sab39 ... O noes, somebody I don't like did something I agree with!

O noes, somebody I don't like did something I agree with!

11/8/2007

I'm not sure what the psychology behind this is, but it seems to be a fairly common reaction. I noticed it today on MJ Ray's blog where - as far as I can tell - he's upset that the Conservative party, whom he doesn't support, are advocating Co-ops, which he does support. (I know that's an oversimplification of mjr's position, but hopefully it's not an outright misrepresentation of it. UPDATE: Ok, yes, I did have his position wrong - see the comments).

I can only presume that it's the same thing that ensures that every time Microsoft does something pro Open Source / Free Software, there'll be a furious post on Groklaw about it.

Or why people who for years have hated the way the MPAA and RIAA treat their creative talent are now annoyed that the Writers Guild of America is standing up to them, because the WGA is a union and unions are baaaad.

I suspect that the temptation to react this way is similar to the temptation to flip the bozo bit on people. Instead of deciding that the person is an idiot and therefore can't possibly have anything useful to contribute - and so can be ignored - we decide that the person (or group) is evil and anything they do must be outright harmful and must be opposed.

In reality not even a single person is ever completely useless or completely "evil"; everyone will at some point have an idea that's worth considering or an opinion you agree with. And that goes double if there's more than one person involved - any large organization, in particular, will probably have some subgroups that you agree with more often than not. Recognize when you have common ground even with people you normally disagree with. That's a vindication of your ideas, not something to be upset about, surely?

My position

By MJ Ray (Email) at 2007/11/09 09:58

Yep, you misunderstood, but I don't blame you: a quick post was the wrong thing for me to do there!

I'm not upset by the Conservatives supporting cooperatives - except where I'm worried that they might have strange ideas about what makes something a cooperative, as I commented somewhere on conservativehome.

Rather, I'm upset that we seem to have four or five very similar political parties now. Sometimes on one issue, I can identify one party being different from the others, but it's getting hard. For example, Labour, Co-op, Conservative, Green and one of the Lib Dem leadership candidates all support cooperatives TTBOMK.

Here it works for me, but in general, I think that might be an insane situation - almost a confusopoly? - produced by a combination of political cautiousness and our unproportional electoral system.

However, I feel your point about the bozo bit is well-made. Is one of the few features of my weak memory a low probability that I keep the bozo bit set in the long term?

Updated

By Stuart at 2007/11/09 11:04

Updated - thanks for clarifying. Sorry for using you as an example on something that didn't actually apply :)

Living in the US, I can't help but be a little jealous of the idea of five parties all of whom agree on something that you support. I'm faced with the choice between two parties, neither of which holds ANY positions I support! (ok, slight exaggeration, but only slight)

(Not to mention the fact that as a noncitizen I can't vote anyway. No taxation without representation, my arse)

Five Party System

By MJ Ray (Email) at 2007/11/09 14:31

Well, this works for me, but it's still not brilliant here. Thanks to our the first-past-the-post system, most people have at most two parties that stand a realistic chance of winning their UK parliament seat. Where I live now, that seems to be Conservative or Lib Dem. Where I lived last year, that's Labour or Conservative. It's very rare to get a decent three-way battle.

Now, to complicate things further, the Co-operative Party is a subset of the Labour Party for many things and I think the Green Party has no MPs yet.

Five Parties in aggregate?

By Carlo Calica (Email) at 2007/11/10 00:27

MJ,

I can see that being a problem getting you views represented. I wonder if it helps on the national level.

Also, why do only two parties dominate per seat and multiple nationally?

Thanks.

Two party state

By MJ Ray (Email) at 2007/11/12 04:06

Why do only two parties dominate per seat and multiple nationally? Because it's not the same two parties in each seat.

Did I miss the point of that question?

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