>>14080063>But that would imply that you are continuously moving towards the more radical groups on your own, instead of staying in the same moderate group.It would, yes. Such things happen for a multitude of reasons, whether it is an expression of dissatisfaction and contrarianism ("Those damned left/right wingers wouldn't have even let me discuss it in peace"), personal acquaintances (radicals usually don't abstain from participating in the "moderate" political groups of their side, which is why I've said that they are connected to a fair degree; a personal acquaintance with them can serve as a factor making one more receptive toward radical ideas, and a gateway toward participating in more radical discussion), or some sort of initial inclination toward radicalism (this is the sort of explanation that you provided, "he sought them out on his own", and it is a factor, but the reason that I don't consider it to be a good explanation on its own is simply the fact that it doesn't really apply to what we're discussing, which is a sort of a path from a moderate to a radical; if one were initially proactively inclined toward radicalism, taking a significant, self-motivated effort to directly involve himself with radical group and radical material, we wouldn't have called him a moderate in the first place, and because of that he wouldn't have corresponded to the phenomenon we're trying to explain).
>Most people don't polarize in this way, ending up either a radical leftist or a radical right-winger, but rather fall somewhere in between.That is true, but the mechanism is not meant to apply to everyone. If it did, everyone would have been a radical, which is obviously not the case. But it is meant to apply to at least a certain population of people who were initially moderate, but radicalised through time, because that's what you asked me to explain. [cont]
