The Map Is Not the Territory, but Our Map Terror Forms the Territorium

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Randal e-mailed to say he was reflecting on how much twitter and facebook are kind of the opposite of this right now. We don't just have little moments of disagreement, but we actually are doing the opposite of inflating them, puttng a sort of growth horm on in these sort of moments of disgust, drama, contempt, anger, outrage. The pithy way of saying that is, you nowtha, the map is not the territory, but our map terror forms the territory. What we believe the map says about the territory is how we start to build, and we shift the land, and then that becomes reality.

What do you think the other side thinks? Guest Dan Vallone is the Director of More in Common U.S.A., an organization that’s been asking Democrats and Republicans that critical question. Their work has uncovered countless “perception gaps” in our understanding of each other. For example, Democrats think that about 30 percent of Republicans support "reasonable gun control," but in reality, it’s about 70 percent. Both Republicans and Democrats think that about 50 percent of the other side would feel that physical violence is justified in some situations, but the actual number for each is only about five percent. “Both sides are convinced that the majority of their political opponents are extremists,” says Dan. “And yet, that's just not true.” Social media encourages the most extreme views to speak the loudest and rise to the top—and it’s hard to start a conversation and work together when we’re all arguing with mirages. But Dan’s insights and the work of More in Common provide a hopeful guide to unraveling the distortions we’ve come to accept and correcting our foggy vision.