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Trivialization

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This week it’s all about SEX! Charged with emotion, moral posturing, titillation and so much more, it’s the perfect football for #3 on our list of polarization techniques: Trivialization—focusing on straw man issues whose value in enforcing biases is more important than their substance. Not that (alleged) sex abuse is trivial. But clearly using those (alleged) transgressions to paint the left/right as uncaring, immoral, hypocritical, evil, callous and worse is the name of the game, completely trivializing the actual issue of how best to handle accusations of sexual transgression, to say nothing of the serious business of governing. When reading these examples, check the above list and ask yourself: regardless of whether you agree or disagree, is this really advancing an intelligent resolution through the persuasive, rational arguments of advocacy…or simply fueling the fire of conflict through the divisive, emotional manipulations of polarization?

Here are some of the week’s most polarizing articles, from the left and right:

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As slogans collide in a polarized era, the mass of our distrust grows larger and larger. Our ability to communicate craters beneath the weight of it.

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