Political change: head, heart
Commenter “Phil D” has a question for me:
…[T]his is something I wondered about for a long time.
Take another example of a neocon, Roger Simon of Pajamas Media.
I remember reading a comment of him from a few years back were he states (I have to paraphrase since I don’t have the original comment);
– in the seventies I was a big admirer of Mao
– even though he killed more people than the nazis
– it was no big deal at the time
Now to me that means that Mr. Simon was worse than a nazi in the seventies (the “killed more ”¦” part), and then there is the “no big deal” part too.
The same can be said of most of those people who were hit on the head by 11 September 2001. They seem to have forgotten [their] own responsibilities before they were “hit on the head”.Compare this to a Bernard Nathanson. He didn’t just “change his mind”, he repented of what he had done. In fact, that’s one of the reasons he stated for converting to Catholicism, because he felt a great need for forgiveness.
The inescapable responsibility of the Germans for the nazis is fairly regularly stated, but has it never come to your mind that that same question of responsibility can be asked of you?
The first thing I want to say in response is that I have no idea whether Roger Simon ever wrote such a thing. I Googled it just now, and nothing came up. So perhaps Phil D’s memory is tricking him regarding the quote, or perhaps not—but let’s not get mired in that issue, because undoubtedly there are other changers who might have said something similar, even if Roger didn’t. So let’s assume that such a phenomenon is not so very unusual.
It seems to me that left-to-right changers fall into two general categories: the ones who were originally very political, and quite far to the left (David Horowitz comes to mind as an excellent example), and those who had been politically affiliated with liberalism and/or the Democrats but who had not been especially politically interested or involved. I was more the latter type. Although I was a Democrat, I was never ever a leftist, and although I read the papers and kept up with the news I was neither a political junkie nor especially given to political discussions. Admirer of Mao? Not even close. I was more of a Scoop Jackson type of Democrat, a fervent anti-Communist and believer in America as primarily a force for good in the world.
When someone politically involved such as David Horowitz goes through a political change, it’s a major upheaval. One of the reasons is that his/her political views are a public matter, and usually part of that person’s work life or volunteer work. But, paradoxically, from another perspective it’s actually not so much of a stretch, because that person is going from activism and intense political interest to activism and intense political interest. It’s just the political orientation that’s different, not the fervor of the political involvement.
For someone like me, it’s a very different process. That person can keep it private until he/she chooses to “come out”—and maybe never come out, although I did tell friends and family quite early because I was so naive I didn’t realize that people I knew would have problems with my change or anger about it. And someone like me will experience a change not only in his/her political affiliation, but in that person’s intensity of interest in politics and breadth of knowledge, especially about history—even the history through which that person has already lived, and thought he/she already knew about.
I’ve described the process of my change in exhaustive detail in my series of posts on the subject, but I haven’t written new posts in the series in years. It used to be, when I started out blogging, that just about every reader had read and was therefore familiar with my story. But it occurs to me that perhaps that’s no longer true. Maybe Phil D and many others haven’t read those change posts, and so the whole process is a mystery and they can fill in the blanks with speculation.
So, another response I have to Phil is to say that you should read my “change” posts if you haven’t already, because they could answer your questions in greater depth. I can’t really summarize the posts very well (they are long for a reason!), but the gist of the story is that I didn’t suddenly change my politics after 9/11. It was a process that took several years of reading and thinking. And I didn’t so much change my mind as that I became better informed.
One of the most important factors in the whole experience was that 2000-2001 was also around the time that I started getting my news online rather than from hard copies of newspapers and periodicals, and that gave me access to a far greater variety of sources than ever before. It’s not that those sources hadn’t existed previously, it’s just that earlier I hadn’t even realized that the news sources I was customarily reading (NY Times, Boston Globe, New Yorker) were biased towards the left. But once I started reading from sources on the right as well (at first, without even knowing they were on the right), for the most part they made more sense to me. When I realized I was more simpatico with thinking on the right—and probably always had been—I was absolutely stunned.
The emotional adjustment after I realized that fact was profound. Me? A conservative? I had trouble wrapping my mind around it. And then once I had come to accept that fact, there was the difficult emotional adjustment when I tentatively started mentioning to people that I disagreed with this or that premise of liberalism, and experienced a series of angry and even insulting responses from quite a few. It took some getting used to.
Phil D asks me, “has it never come to your mind that that same question of responsibility can be asked of you?” Of course. Part of my answer relates to what I’ve just written; I felt that my main problem had been misinformation and lack of intense involvement with politics, as well as—as commenter “DNW” writes—being a “‘let’s all be nice’ liberal living in a circle” of people about the same.” I bore and accepted some responsibility for that, but I think the press bore a much greater responsibility.
