Safe Spacer Summary

Because my posts tend to be rather long (and hard to follow), here's a quick summary of how I analyze the safe-spacer free-speech-blocker movement.

The safe spacer movement is well interpreted by religious dynamics. I tend to think what we're currently seeing in post-secondary campuses is simply the final stages of religious self-organization.

A long trend toward increased societal diversity enabled a phase change in norms.  Things recently became unfrozen.  Once "anything goes" morality was legitimized, real questions about what can be and can't be accepted have emerged.  For the masses, morality has switched from its normal high implicitness to discussable (& questionable) explicitness.

Natural tendencies to religious-like dynamics ensure sacredization occurs (i.e. certain things become sacrosanct).  With multiple versions of morality out on the open, complexity theory ensures self-organization occurs (both mimetically, culturally, and in terms of groups).  Thus groups start rallying around various moral nexuses.  Standard religious dynamics (see Atran, In God's we Trust) illustrate likely group-behaviour patterns.  Multi-level selection theory provides information about group competition dynamics.

The net result resembles a great religious awakening cycle.  However, supernaturalism is absent. The strong embodiment of moral big brothers seems to not matter much in our reasonably scientific literate & rule of law trusting society.

Swarm Politics' Long Game

Scott Adams has a interesting post up this week.  Rather than his usual discussion about large-group persuasion, he proposes that social media (in this political season) has become the new source of US political power.

This is a rather interesting idea.  I mention it here because of its link to large group dynamics and cultural evolution.

Here's a long quote from his post:

The founders of the United States designed a system in which voters elected smart people and those smart people ran the country. They called it a republic. 

Over time, money corrupted the system. Rich people became the real power. The rich controlled the media, and that was enough to control the minds of voters. Let’s call that system a type of “economic fascism.” By that I mean the real power is the top 1% (as opposed to one dictator) and the rest of the country has no real power. 

Society has improved a great deal under economic fascism. Slavery ended, women gained equal rights, and gays are getting married. We also have lots of social nets and whatnot. But that stuff only happens because the top 1% is okay with it. As long as the rich get richer, the people at the top are fine with any other change. The rich don’t want the poor to riot, so some policies have to favor the masses. Drug cartels operate the same way. They provide social services to put the locals on their side. 

In 2016, our form of government took a new turn. Thanks to social media, the most persuasive ideas can always find an audience. The top 1% are no longer the gate keepers of truth with their control of the media. Now any good persuader can rise to the top of the influence pile. All he or she needs is a smartphone.

So Adam's proposed (cultural) evolution of political power is:

power via intelligence [& perhaps (of) positional manipulation]  --> power via intelligence of economic manipulation --> power via intelligence of social manipulation

Academics will certainly fuss about his broad generalizations.  However, it doesn't pay to lose the forest for the trees.  The interesting point (for large group dynamics) is the thesis that replacement of economic-strings with social-populism-strings is underway and that the Trump phenomenon may have instigated a rapid phase change in this regard.


SWARM TENDENCIES: LARGE GROUP INSIGHTS
From this social-manipulation lens, mob mentalities are the new norm.  Swarm effects have overshadowed the leverageable effects of money-politics. Money's lap-dog, mass media, is seeing its power to sway overcome by social media.  Social media swarm factors have negligible intersectionality with back-room money power structures (for the moment at least...structures have a way of winning long wars....).

While its not quite right to say popularism is the new de facto currency of political power, it seems correct to say, that since we're now in the midst of the long-foreseen identity wars, the ability of groups to convert, mobilize and compete against other groups* is more important than it has been for a long time.  Additionally, these identity groups are competing in an environment that seems to have fairly strong group selection pressure (MLS1 type).  The dynamics probably have a lot of parallels with new religious movement dynamics.

Social media has very strong local effects.  Society's general moral destabilization means that localized environmental effects can have significant global effects.  Our socio-moral system is in an unstable equilibrium. Localized phase changes may have minor global penetration, but their cumulative effects (via primary, secondary, or tertiary effects) are anything but environmentally negligible.


QUASI-RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS
On the quasi-religious end of things, social media mobs and their swarming propensities are highly actualized by sacred value formation & breach.  Thus, as swarming's power becomes more noticeable, it should be leveraged more and more.  Sacralized hypersensitivity is to be expected.  As history shows, outrage is a virtue in inter-group conflict (at least up to the point where it engenders real existential destruction).

In fact, this seems to be what we're seeing.  Well intentioned identity-based groups are becoming more and more hyper-sensitized (think over-reaching micro-aggressions).  The sacred important ascribed to things that the uncatechized would see as fairly innocuous attests to this.  Moral outrage & the ability to swarm confer real group benefits upon individuals.


