There’s an axiom in behavioral psychology: examine what someone is doing, rather than simply accepting what they’re telling you. Someone might claim that they don’t care about anyone, yet their actions betray a deep care for a family member. Or maybe they claim they love their job, despite the fact that their daily actions suggest otherwise. Even if you’re not a psychologist (I’m not), cognitive dissonance can be useful when examining narrative credulity.

The conventional narrative is that 2016 ripped the political dialogue in America asunder, pushing the left and right to unprecedentedly adversarial positions. If you’re a self-identified progressive, then it’s clearer than ever who the enemy is: Donald Trump, and his invidious apparatus (an unhinged GOP, uncurbed corporate avarice, and other sons of plunder); they seemingly won’t stop until The Commons are completely gutted, the environment is ruined, and corporations have twisted the world into something resembling Snow Crash. And if you’re conservative, it’s equally clear: liberal zealotry has gone nuclear, infecting the educational system, science, and every orifice of conventional and new media - spreading a poisonous anti-Western ethos that won’t stop till the tenets of capitalism and Judeo-Christian morality are obliterated. There are seemingly no sacred cows, among the values that have built and sustained Western civilization.

(You’re somewhere in the middle, or nowhere identifiable on this scorched map? Oh hey, welcome - the ginger ale is in the back.)

Implicit in each side’s fervor is that they’re seeking a resolution; some new reality that, once manifested, would eliminate the need for partisan warfare. Generally speaking, progressive factions want to end the current nightmare and bring about a redistributive renewal that operates upon technocratic rationality. Conservatives want to stem the tide of liberal influence and fortify an American apparatus that facilitates the strength of individual sovereignty. The long-term goals for each side are unsurprisingly nebulous; though perhaps it isn’t reasonable to expect people to have a fully-formed conception of a “target society”.

Moreover, in each case, it isn’t clear what happens to the other side, once victory is achieved; do they simply acquiesce? Do they keep their views, but lose all levers of power? Again, maybe people simply haven’t thought through how this ends.

But there’s a more unsettling thought: neither side wants the conflict to end.

Let’s think back to the apocryphal origin of the Culture War: a particularly seedy bootloader emerged from one of the darker corners of The Internet (4chan), flooding an already-fragile American dialogue with polarizing memes and all flavors of misinformation. The resulting tensions continued to escalate until Trump was elected, at which point things really snapped - plunging us into the societal anti-pattern we now occupy. The story has a strange, almost mystical nature; as if some cosmic mover set forth a cycle of digital chaos.

Don Jolly shared a very astute observation in a recent discussion with Digibro: trolling is rarely intended to fortify or demolish a particular position. Instead, it’s often meant to engender and sustain conflict. I don’t think you can ascribe a singular motive to a mass of trolls from 4chan, but you could imagine an emergent “limbic” optimization - i.e, collectively find a way to maximally exacerbate the political tension that’s causing everyone (especially establishment figures) to lose their minds. The more successful the trolling, the more satisfying the results. Some might retroactively assert that the goal was to elect Donald Trump (the ultimate troll), but I think it’s clear that what endured wasn’t a specific reality, but rather a modality of sustained conflict.

If you observe what both online camps are doing, it certainly looks like conflict is the objective function. Every morning is a fresh pull at a Vegas slot machine: a new headline whips across social media, providing a focus for the day’s tribal warfare. Some headlines are perfect fodder (e.g., scissor statements), while others burn slower or require an editorial catalyst. The cost of participation is low (relative to physical conflict), and the potential entertainment value is unpredictably high. It almost resembles an e-sport; you hop on, coordinate with your team, and find a way to “win” the day’s exchanges - whether through upvotes and signal amplification, or publicly irritating the other side.

I don’t blame anyone for falling into this modality, given the sheer amount of stimulation that comes from participating. I mean, you could sit in the corner and recite Stoic meditations to yourself instead of tossing memetic grenades on Twitter with your friends - but really? Tuning out takes serious self-discipline. It’s a lot easier to jump aboard the Outrage Express, and see where it will wind up at the end of the day. The modern working day is littered with small pockets of free time, and if there’s a reliable way to get a dopaminergic response in a few taps, your brain isn’t going to pass it up easily.

Things get especially sticky when there’s sustained interaction between specific adversaries. As stimulating as general tribal participation might be, it doesn’t hold a candle to individualized animosity. It can be unsettling to watch these sorts of relationships metastasize; the purported context becomes less relevant, and the focus becomes the other person. Each day’s slot machine is a chance to see what incendiary thing your adversary has said; what position they’ve taken that might inadvertently expose them; an opportunity to turn more people against them; a chance to see them publicly buckle.

To be clear: many people do harbor earnest desires for (subjectively-defined) positive change, and I don’t think anyone reasonable can debate that. It’s just unclear how much that matters, when paired with a method of engagement that 1.) can’t sustain a discussion for longer than a few days and 2.) seems comically tuned towards theatrical conflict. It doesn’t help that this modality seems to be infecting all sorts of areas that aren’t explicitly political. Discussions on topics as varied as technology, education, and science have become similarly combative - often containing “proxy” tribes that you could readily identify as progressive or conservative.

Given that we seem stuck in this combative anti-pattern - how do we get out? That’s probably a topic for another essay, but the short answer is: I don’t think it’s practical to try to neutralize the voltage; a stimulation engine like this doesn’t simply turn off. We need a set of competitive modalities that can redirect our tribal impulses towards potentially fruitful ends; a set of alternatives that will make the Vegas outrage machine seem boring and unsatisfying by comparison. Perhaps it’s a new form of competitive factionalism, recalibrated by the weight of real actions and consequences, that incentivizes the construction of clear outputs rather than degenerate deadlock.

Have any ideas? You can find me on Twitter