To make that point more clear, I offer the following excerpt from one of my posts in the change series. This passage (written in 2008) describes my feelings a few years earlier when I finally realized how the press was distorting things, and had been doing so even back during the Vietnam War days. Read the whole post if you want to get more of the background, but the subject matter was some Vietnam War era photos that the MSM had originally presented in a misleading and propagandistic manner, and about which I had just learned the fuller story, thirty or so years later:
I spent the next few hours searching the subject online and found quite a bit more information, but no serious or credible refutation of the stories I’d just learned. The facts therein did not appear to be in much dispute. I read the original article again, and then again, in a tensely concentrated state.
Then the strangest feeling came over me. I don’t even have a word for it, although I usually can come up with words for emotions.
This was a new feeling. The best description I can come up with is that it was a regret so intense it morphed seamlessly into guilt, as though I were responsible for something terrible, though I didn’t know exactly what. Regret and guilt, and also a rage that I’d been so stupid, that I’d let myself be duped or misled or kept ignorant about something so important, and that I’d remained ignorant all these years.
I sat in front of my computer and put my face down on the keyboard. I stayed in that position for a few minutes, energyless and drained. When I lifted my head I was surprised to find a few tears on my cheeks.
There’s your answer.
Phil D is one of those wet concern trolls who seem to think that Changers should change their change to be in some sort of moral alignment with the past rather than making an effort to change their and the world’s future.
It’s a lame and damp argument and he needs to spend some time sucking vinegar off his sponge.
vanderleun:
It’s still an interesting question, worth answering.
As a child you believe in the easter bunny and or santa clause, because the conspiracy of adults around you that support and sheild you from another world. then, you become better informed, and those things become loving memories (due to their lack of heinious purpose), and we never realize that through our lives we rarely actually change, what changes is what we know and our new relationship to a world that changed for us internally. we live our life in an internal world created by the information we let in, and as such, that world is what changes.
Martin Fisher was a socialist. It didn’t work. He gave it up. He became an entrepreneur, someone selling a product. This did work to the tune of improving the lives of a half million African farmers, something worth noting at a time when free enterprise is in desperate conflict with Obama-style statism.
I went over to Africa as a socialist and came – after about five or six years of hitting my head against the wall, became a small-c capitalist,
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David Goldstein – was a Jewish convert to the Roman Catholic Church / In 1888 Goldstein’s family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where, inspired by Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, he decided to work in organized labor. At his union local, Goldstein first encountered Marxism, which attracted him greatly. In 1895, Goldstein’s parents were horrified when he joined the Socialist Labor Party of America.
While a Socialist, Goldstein also met Martha Gallison Moore Avery, who had also been influenced by Bellamy and who became Goldstein’s lifelong friend and mentor
In response to the activities of the Christian Socialist George D. Herron, Goldstein gradually became disenchanted with what he saw as the irreligious and immoral implications of a Marxist society. Despite his attachment to Socialism, Goldstein had always believed quite strongly in family values. Therefore, when Rev. Herron abandoned his wife and children for another woman and began preaching free love, Goldstein became one of the defrocked clergyman’s most vocal critics.
In 1902, the translation of Karl Marx’s critique of family and marriage left Goldstein in no doubt about the real aims of the ideology he had served. As a result, he and his allies resigned from the Socialist movement and became a fervent anti-Marxist. With Martha Moore Avery, Goldstein published a book, Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children, in 1903.
Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children
https://archive.org/details/socialismnationo00gold
“It took some time to understand — being sympathetic with Socialism — that Socialists succeed in making ‘Socialist minds’ mainly by constantly picturing the misery of the poor and the greed of the rich; by continually condemning all things which meet with dissatisfaction in the minds of toilers, whether the discontent be rational or ridiculous; by increasing disapproval or condemnation of the character, work or proposals of officials in trade unions who have to meet practical issues and the responsibilities of the conflicts of labor organizations. At the same time, Socialists press forward their abstract propositions attract those idealists whose pictures are ephemeral and fall into confusion, like a baby’s house made of blocks, when the common sense touch of the actual world of strife and strain is applied to them; for human nature is what it is and not what Socialist idealists conjure it up to be in their sickly sentimental thoughts – David Goldstein
Your comment reminded me of an interview with Susana Martinez, Republican governor of New Mexico. She and her husband identified as Democrats until they had dinner with Republican acquaintances one evening and discussed political issues. On the drive home Susana was struck by a realization and turned to her husband, “You know what? I think we are Republicans.”