MULTI-LEVEL SELECTION INSIGHTS
A multi-level-selection analysis of Adam's swarm based political power suggests loose confederacies will form and dissolve while fitness advantages between various groups and various group orientations are indeterminate.  To me, this is Adams point.

I suspect he sees weaponized complexity leadership expressed in the social media domain and actualized via quasi-religious dynamics as a steady state solution.  I don't.  I see it as a temporary state which enables in-group and out-group oriented components of a meta-group to get back together and eject free-loading power usurping radicals.  In this regard, I take Sigmund's Tides of Tolerance model to heart: a small preference for tolerance (out-group orientation) grows until there's a loss of connection with the reasons for tolerance. At that point, there's a temporary phase change to intolerance while the system resets itself.

Thus tolerance for its own sake reaches a crisis point: its ubiquity engenders massive meta-analyses.  This often takes the form of a "great religious awakening".  When morality emerges from its implicit shadows, multiple moral expressions compete.  Pretty soon everyone is offensive to someone. Intolerance keels over from its top-heaviness.  New norms are established.

ARE PERPETUAL SWARMS STABLE
Of course, the real question is whether perpetual swarms are stable (like Adams proposes).  I don't think there's a definitive answer for that.  Political theorists during the French revolution era considered popular democracy unstable.  History has proved this naive (at least under the right GDP conditions). So what's an appropriate time frame for stability judgments? 1 year? 10 years?

Based upon the historical pattern of moral instability lengths during religious awakening cycles and other periods of moral instabilities, swarms seem stable on the order of a few years, but not on the order of a few decades.  But, just because this has hitherto been the case, doesn't imply it will always be the case.  So, can a swarm pattern be stable on a decade order?


ANALYZING LIKELY SWARM STABILITIES
Multi-level selection theory is mute on this topic.  The best it can do is suggest (via historical deduction) that:

1. Adaptive groups operating in a stable state are likely to have no clear fitness advantage over each other.  The tools used by competing groups offer no significant fitness advantage.  The analogy is nation state vs. nation state, chiefdom vs. chiefdom, etc.  Niche specializations are of course possible, but advantages are localized. Religion is another example: no single religion has a clear advantage over another.  Some may certainly be doing better than another, but few major players are disintegrating on the decade time scale under discussion.
2. Adaptive groups may nest within a semi-cohesive meta-structure.  This structure provides moments of synergy, but has no clear fitness advantage over smaller group orientations. Culture and weakly functioning nation states may be examples of this.  Religions and tribes provide many rule-of-law like benefits & protections.
3. Adaptive groups may nest within a dominant meta-structure or higher level group.  The higher level group provides clear fitness advantage over an exclusive small group orientation.  Functioning nation states may be examples of this.  Rule-of-law orientation is more beneficial/productive than tribal or religious orientations.

From this analysis, 3 (nesting under a large-group) suggests swarms and power to control swarms will eventually become dominated by a successful group or by an emergent nexus group.  Swarms are not stable, or swarms are indistinguishable from current political parties (although under the new swarm influence we may see an eventual move to a multi-party system)

2 (nesting under a weak supra-structure) certainly seems possible.  A combination of 2 and 3 seems to be what the 1730's great religious awakening produced (nascent but weakly functioning nation state).  3 seems to be what the 1820's great religious awakening produced (a strong nation state that effectively competed against state rights).  2 is the solution I tend to see as most likely.

1 (competing small-groups) is what Adams seems to favour.  I'd suggest it is unlikely to stay tenable over many years because:

1. Repetitive sacrilege loses its synergistic value.  For example, gay marriage used to rile up righteous indignation in some people.  Now it seems pretty mundane.  Similarly racism's over-play seems to be softening its sacrilegial value. Now that most everything is racist to someone, its losing its meaning & significance.  Familiarity is the foe of a swarm's energizers.
2. Maintaining swarm synergy in the context of diminishing sacrilegial energy requires size expansion.  Basic complexity theory suggests you need to add energy to a system by either creating new connections of by absorbing free environmental resources.  Thus groups either need to 2a) combine, 2b) swallow each other, or 2c) convert unaffiliated (or weakly affiliated) agents. 

While we're certain to see groups combine and dissolve (2a & 2b) I suspect, over time, these players foci (combining & domination) will be localized rather than globalized.  Global actions are likely to be costly commitment displays: useful for beefing up in-group commitment, group status, and keeping new recruit levels sustainable.

2c (proselitsim) is the most interesting option.  The history of 2nd & 3rd century Christianity is illuminating here.  Costly christian commitment displays, like helping plague victims, and martyrdom, seeded sect growth remarkably well.  However, I doubt a twitter triage or a publicized career suicide has enough commitment cost to function at the evangelical level needed....  However, I could be wrong.

