Keep Your Identity Small
February 2009 I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.
2009 年 2 月 今天我终于意识到为什么政治和宗教会产生如此独特无用的讨论。
As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument.
通常，在线论坛上任何提及宗教的内容都会沦为宗教争论。
Why?
为什么？
Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?
为什么这种情况会发生在宗教上，而不是 JavaScript、烘焙或人们在论坛上讨论的其他话题上？
What's different about religion is that people don't feel they need to have any particular expertise to have opinions about
宗教的不同之处在于，人们并不觉得他们需要拥有任何特定的专业知识才能发表意见
it.
它。
All they need is strongly held beliefs, and anyone can have those.
他们所需要的只是坚定的信念，任何人都可以拥有这些信念。
No thread about Javascript will grow as fast as one about religion, because people feel they have to be over some threshold of expertise to post comments about that.
关于 Javascript 的话题不会像关于宗教的话题那样增长得那么快，因为人们觉得他们必须超过一定的专业知识门槛才能发表有关宗教的评论。
But on religion everyone's an expert.
但在宗教方面每个人都是专家。
Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too.
然后我突然意识到：这也是政治的问题。
Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise
政治就像宗教一样，是一个没有专业知识门槛的话题
for expressing an opinion.
用于表达意见。
All you need is strong convictions.
你所需要的只是坚定的信念。
Do religion and politics have something in common that explains this similarity?
宗教和政治有什么共同点可以解释这种相似性吗？
One possible explanation is that they deal with questions that have no definite answers, so there's no back pressure on people's opinions.
一种可能的解释是，他们处理的问题没有明确的答案，因此人们的观点不会受到反压力。
Since no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid, and sensing this, everyone lets fly with theirs.
由于没有人可以被证明是错误的，因此每种意见都同样有效，并且意识到这一点，每个人都可以放手去做。
But this isn't true.
但这不是真的。
There are certainly some political questions
当然还有一些政治问题
that have definite answers, like how much a new government policy will cost.
有明确的答案，例如新的政府政策将花费多少。
But the more precise political questions suffer the same fate as the vaguer ones.
但更精确的政治问题与更模糊的政治问题遭遇同样的命运。
I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity.
我认为宗教和政治的共同点是它们成为人们身份的一部分，而人们永远无法对属于他们身份的东西进行富有成果的争论。
By definition they're partisan.
根据定义，他们是有党派的。
Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people, not
哪些话题涉及人们的身份取决于人，而不是
the topic.
主题。
For example, a discussion about a battle that included citizens of one or more of the countries involved would probably degenerate into a political argument.
例如，关于一场涉及一个或多个相关国家的公民的战斗的讨论可能会退化为政治争论。
But a discussion today about a battle that took place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn't.
但今天关于发生在青铜时代的一场战争的讨论可能不会。
No one would know what side to be on.
没有人知道该站在哪一边。
So it's not politics that's the source of the trouble, but identity.
因此，问题的根源不是政治，而是身份。
When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that
当人们说讨论已经退化为宗教战争时，他们真正的意思是
it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities.
它已开始主要由人们的身份驱动。
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