Sometimes labels change without much change in a person’s actual ideas.
And Mary Shellys frankenstein resonates for many reasons….
“If you will it, it is no fairy‑tale” was Theodor Herzl’s motto for Altneuland
Hess was probably responsible for several “Marxian” slogans and ideas, including religion as the “opiate of the people.” Hess became reluctant to base all history on economic causes and class struggle, and he came to see the struggle of races, or nationalities, as the prime factor of history.
in some works he is crowned hitlers ideological father
there is so much i could teach
there is so little most know
names are forgotten
ideas are transferred
relived
reborn to people who forgot what they cause
only to cause them again
Quite moving, Neo. You know, I think, that there are thousands of us out here who feel as though we know you, even though, of course, we do not. That’s part of the reason that such beautiful posts bring forth our own tears.
A VISIT TO RUSSIA CONVERTS SOCIALIST; Never Again, Says Rubin of Milwaukee When He Finds Himself Safe in America.GOLDMAN SENTIMENTS, TOOSays She’ll Be Good if She Can OnlyReturn–Rubin Narrowly Escaped With His Life. Uprisings Called Futile. Surrounded by Spies. Ny times..
If Socialists in this country could spend a little time in Soviet Russia before declaring that the Bolsheviki have set up an ideal State there, they would soon learn that their views are entirely wrong.
and for fun
THE RED WAR ON THE FAMILY
http://archive.org/stream/redwaronfamily00salo/redwaronfamily00salo_djvu.txt
and the first six chapters
Impressions of Soviet Russia and the revolutionary world by JOHN DEWEY
http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm
In particular he praised the collusion of school and state. The prime lesson to be learned – in reverse – from Dewey’s book is that school and state must be kept entirely separated in a free society. For the elaboration of this idea see Free the Schools.
Free the Schools! by by Harry Browne
http://ariwatch.com/Links/FreeTheSchools.htm
most wont read, so i will stop here… most have no idea of the size and volume of works that we no longer even know exists… and you can thank dewey for a lot of it… with common core being the latest in the movement towards such state schooling.
Artfldgr:
Actually, I seem to recall it was a visit to the USSR that precipitated Roger Simon’s change, too.
Also true for Will Durant and Ariel Durant, whose experience I wrote about here.
There’s nothing like personal experience to make a big impression. And yet, many leftists went to Russia and only saw what they wanted to see.
As far as learning from general (as opposed to personal/experiential) history goes, for most people it ain’t gonna happen. Human nature precludes it, for the most part.
Michael Adams:
Thank you.
I remember reading something recently by Roger Simon in which he spoke of his conversion. He does this frequently; it’s not a secret that he was very sympathetic to the left in the 1970s. Coming from a Hollywood background, especially in his generation, this should be no surprise. People who change their political views in good faith don’t owe anyone an apology other than the people in their life whom they’ve abused over the years for disagreeing with them. The media that dishonestly distorts reality also encourages lefties to believe themselves superior, morally and intellectually, to everyone else, and excuse them when they comport themselves predictably accordingly.
Artfldgr writes:
I offer that this thought goes even deeper. When we first have our doubts about these holiday fictional beings we first become agnostic but not aetheistic. Deep down inside I suspect that our fear is that, once we stop believing the gifts and pleasure will stop, too. So we hang onto those beliefs for as long as we possibly can.
Is it possible that this is also a political affliction? We are still supported by that “conspiracy of adults” (a great phrase BTW) except that the conspiracy has become a conspiracy of the media. We may know better, but we fear to acknowledge that because then we stop believing that the world can become the happy, group-hug Kumbaya world that we wish it to be. And doesn’t the conspiracy of the media reinforce precisely that fear? Conservatives are evil incarnate; don’t listen to anything they say for fear of being mesmerized by their sirens’ song. If so, does this not stand as an impediment to our own conversion even in the face of contradictory facts?
Many threads ago, I commented in response to Geoffrey Britain that such a change is not just a change of mind, but a change in a belief system, I.e., a part of our distinct being that is even more intimate than sex. As such it must be a self-initiated process, as both Neoneocon and Geoffrey Britain noted it was for them.
Take Columbus as a specific example. He didn’t sail westward to discover that the earth was round; this had been known by the intelligentsia since the 6th century BC. Why then did it take so long? Sea monsters. Everyone believed that they would be eaten. Columbus made it back — he was lucky. Only after numerous voyages did sailors begin to question if sea monsters existed, and only after more voyages, still, did they come to realize that there were no sea monsters in the first place.
