Re:Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain
by belorn on Saturday January 23, 2021 @10:03AM
(#25882698)
There exist an important finding in social science when it comes to conflicts between groups. The Out-group homogeneity effect.
When people of an in-group (and those who feel a slight relation to them) describe themselves, it one of complexity. In-groups are always a group of individuals with individual graces and faults. Out-groups however is not complex, but perceived as being more alike with their out-group stereotypes being the defining nature of them.
The result of this is that people tend to marginalize extremist views of the in-group, while at the same time defining the out-group by their extremists. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to have discussions that relies on the distinction between a group having a small number individual impressionable young people that occasionally happen to do an obvious bad thing, and a other group where every member is evil and its obvious an evil group that need to be stopped at the core.
On a more local note regarding the far left here in Sweden during the 90's and early 00, a major distinction between them and the social left were that they believed in a violent/forceful revolution against capitalism (take from the rich, give to the people). As a party they have since tried to put some distance to that view in order to be more respectable, but 20 years is not that long ago. The far right and far left is often debated as both being parties with extremists in them and with troubling pasts for which they try to distance themselves.
When people of an in-group (and those who feel a slight relation to them) describe themselves, it one of complexity. In-groups are always a group of individuals with individual graces and faults. Out-groups however is not complex, but perceived as being more alike with their out-group stereotypes being the defining nature of them.
The result of this is that people tend to marginalize extremist views of the in-group, while at the same time defining the out-group by their extremists. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to have discussions that relies on the distinction between a group having a small number individual impressionable young people that occasionally happen to do an obvious bad thing, and a other group where every member is evil and its obvious an evil group that need to be stopped at the core.
On a more local note regarding the far left here in Sweden during the 90's and early 00, a major distinction between them and the social left were that they believed in a violent/forceful revolution against capitalism (take from the rich, give to the people). As a party they have since tried to put some distance to that view in order to be more respectable, but 20 years is not that long ago. The far right and far left is often debated as both being parties with extremists in them and with troubling pasts for which they try to distance themselves.