CONNUNDRUM

This presents a conundrum for swarms.  They must have a ripe target (i.e. cis-gendered white males), but can't risk alienating too many people or else their source of synergistic energy will shrink (unaffiliated actors).  However, I've already mentioned that once everyone is someone's target, sacrilege loses its power due to pluralistic dilution.  It's impossible to limit a big trump card to just a few people's hands.  Scott Adams, however, alludes to the idea that truly great persuaders may always be able to stay one step ahead of the curve: continually finding new sources of unique outrage.  

Call me skeptical, but I think real outrage and groundswelling sacrilege need time to fester. Pop the outrage blister too much and its reservoir run dry.  Big moral reboots and total-value questionings need unique environmental superpositionings to reach critical social mass.

CONCLUSION

Thus, I think swarm power is likely to have a good run for a few years.  After that though, I can't see it having much staying power.  Power brokers will certainly try to harness it as much as they can.  Every so often it will catch. But, over time, ground-level swarm power will be surpassed by structure.  Successful structure will likely be a combination of old and new power (back-room machines & social media swarms).  

However, to me, swarm structure is unlikely to be much different from current religion.  Certainly it will be secularized and non-supernatural.  But, as readers already know, I don't think supernaturalism is great boundary for religious dynamics.  What this means is that politics is likely to merge with secular quasi-religion and we'll be doomed to have to relearn the lessons that gave rise to the separation of church and state.

Notes
* Of course I'm referring to groups within our society

How "Hitlers" Facilitate Pluralism

In Beyond Toleration: The Rise of American Pluralism, Beneke sheds light on the socio-environmental conditions preceding the American religious pluralism phase change. One point,very relevant, today was the major increase in the severity and frequency of counter-cult* rhetoric (both its severity, frequency, acceptability & ubiquitousness).  Preachers waged war against the pernicious influence false doctrine might have if allowed to stand within their community.  Any belief outside their narrow denominational corridor was damnable.

In the terms of group dynamics, leaders simply exaggerated between-group differences. This increased defection costs.  It also produced some sacred value feedback, elevating certain beliefs, such as in-group purity, above others. Intentional hypersensitivity ensued (as manifest by heresy priming).  Hard-bordered group would compete with hard-bordered group.

In the American case, denominational fluidity & heterogenous communities challenged the success of a hard-border strategy.  (Perhaps to compensate) Leaders ramped up their rhetoric to vitriolic levels. Attacks reached such hyperbole people started experiencing some significant cognitive dissonance: could their old neighbour actually be as bad as their preacher suggested?  Interaction showed the answer to be no.  Furthermore, ideological diversity wasn't as problematic as elites suggested.  Hyperbole was, well, hyperbolic.  Leaders over-played their hands. Religious pluralism emerged, enshrined by the rule-of-law's separation of church and state.

Donald Trump has brought this same issue to a head.  The illiberal SJW/free-speech denier/hypocritical-safe-spacer (or whatever this intersectionality is best called) are, with the addition of progressive oriented media & the RNC replicating the dynamics that gave rise to American Religious pluralism.

Groups are going over the top with hyperbole about how Donald Trump is the next Hitler. Justifications mirror those used by preachers of old. Anyone who sides with any aspect of the enemy is supporting fascism, racism, or any of today's sacred sins.  Indeed many of society's guardians suggest "we're letting the devil in".  Even the language employed in this in-group norming is the same! But the group-hardening isn't working. Consensus isn't possible.  Ideology is "multi-denominational".  Even progressivism's universal sins (racism, homophobia, etc.) aren't universal if people are allowed to question their religious-like application with other canards like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, political voice, etc.

Unfortunately many people utterly fail to see the parallel with religious pluralism. While I could speculate on the reasons for this, the dynamics seem to be unfolding in a way that is eerily similar to the 18th & 19th century great awakenings.  Once social dogmas are questioned, naive universalism is not possible.  Right now we're at the point where social progressivism / identity politics is quickly losing its naive universalism.

One flash point for this realization was the #AnythingButTrump movement.  The Chicago version of this movement challenged the very right of people to enter into political dialogue (or hold & speak in a rally). This wasn't akin to your preacher telling you not to talk to you Baptist friend.  It was akin to you preacher telling people to prevent the Baptists from even assembling (which of course happened lots just prior to the flip to 18th century pluralism).  Unfortunately what's good for the goose is good for the gander.  In the 1730's everyone was in danger of losing their assembly options.  Today, people have a very real, albeit exaggerated, sense that the norms of free assembly and speech within those assemblies are under threat.

