Let's say within some domain of controversy there are two major perspectives represented, X and Y. X is obviously and persistently wrong on issue A, which Y correctly points out. Y is obviously and persistently wrong on issue B, which X correctly points out. X and Y are cooperating to contain people who object-level care about A and B, and recruit them into the dialectic drama. X is getting A wrong on purpose, and Y is getting B wrong on purpose, as a loyalty test.

Trying to join the big visible organization doing something about A leads to accepting escalating conditioning to develop the blind spot around B, and vice versa. X and Y use the conflict as a pretext to expropriate resources from the relatively uncommitted.

For instance, one way to interpret political polarization in the US is as a scam for the benefit of people who profit from campaign spending. War can be an excuse to subsidize armies. Etc.

Because of the dishonesty involved, this sort of situation can't be explicitly negotiated; rather, there's a sort of collective sensing process whereby political cognition distributed across the two sides settles into some drama or another for a while.

This is a common pattern. It's why there are persistent unresolved philosophical disputes. Consider the Kant's distinction between "empiricists" and "rationalists." Rationalists are supposed to somehow believe in reasoning but not sense data, sometimes characterized as eschewing “looking at the world." Empiricists are supposed to somehow believe in the evidence of the senses, but not in reasoning.

This distinction was originally fake, but became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The last time I checked, the Wikipedia page on Rationalism began with portraits of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Spinoza was a lens grinder who worked closely with astronomer-physicist Christiaan Huygens and wrote in his magnum opus, *Ethics,* that we only know about things in the world through our bodies interacting with them. It is unclear to me how it is possible for someone to be more committed to looking at the world.

The last time I checked, the Wikipedia page on Empiricism began with portraits of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and David Hume. Hume's *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* includes the following, which implies that abstract mathematical reasoning is one of the two valid sources of knowledge, and refers to experimental reasoning, not just sense-data:

"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit recasts the entire history of ideas as fake oppositional dramas of this type, and after Kant and Hegel, we in fact see a profusion of schools of philosophy, permanently reifying commitments to pairs of opposite wrong answers.

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Previously: Discursive Warfare as Faction Formation, The Two-Party Swindle

Originally a response to: Scissors Statements for President?

And here's a related joke from Spalding's Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor:

There were two carriage-drivers of Poland who were in constant rivalry for passengers. One was Ivan and the other Mikhail. One day, as Ivan was driving from Warsaw, and the other was approaching Warsaw from the opposite direction, they met on the road, several miles from the city.

When they recognized each other, they drew up their horses and exchanged chilly greetings.

“I see, Mikhail, that you have that crook, Yussel the Jew, as a passenger,” Ivan called, his voice dripping with Sarcasm.

"What do you mean, 'crook'!" Mikhail shouted back. "My Jew is ten times more honest than that Jewish money-lender you have as your own passenger."

"Now hold on there!" Ivan roared. "You can't insult my Jew like that and get away with it.”

"I'll insult him all I like! My Jew is better than your Jew, and I'm warning you, pig, one more word out of you and I'll punch your Jew in the nose.”

"Oh yeah! Well you just try it and see what happens!”

Good as his word, Mikhail climbed down from his wagon, crossed over to Ivan's cart and let fly a stinging blow to the Jewish passenger's nose.

When Ivan saw that his passenger's nose was bleeding profusely, he was beside himself with rage.

"Son of a horse-fly!" he yelled. "How dare you bloody my Jew's nose? If you think I'm going to let you get away with that you are sadly mistaken!" With that, he ran over to Mikhail's wagon and hit his passenger in the eye with all his might. "You hit my Jew, I hit your Jew," he shrilled angrily.

Mikhail was now almost hysterical in his fury. "I swear by the Czar and with God as my witness, you provoked me into this. Remember, I warned you!" And with that, he fell upon Ivan's passenger and pummeled him unmercifully.

"Don't worry," Mikhail called to his nearly unconscious passenger, "I'll take care of that dirty dog. Believe me, I'll give him something to remember me by for the rest of his life!" So saying, he grabbed Ivan's passenger by the throat and almost choked him to death, meanwhile pounding his head against a rock.

Then, glaring at each other out of hate-filled eyes, Ivan and Mikhail mounted their respective coaches and drove on their way.

"That will teach Ivan a little respect for the Jews," muttered Mikhail to himself.

"That will teach Mikhail a little respect for the Jews," muttered Ivan to himself.