Eugene Volokh posts something so brilliant I’m probably going to grab more than fair use allows; you’ll visit, won’t you?
IDEOLOGICAL COCOONING: There’s been much speculation recently about
whether the Internet increase people’s predisposition to talk to and
listen to only those views that they generally agree with, and to
simply ignore other views. Some say yes. Some say no. Some say that at
least Weblogs diminish this tendency, because they often link to views
they disagree with, if only to rebut them.
Let me suggest a slightly different hypothesis: Most people have a particularly strong tendency to ignore views that they disagree with and are presented rudely.
I suspect that most people do prefer to read things that reinforce what
they already believe. But those people who are interested in ideas (who
are probably disproportionately represented among readers) realize that
they need to consider others’ viewpoints, and are often willing to do
so.
These readers, though, are extremely easy for a writer to lose. It’s
already a bit hard emotionally for people to consider other viewpoints
(sad, but that’s the reality of human psychology); invective and
insults make it still harder. What’s more, since rudeness is often a
proxy for substantive weaknesses in an argument, especially for the
failure to take opposing views seriously, readers think to themselves:
“This stuff is annoying to read, it’s probably not that good
substantively, why should I waste my time on it?”
This effect does indeed relate to ideology. Though quite a few people
have low tolerance for rudeness generally (for instance, because they
feel that rudeness by some of their allies reflects badly on the whole
movement), most people do have more tolerance for rudeness by their
ideological allies than by their ideological adversaries. Among other
reasons, hearing the other side insulted is less annoying than hearing
our side insulted. So as political invective increases, people’s
natural tendency to prefer listening to their friends is exacerbated.