In the States, people (on both sides of the political middle) are genuinely worried about potential losses in freedom. Because of this, illiberalism is doomed. The goons ramping up violence to shut speech down have over-played the righteousness of their cause.  People can be good people and still have different ideas. Most people are, after all, able to interact with their ideological opposite with little to no problem (despite what your elite demagogue may say).  Because of this, pluralism will emerge: ideological pluralism.

Well, let's hope so.


Notes:

The title of the post is a obsequious jab at how Hitler functions as a de facto Devil today.  Hence the Trump = Hitler meme is just too hard not to make fun of.  The fact many an otherwise rational academic buys into this just goes to show you the depth to which religious like thinking is hard-wired into us.

*Here I'm using cult in its technical sense: a religious splinter group.

The Great Religious Awakening

In the 90's the rise of the religious right, rapid growth of Evangelical Christianity and the growth of costly commitment religions (& decay of low cost religion) had some people speculating about another great religious awakening.  However, the glass ceiling of criticality was never broken.  While change occurred, phase change did not.  The US did not unite behind a new religious form nor ideal.

The slow but steady growth of (some) academics' quasi-religious labelling of the (evangelical-like) social justice movement has me wondering though... have scholars missed this century's religious awakening?

In this post, I'll quickly explore whether outdated reliance on supernaturalism-as-religion has led people down the wrong path for the religious phase change markers associated with great religious awakening cycles. 

Defining Religion

Academically, supernaturalism is a convenient tether against slippery slope definitions of religion. Without some hard lines you face social science's "open borders" conundrum: eventually anything goes. In this case, anything with interesting social dimension becomes a "religion" to someone.  I disavow this notion. Individual approaches to the social science of religion are blind to phase change dynamics. 

Multi-factor approaches are one way of framing religious definitions. (Probablistic) Checklist approaches seem more valid than necessary condition definitions (think 5/7 factors vs. these 3 properties).  However, without rigorous (and nigh impossible) quantitative modelling, multi-factor definitions tend to fall into an "appeal to authority trap": categorization evolves into a highly opinionated game based upon who (or what) is in the in-group. 

Other approaches leverage a process philosophy (i.e.. functionalist) approach: religion is best framed in terms of religiosity, its purposes/functions and internal personal significance. A bastardized version of this lens would have one looking for things like:

• (the function of) costly commitment display acts
• (functional) responses to sacred value breaches
• influence & role of moral big brothers (on the individual)
• felt value of ritual & ritually facilitated bonding
• the degree to which the group influences the individual (explicitly & tacitly)
• identity fusion & functional role of identity fusion
• the purpose of the movement participation for the individual

Exploring the (potential) Recent Great Religious Awakening

From this angle, general trends toward the progressive secular state, while unremarkable by themselves, take on a different light when framed by the quasi-religious spin offs the progressive-secularlist landscape has enabled.

Now, I'm certainly not saying we've had a phase change to a progressive based quasi-religion. I'm simply saying that things like progressivism have evolved a level of morality that facilitates an ever increasing number of people to treat what it facilitates religiously (mainly via value sacralization & identity fusion).  The phase change is that questions of morality emerge explicitly & ubiquitously.

The river of history would therefor be something like:

• Religious right over reach facilitated social progressivism.  
• Social progressive over reach is facilitating political popularism.  
• Power dynamics become real concerns & morality emerges from its implicit lair.
• Political popularist over reach facilitates a stronger and less corrupt rule of law.  This also facilitates greater faith & reliance on the rule of law. 

This final shift is what heterodoxes like me hope for: The great religious awakening of progressive morality (and all the quasi-religious experimentation and conflict that goes with it) breaks down social cohesion and social structures.  This loss reaches a point where it has real cost (for example post-secondary's can't have real academic discussions on many topics, or immigration pro's & con's can't be discussed).  The hoped for result (which follows the pattern of a variety of religious awakenings) is that people settle on a set of norms that facilitate interaction & communication.  This relegates (through popular de-ligitimization) special interest concerns into non-universalizing ideological/religous safe spaces. Specialized sacrileges get worn out.

See Beneke's Beyond Toleration for the full cycle as situated in the 1730's great awakening.


Conclusion

Thus, this century's (possible) religious awakening is about multiple moral based approaches to progressive secularism appropriating quasi-religious like dynamics.  The phase change is people's ubiquitous involvement in social re-norming.  Every permutation is explored (Trump, Black Lives Matter, Oregon Standoff, Safe Space, etc).  Every permutation is challenged. Everyone movement competes for sustenance. But the real dynamic is that because multiple moralities are sacralized everyone becomes a sinner to one group or another.

Moral questions become explicit. Moral confrontations inevitable. Adaptive groups form. Societal dissolution becomes a possibility. Rule of law provides a pressure valve for the obviousness of irreconcilable sacred values & their associated blasphemies.

Evidence for small-group vs. large-group orientation in education?

