I don’t have an informed opinion about Portland or its police. But I think that’s not exactly the issue here.
Others have already noted that the author overstates the support for true police abolishment. Let’s set that aside.
The police are much more unpopular these days than before and the author offers their theory that it’s some deranged attempt to flex on others. There is a much simpler explanation, like the fact that you can watch a supercut of police killings on YouTube now. This prompts reflection and reassessment, and some people end up in more extreme places.
I just don’t buy this idea of costly dogma in the educated elites. You support police reform. Maybe you know people who support some form of defunding the police. Are you losing friends over this?
The author may be on more secure ground when they assert that strong political beliefs are now more untethered from lived experience. But that seems like a predictable outcome of social media. And not always a bad one - if it’s motivated by evidence and empathy.
Sometimes it’s motivated by group processes that inch that group towards radical beliefs, where one derives status from going further down the rabbit hole. That’s bad but it’s not limited to one group.
My colleague works remotely from a more rural area, the land of “Fuck Trudeau” flags. One of his neighbors recently asked him if he was worried about COVID vaccines sterilizing him. Vaccine denial is one of the most “expensive” beliefs of all time. Some sociologists have proposed that such beliefs are strongly professed - despite lived experience of it being deadly to do so - because the person will suffer a “social death” otherwise.
So even if some educated elites are being memed into weird beliefs, this phenomenon is hardly isolated to them.
Others have already noted that the author overstates the support for true police abolishment. Let’s set that aside.
The police are much more unpopular these days than before and the author offers their theory that it’s some deranged attempt to flex on others. There is a much simpler explanation, like the fact that you can watch a supercut of police killings on YouTube now. This prompts reflection and reassessment, and some people end up in more extreme places.
I just don’t buy this idea of costly dogma in the educated elites. You support police reform. Maybe you know people who support some form of defunding the police. Are you losing friends over this?
The author may be on more secure ground when they assert that strong political beliefs are now more untethered from lived experience. But that seems like a predictable outcome of social media. And not always a bad one - if it’s motivated by evidence and empathy.
Sometimes it’s motivated by group processes that inch that group towards radical beliefs, where one derives status from going further down the rabbit hole. That’s bad but it’s not limited to one group.
My colleague works remotely from a more rural area, the land of “Fuck Trudeau” flags. One of his neighbors recently asked him if he was worried about COVID vaccines sterilizing him. Vaccine denial is one of the most “expensive” beliefs of all time. Some sociologists have proposed that such beliefs are strongly professed - despite lived experience of it being deadly to do so - because the person will suffer a “social death” otherwise.
So even if some educated elites are being memed into weird beliefs, this phenomenon is hardly isolated to them.