Living In An Echo Chamber

Leon Festinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger

Category:

Education

Tags:

• social
• science
• tlg847

[corinna000]

Great video, Tom. I'm tossing this into my favorites pile.

[tlg847]

Thanks very much.

[httprover]

It may be that instead of blocking information that we do not want to deal with, we do not hear-recognize-comprehend what is being said or presented to us. And it may be that what we do accept receives credence from its source. In effect, a lack of critical thinking makes us vunerable to recruitment efforts. Differences can divide. We choose to belong to something and tend to ingore difficult questions which need to be asked but nobody has a satisfactory answer to.

An Inconvenient Truth?

[tlg847]

I think both are true. Bias affects perception, certainly. But cog dis is post-perceptual. Inconvenient Truth is a perfect example.

[jazzophis]

I find myself doing this alot, especially on points that cannot be proven, such as, does God exist. Its hard to look at yourself and see how stubborn you can be.

[kickAbooJoyjuice]

LSD?

[Zea107]

A lack of critical individuality?

[sam72998]

wtf are u talking about

[QX999]

That echo chamber analogy: not original but useful. Your video could have been much condensed. If all we hear are echoes of what's already in our minds, how can we know anything new? Cognitive dissonance: there's more to it: creative genius has been defined as beginning with the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in the mind at the same time. Hamlet: a portrait of cognitive dissonance. Polonius: a portrait of the lack thereof, hence shallow answers.

[tlg847]

THAT would be a great moment...are we still capable of such things? I hope so.

[vancouver57]

Incidentally, here in Canada, everything politically is shifted about 30% to the Left. A federal election will likely be called within days, held before yours actually. Throughout it we will have reporters pretending to be unbiased but clearly shaping every story to defeat the ruling Conservative Party. This WILL happen, yet everyone left of centre will deny it.

[vancouver57]

Indeed they do, Tom. To the average citizen, what's the difference between a Fascist or a Communist government? Massive oppression in both cases.

Getting back to the theme of your video, I think what the U.S. needs to do to heal itself is for moderates on BOTH sides of the divide to accept that their are close-minded extremists in their own party and to speak out against them as vehemently as one would against the extremists on the other team.