Crude tribal dividing lines inevitably arouse a besieged, victimized us/them mentality. This mentality assumes that the relations between groups are zero sum and antagonistic. People with this mentality tolerate dishonesty, misogyny and terrorism on their own side because all morality lays down before the tribal imperative.
The only way out of this mess is to continually remind ourselves that each human is a conglomeration of identities: ethnic, racial, professional, geographic, religious and so on.
.. Getting out of this mess also means accepting the limits of social science. The judgments of actual voters are better captured in the narratives of journalism and historical analysis than in the brutalizing correlations of big data.
Exclusive — Fox News Stars Stand With Roger Ailes Against Megyn Kelly, More Than 50 Fox Contributors, All Primetime, Willing To Walk
“If Fox wants to become the ‘all about Megyn Network,’ that’s fine,” one top Fox News host said. “We stand with Roger. And real anger has emerged that the so-called Megyn incident happened 10 years ago. The consensus among the hosts and contributors is: ‘Why didn’t she say anything then? Really, the same woman that posed half naked in GQ? The same woman on Howard Stern saying what?’”
.. The fact that nearly the entire network is willing to walk out over this, and support Ailes over Kelly is significant in that they have banded together to show their strength. It will harder than ever now for the Murdochs to side with Kelly over Ailes, especially with the lack of any evidence of her allegations–and the fact that Kelly waited 10 years to say anything about this evidence-less supposed incident.
.. In comments to the outside firm investigating the matter, according to New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman—an anti-Ailes agitator in the mainstream media—Kelly alleged that Ailes sexually harassed her. She and her attorneys have, sources say, manipulated her way in a manner that rival Claire Underwood of the hit Netflix dramaHouse of Cards. “Even her haircut looks like Robin Wright [the actress who plays the ruthless First Lady in the series],” said one source in Cleveland. “She’s a woman who not just will do anything for power, but anything to make it all about her.”
Who Blames the Victim?
IF you are mugged on a midnight stroll through the park, some people will feel compassion for you, while others will admonish you for being there in the first place. If you are raped by an acquaintance after getting drunk at a party, some will be moved by your misfortune, while others will ask why you put yourself in such a situation.
.. the more strongly you privilege loyalty, obedience and purity — as opposed to values such as care and fairness — the more likely you are to blame the victim.
.. the more strongly you identify with individualizing values, the more likely you are to be politically progressive; the more strongly you identify with binding values, the more likely you are to be politically conservative.
.. Proponents of individualizing values tend to see a dyad of victim and perpetrator (a victim is hurt, a perpetrator does the hurting). Proponents of binding values, however, may see behaviors as immoral even when there is no obvious victim — for example, the “impure” act of premarital sex or the “disloyal” act of flag burning — and may even feel that doing the right thing sometimes requires hurting others (as with honor killings, to pick an extreme example).
.. we explored whether nudging people to focus on perpetrators versus victims could affect people’s moral judgments. We did so by placing either the perpetrator or the victim in the subject position in a majority of sentences in descriptions of sexual assault (e.g., “Lisa was forced by Dan” versus “Dan forced Lisa”).
.. For those looking to increase sympathy for victims, a practical first step may be to change how we talk: Focusing less on victims and more on perpetrators — “Why did he think he had license to rape?” rather than “Imagine what she must be going through”
Conserviate Christians and Zionist Jews are the Left’s “Other”
Imagine if an Islamist nutter went to the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor and murdered a bunch of nuns (alas, hardly an unimaginable hypothetical). Would I be right to say that the New York Times and its allied Brain Trusts have no right to be outraged? After all, liberals have heaped scorn and contempt on those nuns for their effrontery in not wanting to be forced to pay for birth control. Or what if an Islamist shot up a Baptist Church or Koch headquarters or the Washington office of AIPAC?
.. On the secular left today, conservative Christians (and Zionist Jews) are the enemy. They are the other. The oppressor. The villains in the stories the Left tells itself.