The (Deep) Dream of Motivated Reasoning Produces Monsters
How Media, Emotion, and Cognitive Bias Create Hallucinatory Political Realities
A few months ago, I shared a link to an article about Robin DiAngelo, the sociologist who coined the term “white fragility,” on a Facebook thread. Moments later, the person I had suggested the article to responded with a comment that didn’t just miss the mark, it was like, psychedelically off base.
“Socialist was the second word in your white fragility link so I got through two words,” he told me. “Anybody who thinks socialism is a good idea is someone I can’t take seriously.”
Somewhat confused, I clicked on the article and did a search for the term “socialist.” It didn’t appear anywhere in the text. I wondered for a moment what on earth he was talking about. Then it dawned on me: this person had misread the word “sociologist” as “socialist.”
When I asked the commenter if he meant “sociologist,” he doubled down: “No, I meant socialist.” My jaw dropped, and I screengrabbed the interaction for posterity. I’m glad I had the impulse, because within a few moments, all his comments had been deleted.
