Misperceptions of the opponent fringe and miscalibration of political contempt

Re:Misperceptions of the opponent fringe and miscalibration ... by giantg2 on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @11:06AM (#31341048)

"There are a lot of "non-extremist" people who consider me a loon because of my appearance and gender. Those people seem to get along perfectly fine with "moderates" who are more accepting of me... and that really doesn't help, because the typical result is that both of them will agree to treat me as an extremist."

I'm curious, why would these people not be considered extreme for treating you like a loon or treating you as an extremist?

I've seen similar stuff on other issues. For example, there are people who hate guns who treat gun owners as loons and extremists regardless of their actions/positions/etc. Just saying that some people treat others as extremists just because they hold an opposing view. My guess is it's often to prevent cognitive dissonance in examining their own beliefs (most people don't consider themselves extremists even if they hold extreme views).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Misperceptions of the opponent fringe and miscalibration ... by banannaise on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @11:22AM (#31341316)

I think you're on to something here, but my (admittedly anecdotal) experience (in person, not online) is that these people are not generally considered extremist. You make a very good point in your last sentence: this extremist view is held by a lot of people who are otherwise non-extremist, and it's hard for most people to differentiate between "extremist views" and "extremist people". So it ends up being considered much less extremist than it should be, which also means it gets much more mainstream acceptance than it should.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Misperceptions of the opponent fringe and miscalibration ... by giantg2 on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @12:08PM (#31341932)

Yeah, you said it better than I did.

[ Parent | on HN ]