Great post, and an interesting link. I have spent many years now as a behavioural therapist, and more than 10 years teaching it to others. The amazing thing is that I have seen this phenomenon all over the place, and it's interesting that in the internet age, social memetics have become a form of Pavlovian conditioning themselves. It is now, as I have found, unacceptable to present any opinion which is contrary to the mainstream conditioned response. For example, when I talk about why we should disband the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, there are a stream of people ready to jump on my head and kick me around, without letting me finish presenting my well thought out argument, which if they did, many of them may actually say "hey, he's got a point he has".

We are living in a fast moving information age, and it seems as thought it's better to simply take a few soundbytes on, and base your belief systems on that, as opposed to thinking something through over time, listening to and considering alternatives, and coming to form an opinion, which you are quite within your rights to change at any time, based on your instinct and values.

I find when people get angry with alternative views, it's always best to simply say "yes, yes, that's very nice" and carry on being unconcerned with people trying to mould and shape you into caricatures of themselves.