Likewise, Neo, had her first doubts after sailing in seas that were unknown to her — that is, new sources of information beyond the NYT and The Boston Globe. Only after a continually expanded access to alternate points of view (more voyages) was she able to bring herself to the conclusion that her past belief system was inaccurate.
We must all, each of us individually, come to our own conclusion that neither Santa Claus nor the seemingly benevolent bottomless pitcher of state do not exist as items in fact.
“We must all, each of us individually, come to our own conclusion that neither Santa Claus nor the seemingly benevolent bottomless pitcher of state
do notexist as items in fact.”Apologies for the double negative.
AMartel:
Not only did I never abuse anyone in my life for disagreeing with me politically, I didn’t even have people in my life who disagreed with me politically. That was for two reasons: virtually everyone I knew at the time was a Democrat/liberal, and I didn’t discuss politics as a rule. If I had, though, and if anyone had disagreed with me, I can’t imagine abusing them.
Neo-neocon- it is really helpful and uplifting to me to read your thoughts and experience the careful, dedicated and honest way you think. I also have had several “light bulb ” moments in my life- moments where suddenly something becomes perfectly clear and you know that because of it, nothing will ever be the same. Those are extraordinary experiences that you never forget.
Conversations I had about Vietnam with (Ret) Col. Stuart Herrington entirely changed my opinion of that war, and I came to realize how stunningly incurious I had been as a reader through the 70s and 80s of the Village Voice. I then sought out and read some books by actual Vietnamese, as well as, importantly, VIETNAM: THE NECESSARY WAR by Michael Lind.
This was the start of my doubting the orthodoxies I’d grown up with and accepted as a member of the literary world. When I tried to discuss any of this with my friends I was rather stunned at how impervious and uninterested they were in any new information that might shake up the old world view.
I won’t go into it all here for reasons of space, but if you’re at all curious read Stuart Herrington, Michael Lind or Bao Dinh.
And then, 9/11. I had an email from Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in which he suggested we all read this article by Noam Chomsky. I asked him if he was going to perform anti-war songs and be in effect a war profiteer just like he was accusing others of being. He didn’t reply, but the Sonic Youth website became, comically, Resist!
Anyway, 9/11 changed me forever. However, I still keep my mouth shut, as I need all the friends I have in the literary world, as I’m hanging on by a fragile thread in a world where I don’t know a single person, no one, who is anything but 100% pro-Obama pro-liberal agenda on every issue without exception. And, like I once was about Vietnam when I was young, they are completely and utterly incurious.
I guess having any doubts about Obama, even at this point, is verboten. Or actually unthinkable. Oh, how they despise the blogs! Because they don’t want to know.
Neo – wasn’t referring to you personally. That’s clear from context of my comment. There are plenty of people who are cruel to people in their lives with whom they disagree politically. It actually tears families apart. The original comment by PhilD implies that those who convert from left to right should feel remorse for their previous blithe attitudes about atrocities, that they’re the same as or worse than Nazis and should acknowledge their responsibility for this ignorance. My point is that one need not wear the hair shirt for past atrocities, just make amends with the people in one’s own life.
I have been reading your blog for years, Neo, and have only recently made a few short comments. Your story is my story. I was a hippie, back-to-the-land anti-Viet Nam war protester in college in the late ’60s and early ’70s. We marched in many war protests and marches. Although I came from a middle class background, my husband and I decided to go “back to the land” to raise our own food and milk goats. It was THE thing to do back them. (The goat milking lasted all of one week.) We even left the Midwest (where we live now) and tried our luck with all the hippies that were moving to Vermont at the time. I stayed a radical even though I eventually moved back to the Midwest and went back to teaching at a community college. It wasn’t until 9/11 that I began to question things. It was a lonely time. My friends turned against me when I supported Bush’s Iraq invasion. Every. Single. One. of. Them. It was painful, but I learned that I could not live with myself by pretending to be someone I’m not. Thank heaven I found your blog. It is a great source of comfort to me.
Neoneocon,
You and several regular posters here are voices of reason (sometimes I am not) and I keep reading your blog because you and a few others are so reasonable. Your blog is an anchorage in a stormy sea. The world/the nation are spiraling into chaos. Here there is a rock of sanity.
AMartel:
Oh, I didn’t necessarily assume you were referring to me. I just wanted to clarify, just in case.
eve; parker:
That’s very touching; thank you. It’s for that reason I write this blog—to try to create an island like that. It’s good to hear that I sometimes succeed.
neo has answered the question of….how did you get to be like that in the first place?
