In general, humans often join factions and then see their own factions as right, good and truthful while viewing opposing factions as wrong, evil and deceitful. While the best-known factions tend to be political or religious, people can form factions around almost anything, ranging from sports teams to video game consoles.
While there are rational reasons to form and support a faction, factionalism tends to be fed by cognitive biases and fallacies. A core cognitive bias of factionalism is in group bias. This is the psychology tendency to easily form negative views of those outside of their group. For example, Democrats often see Republicans negatively, casting them as uncaring, sexist, racist and fixated on money. In turn, Republicans typically look back at Democrats negatively and see them as woke, obsessed with race and gender, and wanting to punish success. This occurs outside of politics, with competing religious groups seeing each other as heretics or infidels. It even extends to games and sports, as the battles of #gamergate illustrated.
The other side of this bias is that members of a faction see themselves in a positive light and are inclined to attribute positive qualities. For example, Democrats see themselves as caring about the environment and being concerned about social good. As another example, MAGA folks cast themselves as true Americans who just want to make America great again.
This bias is often expressed in terms of and fueled by stereotypes. For example, critics of the sexist aspects of gaming might the worst stereotypes of male gamers (dateless, pale misogynists who spew their rage with a mouth full of Cheetos). As another example, Democrats will sometimes cast the rich as being uncaring and out of touch plutocrats. These stereotypes are sometimes taken the extreme of demonizing: presenting the other faction members as not merely wrong but as evil.
Such stereotypes are easy to accept and many are based on another bias, the fundamental attribution error. This is a psychological tendency to fail to realize that the behavior of other people is as much limited by circumstances as our behavior would be if we were in their circumstances. For example, a person who was born into a wealthy family and enjoyed many advantages might not understand the challenges faced by people who were not so lucky in choosing their parents. Because of this, she might demonize those who are unsuccessful and attribute their failure to laziness and other defects without considering their circumstances.
Factionalism is also strengthened by various fallacies. The most obvious is the appeal to group identity. This fallacy occurs when a person accepts her pride in being in a group as evidence that a claim is true. Roughly put, a person believes a claim because her faction accepts it as true. The claim might even be true, but the mistake is that the basis of the belief is not rational. For example, a devoted environmentalist might believe in climate change because of her membership in that faction rather than because of evidence (which shows climate change is occurring). This method of belief “protects” group members from evidence and arguments because such beliefs are based on group identity and not proof. While a person can overcome this fallacy, faction-based beliefs tend to only change when the faction changes or if the person leaves the faction.
The above-mentioned biases also tend to incline people towards fallacious reasoning. The negative biases tend to motivate people to accept straw man reasoning, which is when someone ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version. Politicians routinely make straw men out of the views they oppose, and their faction members typically embrace these. The negative biases also make ad hominem fallacies common. An ad hominem is a category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected based on some irrelevant fact about the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack is made against the character of the person making the claim or her circumstances, or her actions. Second, this attack is taken as evidence against the claim. For example, opponents of a feminist critic of sexism in gaming might reject her view by claiming that she is only trying to become famous and make money. While it might be true that she is doing that, this would not disprove her claims. The guilt by association fallacy, in which a person rejects a claim simply because it is pointed out that people she dislikes accept the claim, both arises from and contributes to factionalism.
The negative views and stereotypes are also often fed by fallacies that involve poor generalizations. One is misleading vividness, a fallacy in which a very small number of dramatic events are taken to outweigh statistical evidence. For example, a person in a faction holding that migrants are violent criminals would focus on the few examples they can find. Misleading vividness is closely related to hasty generalization, a fallacy in which a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough to justify that conclusion. For example, a Democrat might believe that all corporations are bad based just on the behavior of Amazon. Biased generalizations also occur, which is a fallacy committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is biased or prejudiced in some manner. This is often fed by the confirmation bias—the tendency people have to seek and accept evidence for their view while avoiding or ignoring evidence against their view. For example, a person might form their views from watching biased media such as Fox News.
The positive biases also contribute to fallacious reasoning, often taking the form of a positive ad hominem. A positive ad hominem occurs when a claim is accepted based on irrelevant facts about a person making a claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, something positive (but irrelevant) about the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is presented. Second, this is taken as evidence for their claim. For example, a MAGA Republican might accept what Trump says as true, just because he likes Trump.
Nor surprisingly, factionalism is also supported by variations of appeals to belief (it is true/right because my faction believes it is so), appeal to common practice (it is right because my faction does it), and appeal to tradition (it is right because my faction has “always done this”).
Factionalism is both fed by and contributes to such biases and poor reasoning. This is not to say that group membership is a bad thing, just that it is wise to be on guard against the corrupting influence of factionalism.
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