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Many monsters haunt social media. The most menacing of these are: "socialism," "racism," "sexism," "patriarchy," "postmodern neo-Marxism," "treason," "Nazism," "communism," "liberalism," "terrorism," "capitalism," "sin," "social Darwinism," "cultural determinism," "political correctness," and "evil."
All are in the league of HAFOC. And every year they extend their reach.
These monsters live partly in the world, and largely in our minds. They are summoned in part by those who embrace them, and they are summoned in part by those who fear them. Proselytizing can extend their reach. Fear always extends their reach.
HAFOC stands for "hidden animating force of category." And the monsters of HAFOC extend their reach by tapping into these four features of human nature:
- Psychological essentialism
- Analogical extension of categories
- Fear of the outgroup
- Fear of the ingroup
Psychological Essentialism
Suppose a toddler is given some American cheese. Mommy gets a big grin on her face and says "cheese." The toddler is now on her way to learning the concept "cheese." Suppose she is next given some pungent, moldy cheese and is told "cheese." It wouldn't surprise us to hear her say "No Momma, cheese tastes good." When Momma explains that some cheese tastes good and some doesn't, the toddler has to find a new theory of cheese. Perhaps visual texture is key. At this point, she might see a stick of butter or a block of tofu and say "cheese." When Momma says "no," she will have to try to generate a different theory. It will be some time before she comes to grasp the theory that cheese is made from the curds of the milk of mammals.
Psychological Essentialism is the tendency to theorize that there is a hidden force or organizing principle uniting all the members of a category. It comes naturally to minds like ours. We are all psychological essentialists to some degree. You are a psychological essentialist. I am a psychological essentialist. And Plato was a psychological essentialist.
Metaphysical essentialism, on the other hand, is the belief that every category really, truly, actually has an objective essence. And that essence unites and explains the common form and function of all the legitimate instances of the category. The instances can be very different from each other in many ways, but they are in the same category because they partake in the same essence. Bar stools and La-Z-Boy recliners have many differences on the surface, but deep down, where it really matters, both partake in the essence of "chair."
Plato was a metaphysical essentialist, as were most philosophers until the modern period. There are few metaphysical essentialists in academia today. But there are more psychological essentialists than ever (because there are more humans than ever).
We learn many concepts by example. As we encounter new examples, we try to get a feel for the essence of the category. The organismal hope is that, if we grasp a category's essence, we can reliably identify new instances and infer unseen qualities and behaviors for these instances. We don't feel like we truly understand the meaning of a term until we can grasp the essence of the concept it names.
Psychological essentialism is on balance a good thing. It fuels our search for explanation. It makes our abstractions more useful. And it provides much of the impetus for science. But it also provides much of the impetus for bigotry and witch hunts.
Analogical Extension
We can learn new concepts from others by ostensive association of examples with category labels (as the child did with 'cheese'). We can learn them by definition (usually supplemented with examples). And we can create new concepts by noticing that seemingly disparate phenomena have something deeper in common. If we are bold enough, we can give our new concepts names and explain them to others.
However crisp and settled our concepts seem to be when we acquire or name them, most will continue to evolve. And one of the main drivers of conceptual evolution is extension by analogy.
By definition, "socialism" names a system of governance that prioritizes the public ownership of the means of production. But this definition doesn't capture very well the way the term is used in the US today. The "monster" of "socialism" doesn't want to be restricted by the chains of definition. It wants to grow.
Is progressive taxation a manifestation of socialism? Not by the old definition. But many have found it to be similar enough to the core examples of socialism to be a candidate for inclusion in the category. (If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...) And, when we expand our concepts in this way, it opens the door to further expansion. Today, anything involving collective action is likely to be branded "socialism" by many. Progressive taxation, public roads, education, universal health care—all socialism. At some point, the strict definition stopped being a good theory of the public concept. The monster broke its chains.
But here's the thing. No matter how far we extend our categories, no matter how weak the analogies are at the fringes of the concept, the most fearsome instances of socialism will still dominate the way "socialism" feels for those who fear it. In the presence of fear, the most fearsome cases will become the central cases. Public roads are more peripheral to the concept of "socialism" than public ownership of factories. But both partake in the same essence that generated Stalinist death camps. For this reason, public roads can generate opposition far in excess to the threat they pose to the opposing party's way of life.
Similarly, slow reaction times in implicit association tests are seen by some to be manifestations of the same essence that generated slavery and lynchings (the evolving essence of "racism").
