"Moral Licensing" and "Value Signaling" as a path to de-polarization and "Truthiness"
Builing Bridges, not walls... Claude Monet, National Art Gallery, Washington DC, December 2008, Photo copyright @unitedstatesian Basic truth/facts which are accepted by the majority of the population seem to be rare. The path to reaching the common ground is more indirect than might be expected The direct route would be for journalists on both sides to form a kind of consensus commission. A multi-partisan group could work together to publish a "wiki" of agreed facts from the previous week's events. They could complement these posts with lists of contested facts on parts they do not agree on and links to their supporting evidence. In my opinion, the road to true change would also require the creation of one or two new parties, but I will leave that for a future post :-) However, these dry, unemotional facts would only solve a small part of the problem and I argue that it starts with two key concepts becoming part of colloquial language.... The solution lies in making...