion of embarrassment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Blue Tribe always has an excuse at hand to persecute and crush any Red Tribers unfortunate enough to fall into its light-matter-universe by defining them as all-powerful domineering oppressors. They appeal to the fact that this is definitely the way it works in the Red Tribe\u2019s dark-matter-universe, and that\u2019s in the same country so it has to be the same community for all intents and purposes. As a result, every Blue Tribe institution is permanently licensed to take whatever emergency measures are necessary against the Red Tribe, however disturbing they might otherwise seem.<\/p>\n

And so how virtuous, how noble the Blue Tribe! Perfectly tolerant of all of the different groups that just so happen to be allied with them, never intolerant unless it happen to be against intolerance itself. Never stooping to engage in petty tribal conflict like that awful Red Tribe, but always nobly criticizing their own culture and striving to make it better!<\/p>\n

Sorry. But I hope this is at least a little<\/em> convincing. The weird dynamic of outgroup-philia and ingroup-phobia isn\u2019t anything of the sort. It\u2019s just good old-fashioned in-group-favoritism and outgroup bashing, a little more sophisticated and a little more sneaky.<\/p>\n

Scott Alexander, “I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup”, Slate Star Codex<\/em><\/a>, 2014-09-30.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[A]lthough liberals and conservatives live in the same area, they might as well be two totally different countries or universe as far as level of interaction were concerned. Contra the usual idea of them being marked only by voting behavior, we described them as very different tribes with totally different cultures. You can speak of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[53,41,13],"tags":[768,517],"class_list":["post-28115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-democrat","tag-republican"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7jt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28116,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions\/28116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}