I stumbled upon S. Mausethagen's 2013 article exploring teacher reactions to external change in forced environments: Accountable for what and to whom?  The article covers ground familiar to any ed reformer: teachers' focus of synergistic energy morphs throughout their career in fairly predictable patterns (see Dinham & Scott, 2000):

1. A focus on their own classrooms.  Accountability to external standards verify that practice falls within acceptable norms.
2. A focus at the school level.  Accountability to a larger community of learners.  A growing importance of the recognition of out-of-class contributions.

I'd also add that many mature teachers also grow beyond a school focus.  In this orientation, they tend to worry about larger student-well being issues. These issues closely relate to education's hidden curriculum & large, societal-level morality.

Here are a couple of quotes from Mausethagen's work

"Being accountable is often articulated in hierarchical relations in the team of beginning- of-career teachers."

"Legitimation through laws and regulations are examples of authorization strategies, which are important legitimation strategies for the beginning-of-career teachers in particular. A prominent representation is to be loyal and accountable to input control such as curriculum and new laws, in addition to output control."

"The teacher’s language is prescriptive and authoritative, giving strength to his view on how things should be. Disagreement and one’s opinion are subordinated authorities, and the teacher creates a binary towards those who do not adhere to external expectations and are therefore 'not professionals'. "

"Being accountable to parents is discursively related to expectations from the principal and being loyal and accountable to him."

But when Mausethagen looks at resistance to accountability, he finds a different locus of control:

"Resistance to accountability policies is often legitimized through the use of moral evaluations or references to the profession and professional work of teachers." 

"For example, national tests are first and foremost seen as accountability towards the government, and not toward students and parents." 

"While many teachers delegitimize the need for external control and are concerned about the implications both for the students and the profession, they also acknowledge a decrease in trust and legitimacy for the public." 

There is clear antagonism between many beginning teachers who see their role in terms of external achievement mandates and many veteran teachers who see their role in terms of social development and broad educational aims.  The former appeal to authority, the latter to morality.  

Veteran teachers' large-group focus clearly bifurcates toward a strong small-group focus (screw the curriculum & standardized tests, I'm doing what's best for the kids and community) or a large-group focus (larger societal & student well-being issues warrant a watered-down content focus).  Interesting stuff.  The only problem with such obviously superficial small-group large-group analysis is that they are pure hand waving and are extremely subject to proof-texting "just so" explanations.  Take them with a huge grain of salt...

Terrorist Threats: Limits of Rationality

There's a rather famous quote by D. S. Wilson, the prominent evolutionary biologist.

If there is a trade-off between the two forms of realism [factual & practical], such that our beliefs can become more adaptive only by becoming factually less true, then factual realism will be the loser every time. … Factual realists detached from practical reality were not among our ancestors. 

For context, here's how he frames the two forms of realism:

What do I mean by factual and practical realism? A belief is factually realistic when it accurately describes what’s really out there (e.g., there are no people up there sitting on clouds). A belief is practically realistic when it causes the believer to behave adaptively in the real world.

This has some rather important implications in properly analyzing relative threat levels from domestic right wing vs. Islamic terrorism.

First off, we have to ascertain what type of threat is imposed: existential or conventional (eg. money, lives, freedom, etc.).  While I don't know of studies that directly answer this, there are a fair number that circle around the bush.  I'll amalgamate these into a simple function:

threat = damage per event * frequency * potential growth rate * probable damping curve

Upper bound represents in-group orientation metrics.
Lower bound represents out-group orientation metrics. 

However, this leaves out a key aspect from yesterday's discussion: risk vs. cost metrics.  As mentioned, early intervention toward an out-group has minimal direct negatives. In disproportional scenarios, at worst you lose some unknown future potential benefits (retaliation risks vary directly with out-group strength & penetration potential).  Late intervention toward an out-group has potentially severe direct negatives, including uncertain existential threat levels.  Thus a better threat
function is:

threat = (damage per event x event frequency x potential growth rate x probable damping curve) x power law cost-benefit curve

The power law cost-benefit vs. intervention point time curve shows why good people often talk past each other in terms of right-wing vs. Islamic terrorism.  Path future is more a function of one's own out-group in-group bias than it is a function of rational judgment.  Error rates swamp precision/validity; complexity rules and reductionist rationality is naive fiction.

