The media is prone to making sensational statements, whether in the newspaper, on TV, or as Internet clickbait. It's all about attention-grabbing. I recall one good indicator of someone who lived on their own was taking the news literally. But now that COVID has isolated so many people, there are far more people with crazy beliefs. That's only the tip of the iceberg.
Many believe that if a little is good, then more is better. And based on that belief, opinions often collect at either end of a spectrum. For example, some people want welfare totally eliminated while other people want the whole country to be socialist. For society to function, it must work well with both capable people and challenged people. Our technological society doesn't have a place for about 15% of the population. I know, I once tried to train someone who seemed normal but just could not be trained to enter into a cash register 500 for 5 dollars and 5000 for 50 dollars. After two hours and then a quarter of an hour on various days over the next few weeks it was eventually clear that I wasn't making any progress. My place of work did not have a task he could do. A friend of mine tried to show his neighbor how to do various things such as where to put the nails in asphalt shingles. To date, my friend has not managed to train his neighbor to do anything by himself. If he tries to fix something it only gets worse. But telling everyone not to work but stay at home, is clearly also not going to work.
Moderation. It's Ok to have a big military, but not to use it unless it is necessary. Ukraine. The Central and Western part speaks the Ukrainian dialect, which can be classed as a separate language, and the Eastern part speaks Russian. One part is connected with the West and the other with the East. The obvious thing is to divide them, just like with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. And then the Western part would stop shelling the Eastern part because there was no political advantage to doing so. But instead, we are shipping huge amounts of weapons into Kiyv and giving them coordinates to direct their fire.
Polarization is being a militarized nation and pretty much constantly at war. Moderation is to be a powerful nation but only to use that power when necessary.
One big problem is that everything in society now is getting more and more weaponized, especially sources of information. People are getting more intolerant of those who hold differing opinions, so as a result, each organization tends to get more polarized and different organizations become more like tribal groups. This creates a self-reinforcing feedback effect within each individual social sphere. When you only hear people who are on your same opinion side.
Yes, the echo chamber effect, and party loyalty - that Republicans support a Republican President, and Democrats believe a Democrat President no matter what he says.
Most of the public are sceptical about what is in the media, and rightly so, with any media. And politicians have a habit of lying, and in Joe's case, this is supplemented by just not being able to remember anything accurately, so it's pretty difficult to believe anything he says. Joe Biden as VP back in 2014 had the Ukraine portfolio and would at the very least have agreed to the Maidan uprising to overthrow the government in Ukraine, and in Nov 2021 had a telephone call with V Zelenskyyy president of Ukraine promising him US backing if he challenged Pres. Putin of Russia. And favored shipping more weapons and ammunition to Kyiv in 2021, including a massive amount of artillery shells. And on Feb 14th 2022 Kyiv increased its occasional shelling of Eastern Ukraine to fairly frequent shelling. On Feb 24th 2022 Biden stated in a major speech, not mentioning his involvement in provoking Russia, that Russia had made an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. What amazes me is how many people believed him, including even Republicans. I'm not going to claim which side is in the right, just that the statement that it was unprovoked is in error. Maybe the provocation was justified, there have been claims that the ultimate aim of gaining freedom was worth the cost of challenging Russia and crossing Putin's red line, but there really are two sides to the story.
Party polarization means almost half of the population are inclined to support the president of their own party however bad his decision was and to ignore the consequences. This polarization applies to both parties and that blind support makes it pretty much impossible to get rid of bad leadership.
The biggest threat to free speech in an open society is, always and inevitably, government censorship that threatens people’s lives and freedom over their views. But government overreach is not the only thing that can imperil free expression; social pressure and intolerance for dissenting ideas can, too. A new study suggests that these malignant forces have risen in our society, so much so that the public is now experiencing an epidemic of self-censorship. A Massachusetts-based organization called Populace prepared a report examining the difference between people’s publicly stated opinions and their actual beliefs when granted privacy. On a whole host of issues, from public health to gender to race, the survey found a significant gap between the public's actual opinions and what they’re willing to admit publicly. America is experiencing a self-censorship epidemic, study reveals , Brad Polumbo, 8/20/22
Sorry, I found a bunch of pictures on virtue signalling, so I was tempted to post them; it is just a small part of the point you made. Government censorship is another factor, and company censorship is another as media owners dictate what is permitted in their productions, but I suspect the biggest factor might be people are wary of posting certain types of items for fear it could block them from future employment.
