Political polarization in the modern discourse has been addressed ad nauseum, yet we have failed to make significant headway on dealing with the issue. Due to social media greatly increasing the frequency of interaction, whilst limiting its depth, a massive contributor to the state of affairs is a tendency to engage with straw-men of a given ideology rather than the people themselves. This has exacerbated existing tensions by funneling people into echo chambers and epistemic bubbles in which they do not have to directly engage with alternate points of view. I posit that a solution to this issue may be to move away from ideological isolationism and introduce a third distinction to the landscape of chambers and bubbles, namely, the epistemic community.

A major theme in the politics of knowing has been the problem of colliding epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. Indeed, one way to view the entire subject is as the study of navigating these interactions. Utilizing Nguyen’s distinction, which characterizes bubbles as “informational networks from which relevant voices have been excluded by omission,” and chambers as “a social structure from which other relevant voices have been actively discredited,” it is useful to construct a third term to describe the conglomeration of separate bubbles and chambers. Such structures will be termed ‘epistemic communities’ for the purposes of this paper. Epistemic communities emerge primarily from a group of bubbles united by a common struggle or goal, though it is possible for two echo chambers to occupy the same community if the uniting struggle is adequately compelling. For example, although religious conservatives and fervent libertarians have extremely different views and therefore distinct echo chambers, they share a goal of electing members of the GOP due to their simultaneous (though often paradoxical) commitment to both small government and social conservatism. This causes the groups to consume information supportive of those officials, hence placing them in the same epistemic community. The use of identifying one’s epistemic communities as opposed to simply recognizing bubbles and chambers is in its movement away from isolationist connotation. Reflection on one’s epistemic bubble and echo chamber introduces the risk of feeling trapped in a system of ideologies, which is counter-productive to the goal of healthy discussion.

Members of an epistemic community tend to be primed for agreement because of an overlap of perspective or endeavor, which may emerge from a convergence of what they are seeing, or a convergence of how they are seeing it. In many ways, these are the fundamental questions of epistemic discourse: What are we seeing? What does it mean? Full agreement on both places them in the same echo chamber, while partial agreement on both places them in the same epistemic bubble. Two individuals may share an epistemic community if they are in substantial agreement on only one element of the dichotomy, with lesser agreement on the other. Substantial agreement often stems from shared endeavor—supporters of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump agree substantially on the notion that extensive change is needed in the US, and hence may be able to engage in healthier discussion than typical partisans, whose endeavors tend to be mutually exclusive.

It is important to recognize that each grouping is a subset of the other. Echo chambers exist within epistemic bubbles, which in turn exist within epistemic communities. Individuals within a community are able to maintain a steady discourse due to either an agreement on the facts, or an agreement on the meanings, with the extent of convergence determining their proximity in the community. Further, external divergence may influence proximity. A communist, for example, may agree with libertarians and constitutional conservatives on the importance of gun rights, however, due to fundamental differences in other categories, is antipodal in the community as occupied by the others. The communist believes it aids the proletariat's right to forcibly seize the means of production, where the libertarian and constitutionalist simply believe in the fundamental freedom to bear arms. Therefore, although they share a cause and may find healthy discourse on that matter, it will be vulnerable to destabilization by virtue of their limited overlap. The basic premise of peace literacy may be viewed as the notion that expanding one’s epistemic community allows for healthier discourse.

According to Paul Chappell, “mechanical distance” functions in war as a “physical separation,” which “hides people’s faces and pain” (Peaceful Revolution, Chappell 51). This flavor of dehumanization may be appropriated to understand the issue of chambers and bubbles. When isolated in one’s ideology, one becomes mechanically separated from their ‘adversaries’ due to a lack of direct interaction, which results in an often subconscious development of straw-men. An ideological straw-man is a fallacy in which an individual argues against a mental construct of an easily defeatable adversary which embodies what is perceived as the other’s position. It is a form of ideological posturing which plagues virtual discourse. Because echo chambers are saturated with second-hand commentary on external voices—for instance, retweets accompanied by condemnation—members of the outgroup are assigned labels with which certain straw-men become associated. This is further exacerbated by the few interactions with the outgroup being through disembodied avatars. As a result, when certain buzz-words or talking points appear in conversation, they can be perceived as bad faith argument either by way of direct deception perpetrated by the individual, or indirectly via a deceived individual who is now spreading the argument. This may result in a distress response and a subsequent escalation of the encounter to one of aggression.

The main-stream news media (MSM) is a major driver of mechanical distance in current discourse. According to Perryman’s study of the 2016 election,

The association between perceptions of source bias and estimates of how much news others received from a source revealed that citizens believe their political rivals select like-minded media. Trump and Clinton voters believed the ‘other-side’ consumed the greatest amount of news from sources that they considered to be biased in favor of the opposing candidate. (Where the Other Side Gets News, Mallory Perryman 15)

In terms of the MSM, viewers of Fox News and CNN or MSNBC each view their own outlet as objective and the other outlet as biased. This translates to an ingroup of free-thinkers versus an outgroup of indoctrinated partisans. Therefore, when a relative brings up what are perceived to be oppositional talking points at Thanksgiving dinner, individuals are primed to dismiss the argument as partisan indoctrination, and in turn engage with a partisan straw-man rather than the individual themself.