While future prediction is bounded by complexity recognizing historical patterns definitely facilitates bayesian heuristics. In other words if history shows that immigration (which includes some violent elements) hasn't caused existential problems before, it probably won't again.  This is an out-group position.  The in-group position is sensitive to black swan events;  Sometimes, out-group positions cause complete existential destruction. Tension between these two positions accentuates the role of minor clues. 

threat = (damage per event x frequency x potential growth rate x probable damping curve x power law cost-benefit curve) x black swan frequency x black swan damage

In regard to the role of minor clues, researchers like Haidt would add that the emotional tail wags the rational dog. Kauffman leverages this ex post facto rationality limit by suggesting our emotions are optimally primed to pick up fuzzy signals.  When operating at the edge of chaos, this leads to better-than-rational predictions. This means we shouldn't be so quick to discount "naive" prejudicial out-group heuristics. It simply means good people will disagree on the weighting they apply to short-term history vs. genetic-term history.  Out-groupers may favour a combination of the short-term history & risk-reward.  In-groupers may favour genetic-term history & risk-aversion-cost-aversion.  (Obviously long-term group survivability in competitive landscapes requires both positions and their dynamic tension.)

Turchin's cliodynamic work on secular cycles throws in some interesting data points.  His work suggests ideological conflict is correlated as a pre-cursor to societal collapse.  While this seems obvious, it throws a useful wrench into the right-wing vs. Islamic terror equivalency debate. Which is more ideological foreign & incompatible? 

Turchin's work also highlights the evolutionary fitness of practical rather than factual weightings.  Thus, even if right-wing terrorism were to be perfectly equivalent to Islamic terrorism the main deciding factor is whether, over a long-average, an out-group will treat you better than an in-group? Societal collapse happens when elites split into one group and commoners into another. Each serve their own interests at the expense of the other. Unfortunately for the plebes, the elites have the power (they still excel while societal collapse progresses)!  Eventually even a strong rule of law can't handle the polarization nor its Malthusian trap.

This illustrates some of the unique dynamics occurring in the debate. People within society who appear to favour out-of society actors over in-society actors raise people's freeloader heuristics (specifically, traitorous dynamic heuristics).  This is especially true of people in elite and quasi-elite roles.  Treachery in these groups can have especially nasty consequences for the middle class and non-aligned elites & quasi-elites. This exaggerates the importance of out-group in-group framing.  

For elites, a little out-group entry has: 

• minimal immediate costs to moderate immediate benefits (more slave-like labour & taxes),
• potential good pay-offs if out-group swamping occurs (keep status & grow wealth)

On the other hand, for the middle class, out-group entry has:

• minimal long-term pay offs with out-group swamping (only some will excel during destabilization)
• moderate negative immediate costs to minimal positive immediate benefits (now the slave or more work)

One doesn't have to be a game theory expert to see the preferred solution for both parties. Add in Turchin's findings that in societal collapse most of the middle gets seriously screwed, and bigoted xenophobes can appear like risk averse bankers.  

Additionally, the middle class should be especially sensitized to actions which appear to devalue historic in-groups.  This is a pending signal that elites, quasi-elites, and your own peers will screw you. Once social contract binding loses effectiveness those on the margins are disproportionately impacted (say via simple rent increases which push you into poverty and then into serfdom due to evaporation of income buffering).

The net result is the addition of a non-linear "non-rational" factor into the threat function.  Wilson might suggest calling this a "practical reality over factual reality weighting".  As potential discrepancy between the two increases, practical reality is weighting more heavily.  This is due to the costs of missing a false negative versus the cost of missing a false positive. So,

threat = (damage per event * event frequency * potential growth rate * probable damping curve * power law cost-benefit curve * black swan frequency * black swan damage) * treasonous elite freeloading probability * disproportional socio-economic impact * nonlinear non-rational sensitivity

Now if you're like me, this function is getting pretty messy.  So messy in fact, that rational choice theory application is non-sensical.  Rational choice theorists (of which I'm not one) suggest people group terms.  Here's one way grouping:

threat =  event frequency * disproportional socio-economic impact * probable damping curve * damage per event * power law cost-benefit curve * black swan damage * black swan frequency* potential growth rate * treasonous elite freeloading probability * nonlinear non-rational sensitivity

One way to interpret this grouping is: 

threat = minimization of out-group threat * rational judgment * maximization of out-group threat * non-linear sensitivity

How conservatives and liberals differ in this weighing seems straight forward.  Confounding simplistic us=good them=bad polemics is the fact that people on different ends of the political spectrum simply switch in-group out-group demographics.  For many on the left, right-wingers are the out-group.  For many on the right, most of Islam is the out-group.  Thus, the real distinction is the non-linear sensitivity term. As Wilson illustrates, history selects against factual realists detached from practical reality. Thus people clue into the potential each group has to cause existential extinction.

Progressive leftists are legitimately concerned about the extinction of progressive society.  A status quo is simply not acceptable.  It represents real disintegration of what the West is to them.  Conservatives are legitimately concerned about the extinction of Western values and culture. A status quo is acceptable. Social progression is valued less than status quo freedoms.

