I fail to see how lack of vaccination can be a policy failure. Unless your policy is to erode the right of an individual to use his or her own judgement. Then there’s the little problem of the vaccine itself causing harm. How is it not a policy failure to ignore that?
"The reason for focusing on partisanship in Covid results is to people moral permission to hate their neighbors"
I don't think this is the primary reason, even though it has that effect. Like, I don't picture the authors of these pieces/studies saying "we need to give people moral permission to hate their neighbors".
It's more of an example of how our base instincts lead us to the well of confirmation bias. People with partisan brain view stuff through partisan lenses, and write partisan posts for partisan audiences that get a lot of likes, and people don't push back on it because it lines up with their partisan inclinations.
This doesn't undercut what you're saying; stuff like this does give people moral permission to hate their neighbors, but I don't think it's cultivated as intentionally as your subtitle suggests.
And for me, this is why I try to cultivate a nonpartisan mindset even though I certainly have partisan opinions. Tribalism short-circuits our ability to think critically.
I fail to see how lack of vaccination can be a policy failure. Unless your policy is to erode the right of an individual to use his or her own judgement. Then there’s the little problem of the vaccine itself causing harm. How is it not a policy failure to ignore that?
Great post, want to start with that.
My one critique:
"The reason for focusing on partisanship in Covid results is to people moral permission to hate their neighbors"
I don't think this is the primary reason, even though it has that effect. Like, I don't picture the authors of these pieces/studies saying "we need to give people moral permission to hate their neighbors".
It's more of an example of how our base instincts lead us to the well of confirmation bias. People with partisan brain view stuff through partisan lenses, and write partisan posts for partisan audiences that get a lot of likes, and people don't push back on it because it lines up with their partisan inclinations.
This doesn't undercut what you're saying; stuff like this does give people moral permission to hate their neighbors, but I don't think it's cultivated as intentionally as your subtitle suggests.
And for me, this is why I try to cultivate a nonpartisan mindset even though I certainly have partisan opinions. Tribalism short-circuits our ability to think critically.