In Chappell’s work on what he calls “Peace Literacy,” he describes aggression as a symptom of distress stemming from evolved behaviors. So-called “fires of aggression” include fear, frustration, disrespect, and betrayal (PLLP, Chappell). When an individual encounters what is perceived to be a bad faith argument, they are likely to experience some or all of these stressors. They may feel betrayed by the person with which they are conversing, or perhaps frustrated that the person has fallen prey to deception. For cases where they feel betrayed or disrespected, this will often coincide with a perceived act of aggression, and will result in a reflexive reciprocation thereof. Utilizing Chappel’s “Anatomy of Aggression,” these behaviors largely take part in the realms of “posturing” and “passive aggression,” though “social aggression” may occur in more heated debates (PLLP, Chappell). Luckily, his proposed solution of “realistic hope” via extension of “trust in other people,” or ‘hopeful trust’ may be appropriated for the purposes of navigating epistemic communities (Peaceful Revolution, Chappell 7). In conjunction with an understanding of the anatomy of aggression, hopeful trust may serve as the primary means through which epistemic communities function.

Under the epistemic community framework, hopeful trust takes the form of trusting in another person’s shared initiative. For example, when one man’s business was damaged by the riots in Minneapolis, he responded saying “let my building burn, justice needs to be served” (Business Insider). He chose to focus on the initiative he shares with the protesters rather than their act of aggression. Situations of escalating aggression result from a disagreement on one or both of the fundamental issues of discourse—what is being seen, and how it is to be interpreted. These escalations are most likely to occur in discussions between aforementioned antipodal members of a community, and the main function of hopeful trust is as a tool for preventing and self-mediating aggression. In disagreements, particularly those between antipodes, it is important to extend hopeful trust to the ‘opponent’ by recognizing that they share some goal. It is important to trust in their desire to attain that goal. Perryman’s focus on the 2016 election is a strong example. By focussing on their shared goal of electing the best candidate for the country, they may be more open to a cooperative mindset as opposed to one of competition—although extensive practice in hopeful trust may be required for it to be successful in such polarized debates as that of the 2016 election.

Having defined the characteristics of epistemic communities to be so broad as to include widely disparate points of view, the need arises to more clearly outline the landscape in which such communities may exist. Due to the isolatory nature of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers, they are often thought to be individual structures assigned to a specific person. One exists in a singular bubble, a singular echo chamber. I propose that epistemic communities be considered as detached from the individual. One exists at an intersection of communities, determined by their personal interests and endeavors. Almost by definition, a community cannot exist in isolation as do many epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. However, by focussing on the topics and goals specific to the discussion at hand, and those most strongly shared with the ‘adversary,’ one may compile their intersecting communities to those most relevant to the hopeful trust they wish to extend. This provides a mechanism for engaging with the individual rather than a straw-man.

Understanding polarized debates through an epistemic community framework further allows for individualistic engagement by allowing more easily for one to empathize with the ‘adversary.’ The issue of ideological straw-men is in their expediency. They circumvent the need to engage on a personal level by allowing one to generalize the argument to a set of talking points to which they have already compiled their own response. This is problematic because such abstractions are vulnerable to cognitive biases. According to professor Sharyn Clough, biases occur because “in order to make sense of” vast amounts of data, “we must first ignore much of it, and that which we do attend to, we come very early on to chunk into categories or schemas for easier and quicker processing of new instances” (Peace Literacy, Cognitive Bias, and Structural Injustice, Sharyn Clough 16). Further, under Chappell’s view of dehumanization, abstraction to a straw-man builds “psychological distance” by allowing one to engage with a disembodied version of their argument rather than the person themself (Chappell 51). It is much easier to engage with an ideological straw-man because it is an object upon which we have already applied our biases, which is precisely where it becomes problematic. Bias replaces empathy as the mechanism for understanding the ‘adversary’. The goal of establishing a mindset towards epistemic community is to lower the barrier to exercising empathy by providing a readily available path to its use. Practice in focussing on the shared endeavor allows more easily for cooperative rather than competitive discussion.

Ideological straw-men magnify the issue of disembodied communication by taking it beyond the realm of social media. They provide an easily defeatable adversary, taking attention away from the individual and perpetuating a competitive mindset of debate. Epistemic communities attempt to remedy the problem of straw-manning by shifting the focus to the endeavors and ideas one shares with the individual, hence providing a mechanism for the use of peace-literacy skills, specifically hopeful trust and empathy





Works Cited:

Kossoff, J. (2020, May 30). The owner of a Minneapolis restaurant damaged by fire during George Floyd protests said: 'Let my building burn, justice needs to be served'. Retrieved June 11, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/george-floyd-protests-minneapolis-restaurant-owner-let-my-building-burn-2020-5

Nguyen, T. (2018, April 09). Why it's as hard to escape an echo chamber as it is to flee a cult – C Thi Nguyen: Aeon Essays. Retrieved June 11, 2020, from https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult

Chappell, P. K. (2018, August). Peace Literacy Lesson Plan (PLLP). Retrieved June 11, 2020, from https://www.peaceliteracy.org/curriculum

Chappell, P. K. (2012). Peaceful revolution: How we can create the future needed for humanity's survival. Westport, CT: Easton Studio Press.

Clough, S. (2020). Peace Literacy, Cognitive Bias, and Structural Injustice. Retrieved June 10, 2020.





Perryman, M. R. (2019). Where the Other Side Gets News: Audience Perceptions of Selective Exposure in the 2016 Election. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. doi:10.1093/ijpor/edz012