Thus the only seemingly valid metric (which is not paradigm based) is the propensity of right-wing and Islamic terrorists group to infiltrate and attack other states/socieites.  This reveals the worst case level of existential threat (at some far future time).  Islam is clearly different here. San Bernadino type events suggest a non-zero infiltrate and leverage tendency. Insurgencies in many Islamic population centres re-enforce this idea. Fears of localized submission walls within a growing demography are cited.  Right-wing terrorists just have not shown a tendency to go to other countries (unless you count national military as an example of right-wing terrorism, which is certainly a logical position to take - it just legitimizes criticisms about freeloader treachery risks).

Domestic vs. Foreign Terrorism: Why they key different existential threat levels

I had a quick twitter exchange on the false (or potentially false) equivalency of domestic right-wing terrorism and Islamic terrorism.  

I take the position that Islamic terrorism present a real, albeit nascent, existential threat to Western society. I consider domestic right-wing terrorism a minor existential threat to current Western society.  I do however, concede them to be a definite threat to Western governments which (rapidly) phase change to fascist-socialism.

The main distinguishing factor between "domestic" and "foreign" terrorism is the in-group out-group heuristics they prime.  

Domestic right-wing terrorism is, for many Westerners, an in-group issue. These domestic groups' conservative nature ties them to a specific (albeit usually out-dated or blindly idealized) aspect of nationalism. So, while both domestic and Islamic radicals have government overthrow/change in mind, the former is somewhat grounded to the nation state's past while the later is uncertainly grounded to one of many possible futures. 

Islamic overthrow/change presents an unknown future.  It certainly could be that an Islamized West is a part of a happy pluralistic future.  However, because Islamic (radical) groups are considered by many to be an out-group, motives are viewed as harder to understand, more uncertain, less trustworthy and potentially more harmful.  Because of this, worst-case futures are primed.  The cost of early intervention is relatively minimal (in the direct sense). Because of uncertain growth rates, late intervention is potentially devastating. Think Hitler in '32 vs. '40.

On the other hand, domestic terrorism is perceived as better understood.  When in-group heuristics are primed, people tend to feel they have a better grasp on potential growth rates and ideological penetration depth.  This makes them seem less scary.  The actions of these groups tend to elicit crime/crazy categorization.  They are a known aberration rather than a signaller of unknown existential competition.

Additionally, early false-positive intervention with an out-group has minimal in-group costs. Falsely rejecting an out-grouper has the potential loss of an unknown future benefit and zero immediate costs.  A false-negative lack of intervention also has zero cost, but comes with an uncertain future cost.  As long as you're surviving, we've been evolutionary selected for (varying degrees of) false-positive conservatism. 

However, groups tend to do well with some risk-takers.  That's why hetero-orthodoxes, like myself, consider tension between out-group orientation and in-group orientation necessary.  Full isolation is an equally poor long-term strategy as full open-doors. Thus it is more than a little naive to bash in-group or out-group orientations. While ideological homogeneity may "feel" good, this is probably just a proximate reaction to the benefits of periodic freeloader purging (see Sigmund for some ground-work).  Of course optimal in-group to out-group orientation ratios are environmentally determined. Is competitor group size growing? Increase via out-group orientation. Or, go small and strong and shoot for niche positioning.

Now all this changes based upon in-group out-group priming.  Those on the far left are probably more likely to see potential domestic terrorists as an out-group and immigrants as an in-group.  Conservatives are just the opposite.  How you view each group probably tells you more about your own biases than it does about the rationality of either position.  Neither position is inherently "bad". They are just different approaches to solve the in-group vs. out-group fitness riddle.

The far left tend toward out-group oriented universalism.  That is to say, the far left tend to minimize ultra-nationalism in favour of inter-nationalism.  In evolutionary sense, they're putting their bets on the returns offered by a larger adaptive group (ie. nation state vs. chiefdom).  This is a good strategy. Larger groups tend to outcompete smaller groups. Out-group orientation also tends to minimize inter-group conflict frequency.  This is one reason religion and universalist oriented religions have been so successful: they enable the formation of larger groups (see Norezayan for the causal arrow of religion->civilizaiton).

Similarly in-group oriented conservatives are oriented to minimize out-group swamping problems and favour in-group coherence.  Haidt's moral foundations work gets at some of this. This is a good strategy. Coherent groups tend to outcompete incoherent groups. In-group orientation also tends to minimize freeloading costs.

The mathematical mean should be equally balanced between seeing domestic terrorists as an out-group and potential Islamic terrorists as an out-group. Where this mean is, is certainly debatable. 

