Extremists are more likely to believe in Conspiracies
One of the core recommendations of Civil Politics is to emphasize cooperation over competition, which often involves getting the silent majority in the middle involved in conflict resolution, rather than leaving it to the extreme partisans on both sides of an issue whose identities are often tied to the conflict. Congruent with this is recent research led by Jan-Wilem van Prooijen, showing that extremists on both sides are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. From a blog post written by the lead author on the London School of Economics blog:
Our findings establish a link between political extremism and a general susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs. Although the extreme left may sometimes endorse different conspiracy theories (e.g. about capitalism) than the extreme right (e.g. about science or immigration), both extremes share a conspiratorial mindset, as reflected in a deep-rooted distrust of societal leaders, institutions, and other groups, allied with a corresponding tendency to explain unexpected, important events through conspiracy theories. This insight may be relevant for the question of why those on the political extremes have displayed substantial intolerance of other-minded groups, often with devastating consequences, on so many occasions throughout history.
– Ravi Iyer
MacUndecided 8 years ago
This seems solid enough. So how would one individual begin to motivate the silent majority to actually become more active and vocal. As a person who has experience running for office, I can tell you first hand that the silent majority has better things to do than carry signs, and hand out flyers. Unfortunately these are exactly the kinds of behaviors that get people elected. So guess what happens after the election, you have politicians beholden to the extremists. What is one to do to break this cycle given the natural inertia of the silent majority?