Fear of the Outgroup
When you combine psychological essentialism and analogical extension with fear of an outgroup, you have the ingredients for stigma pie. Fear is the salt of stigma pie. It intensifies the signal and masks the noise. It makes the otherwise-bland salient and exciting.
When we fear an outgroup, we are made to wonder: "Why is the outgroup threatening our way of life?" And the answer comes: "They are animated by one of the monsters of HAFOC." On reflection, this explanation might seem silly. Fear makes it seem obvious.
Some folks are led to think, and lead others to think, that the monster of "socialism" animates their entire outgroup. The one calling for public infrastructure projects is possessed by this demon just as much as the one calling for the death of the economic elite. Few wage war with infrastructure in particular. Many wage war with socialism in general. (Many others wage war with capitalism in a similar manner.)
And here's the thing about monsters who use their tentacles to animate members of the outgroup: if you're fighting the monster, you can't be overly-picky about which tentacle you lop off. To fight the monster is to fight it wherever it appears. For the pure of heart, politics is a game of whack-a-mole. Their job is to lop off a tentacle no matter how far from the center of the category it appears, and no matter how otherwise-innocent the person seemingly possessed by the tentacle might be.
"Sin is sin. There is no difference between back-talking your parents and committing genocide in the eyes of God." "Socialism is a slippery slope." "Those who attempt to offer benign explanations for the wage gap are patriarchy apologists." "Those who suggest the wage gap might be due to discrimination or systemic bias are apologists for postmodern neo-Marxism."
Down with HAFOC!
Fear of the Ingroup
Fear of the outgroup is sufficient for stigmatization. But it's hard to get a pogrom or witch hunt going without fear of the ingroup.
When you are losing your faith, and stand singing in church, you assume all the other parishioners are standing firm. They look at you and think you are standing firm. No one knows how many doubters there are, because doubters are afraid to doubt openly. In days gone by, they feared torture. These days, they fear becoming everybody's project.
In other groups, people fear being branded a traitor, or losing their social influence, or losing their jobs.
This dynamic emboldens the true believers. They can say the darndest things, and nobody in the ingroup will challenge them.
Political Arguments on Social Media
Lists of informal fallacies are fun and useful (said the nerd). But they're even more useful when we have a good theory of the psychological forces that generate them.
At least the following fallacies fall out naturally from HAFOCology.
- Non-central fallacy
- Motte and bailey
- Slippery slope
- Conspiracy thinking.
- Weak-manning (and nut-picking)
- Guilt by association
These argument patterns are all used to spread the stench of monsters across entire outgroups. (And the people who use them take great care to avoid getting any of the stench on themselves.)
What to do? What to do?
We can't give up all theory and abstraction. There's nothing wrong with trying to figure out how seemingly disparate phenomena might be produced by a common force or principle. Such thinking is often the source of profound insight. There's not even anything particularly wrong with abstractions such as "socialism," "racism," or "postmodern neo-Marxism." They are, in calmer moments, legitimate attempts to grapple with disparate phenomena and organize resistance.
But we should manage our fear, because fear can turn us into bad theorists and even worse human beings. A quote of Nietzsche's comes to mind:
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." —Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil, 146)
When we fight high abstractions, and the purity instinct kicks in, we are apt to lop off the heads of many innocent people. And, even if they are not completely innocent, our justice will be far out of proportion to their actual offense.
Nuance is a dirty word to some. Indeed, nuance can be used to deflect, obfuscate, or major on the minors. Nuance can get in the way when we're trying (yet again) to develop a theory of everything. It slows down communication and makes things boring. But where monsters roam, more nuance is needed. Nuance can save the very lives and livelihoods of those who are on the receiving end of unjustified stigma.
There are at least two useful approaches to nuance. One is to make distinctions (cutting the monster down to size). If you are a non-racist conservative, and someone says "conservatives are racists," you might counter with, "Well, no, actually there are different kinds of conservatives. Some are racists. Others are just fans of Chesterton's Fence."
Another is to "taboo" some of the key terms (refusing to speak the monster's name). Using this strategy, you might ask the accuser to say what they mean without using either the term "conservative" or the term "racist." If they are willing to play your game, the monster will lose some of its grip on them. And they might develop some nuance on their own.
And the same applies to social justice activists who are tired of being called "postmodern neo-Marxists," or defenders of social programs who are tired of being called ''communists," or communists who are tired of being associated with Mao and Stalin.
It's fair to insist on nuance when we find ourselves being unjustly stigmatized. But it's really only fair if we are willing to return the favor. If more people manage their fear of monsters, it won't resolve all our disagreements. But our arguments will be less haunted.
