Hate Sells category archive

Canadian professor of communications Robert Danisch offers a taxonomy of linguistic toxicity, identifying seven rhetorical techniques that foment division and hostility (or, to put it another way, he reveals the Fox News playbook). In introducing his article, he points out that

Research shows that divisive, violent, dehumanizing rhetoric can sanction negative or hateful views that people may otherwise have hidden, and embolden people to act on these.

What’s worse, these seven rhetorical tactics tend to beget one another and inspire a communication cycle in which emotions are amplified and conflict is escalated.

I commend his article to your attention.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Ronald Riggio notes an oft-overlooked bit of obvious: Someone cannot be a leader without followers. He goes on to explore several reasons why persons choose to follow bad leaders–bad, that is, in the sense that they do bad things.

Here’s one of the reasons he suggests, one that I think is of particular import in the current state of our polity, where, if over half the registered voters show up at the polls, it’s considered an “overwhelming turn-out” and where puny turn-outs are common in state and local elections.

Many Followers Are Apathetic. Many of us put our leaders on a pedestal. We let them take the reins of power, and we look away, assuming that they will do the right thing. It is the obligation of good followers to hold leaders accountable for their actions and to call them out on their misbehavior. But too often we give leaders “a pass” instead, or we make exceptions for them. This is why many leaders get away with wicked or immoral behavior that followers and others could never get away with (“It’s OK because they are the leader.”).

Follow the link for the rest.

(Spellink errors fixed.)

Steven Stosny, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, identifies several factors which he believes contribute to increasing belligerent state of what passes for dis coarse discourse. He suggests that two themes seem continual: entitlement and backlash. Here are two tiny little bits of what he has to say:

One reason for the dull sense of powerlessness that permeates public discourse is the paradox of social media. When everyone has a voice, no one listens. Instead, we react to the most vociferous – the loudest and most negative.

(snip)

When my clients express anger about politicians, they immediately recite a list of what they’re against. If I ask what the candidates they favor are for, they’re hard pressed to come up with anything. We tend to lose sight of what we stand for when focused on what we stand against.

Aside:

I have remarked upon the “parodox of social media” many times.

Baldly put, “social” media isn’t.