The US constitution certainly enshrines power to domestic purges of a technocratically detached & oppressive elite. As mentioned, domestic terrorism also has some ties to the average nation-stater's zone of reference, in the sense that it represents a plausible connection back-in-time rather than a potential connection forward-in-time. Pluralism and the marginalization of in-group oriented nationalism have certainly shifted traditional balances.  My sense, is that progressive pluralism represents a super positioning facilitating a potential change to a higher adaptive group level which supersedes current nation state groupings.  Its potential to minimize inter-national conflict is certainly real.  Nonetheless, the strain on in-group coherence is also very real. Backlashes are endogenous not exogenous responses. However, all this depends on what level of immigration is considered fundamental to one's group.  On this point, good people will disagree. Further more, they should disagree: group orientation heterogeneity is essential for adaptive group survival!

Lessons from the Rise of Religious Toleration

In the mid 1700's the rise of religious toleration had become firmly entrenched.  However full operationalization of religious liberty had not yet occurred.  Those familiar with today's progressive debates will recognize parallel issues of trust, power dynamics and linguistic misinterpretation.

Anglican's wanted to increase their organizational level by getting a Bishop for the country.  Presbyterians did not want to concede the implied Anglican universality this could entail.  According to Beneke,

neither side could frame their arguments in the traditional language of toleration, nor yet fully concede to their opponents the religious liberty that they desired for themselves. (pp. 126)

Bennett goes on to say, "with the rise of religious liberty, there might be no more innocent words."

This scenario sounds eerily familiar to today's culture wars.  The battles around literal fact vs. perceived intent also parallel what is happening today.  Today something can be factually accurate, but still be speech which is banned (or de-facto banned): just think about the sociology vs. science of race & culture.  In the 1700's the tension surrounded labels of sinful behaviour/belief thrown from one religious tradition onto a different religious tradition.  While such accusations were technically correct, the intent of such messaging and the likelyhood of offence overwhelmed technical considerations.  Tolerance wasn't just about accepting others, it was about minimizing friction on non-essential issues.

In 1700's America, the key to eventually overcoming this conundrum was purposeful statements from both sides that they did not want to change the other: that they were both part of a larger national body.  The rise of religious migrants (converts from one sect from another) enabled deep insight into a given creed's hidden messages and agendas.  People became so sensitive about hidden agendas that trust broke down.  Society started to fracture.  It was saved by a heterogeneity.

Heterogenous interaction enabled people to see that their neighbour from another sect wasn't really the spawn of Satan, like perhaps their over zealous minister was suggesting. A large group oriented society had benefits that surpassed that offered by within-group purity.  A new cultural group level emerged.

Applications

So how would the evolution outlined by Beneke above play out for a resolution of today's culture wars?  The first step would involve both sides truly accepting the internal logic and internal value of opposite positions.

Opposites need not be seen as "right".  They do, however, need to be seen as plausible (within the assumptions of an alternative paradigm).  Large group moves to universalism generally require a commensurate surge to the value placed on commonalities.  In the progressive battles of today, this could mean a surge in nationalism or a surge in "human right" type thought.  I suspect"human right" universalism opens the gate to wide for large group survivability.  However, this will likely raise existentialist hackles. The end game of true universalism is the loss of the UN styled nation state.

What to Watch For

Costly display rituals/tests are an adaptive way of seeing who is and is not a group freeloader.  Acts which go against your own individual level self interest are unlikely to be done by group members who function on the group's periphery.  Neither are they likely to be done by those who are not very committed to group function.  Thus seemingly counter-adaptive acts actually function adaptively provided they purify group membership and strengthen group function.

Current examples of self-hate of privilege (i.e. upper middle class white people saying people like themselves deserve to be targeted by oppressed ethnic groups due to their inherit privilege) are hard to rationalize with anything other that costly display commitments against one group (a socio-economic group) and for another group (ideological based group).

This becomes very interesting when you look at the changes in adaptive grouping and group levels which are occurring.

The Ed Reform Scale-up Problem

Scale is one of the major challenges in educational reform. Extending localized successes has proved to be an intractable problem.  Broad reforms can sometimes change superficial institutional structures (i.e. principals as instructional leaders rather than business managers).  Usually, however, reforms simply change the practice of small clusters of teachers, perhaps even the practices within a few schools or charter school-networks.

Elmore in his insightful School Reform from the Inside Out book says,

The good news about existing reform strategies is that they tend to galvanize commitment among the already motivated by concentrating them in small groups of true believers who reinforce each other.  The bad news is that these small groups of self-selected reformers apparently seldom influence their peers.

It's hard not to interpret ideas like this in terms of multi-level selection theory: people tend to be drawn to self-reinforcing, adaptive groups which have evolved protection from freeloader and dictatorial abuse.

What Elmore is getting at is that educational reforms can delve into core practice change at a small-group level but can only broach superficial change at the large-group level.  The large-group level of education is a juggernaught.