She was surrounded by “it” to the extent that she was no more aware of it than a fish is of water.
To push the metaphor; fish mostly object to being taken out of water. It’s their life.
Other people are contrarian–one named Aubrey–and will be checking out what theyre told just because.
Other people are chin deep in evidence to the contrary and still stay lib. These are the ones whose change, should their be one, generates the most questions.
The psychological concept of “confirmation bias” refers to the human tendency to seek out data confirming one’s current hypothesis (about whatever) and ignore data pointing in the other direction. For people performing tasks that can be risky, confirmation bias can be very dangerous, and indeed the phenomenon is well-known to accident investigators.
In political opinion-formation, though, the risk caused by confirmation bias is generally borne by other people, not the one who lets this syndrome control him.
“Although I was a
Democrat[independent, liberal, libertarian] I was never ever a leftist, and although I read the papers and kept up with the news I was neither a political junkie nor especially given to political discussions. Admirer of Mao? Not even close. I was more of a Scoop Jackson type ofDemocrat[independent, liberal, libertarian], a fervent anti-Communist and believer in America as primarily a force for good in the world.”Take out the democrat label and insert the ind/lib/libertarian categorization and it exactly represents myself.
“For someone like me, it’s a very different process. That person can keep it private until he/she chooses to “come out”
Yes and when I did come out, I experienced the very same knee-jerk rejection.
“I didn’t suddenly change my politics after 9/11. It was a process that took several years of reading and thinking. And I didn’t so much change my mind as that I became better informed. but in that person’s intensity of interest in politics and breadth of knowledge, especially about history–even the history through which that person has already lived, and thought he/she already knew about.”
Yes, exactly and my deeper interest in history coincided with my ‘conversion’ to conservatism. A co-incidence that I think not at all accidental. As I doubt that one can be an informed conservative while ignoring history.
“The emotional adjustment after I realized that fact was profound. Me? A conservative? I had trouble wrapping my mind around it. And then once I had come to accept that fact, there was the difficult emotional adjustment when I tentatively started mentioning to people that I disagreed with this or that premise of liberalism, and experienced a series of angry and even insulting responses from quite a few. It took some getting used to.”
Exactamundo! But now, I just don’t care. ‘Throwing one’s pearls before swine’ is as useless a gesture today, as it was 2000 years ago.
Where neo and I differ is in her moment of profound feeling of regret and guilt. That I never experienced. Not that I don’t acknowledge my responsibility for contributing to the ‘liberal morass’ which is logically indisputable. But because on an emotional level I have never doubted that when someone does not know what they do, forgiveness is a given. For if, our unintentional sins are not forgivable, then there is no hope for anyone because we are all guilty. Our separation from the divine makes it unavoidable.
What’s past is prologue. To a conservative, it means learning from your mistakes. To a person with a victim-oppressor mindset, it means holding a grudge and seeking retribution. One is intrinsically positive. The other is intrinsically negative.
Geoffrey Britain
WRT guilt: I suppose one could feel bad that, among other things, confirmation bias and intellectual laziness, and perhaps the urge to belong to the Right Sort of People reduced the impact of contrary information.
Take Columbus as a specific example. He didn’t sail westward to discover that the earth was round; this had been known by the intelligentsia since the 6th century BC. Why then did it take so long? Sea monsters. Everyone believed that they would be eaten.
——————–
I’m not familiar enough with the topic, so I can’t comment on the belief in sea monsters. But I do know of a more practical issue that reared its head when Columbus was attempting to gain financial backing for his expedition. Columbus apparently miscalculated the circumference of the Earth. As a result, he thought that he could carry enough supplies to make the trip to Asia. The experts in the Spanish Court had their own calculations, and determined that Columbus and his crew would all starve to death long before they reached their destination.
Fortunately for us, while the experts in the Court were correct, they were ultimately ignored in favor of Columbus. And fortunately for Columbus, his ships discovered an island long before getting anywhere near Asia. Otherwise they would have either starved, or been forced to turn around and head back to Spain.
Dream of Columibis by Mary Black is something everyone should listen to, keep your dreams from going astray. Find your own way through the murky and cloudy.
PhilD: Do something for us, please. Waste no time in buying a helluva brilliant and moving memoir/meditation/testimony by America’s leading playwright and lifelong child of the Left, David Mamet: “The Secret Knowledge: On Dismantling of American Culture” (NY, 2011) Here’s a little teaser:”The struggle of the Left to rationalize its positions is an intolerable Sisphean burden. I speak as a reformed Liberal.”
I’ve ordered many, many copies of the book for Liberal friends over the past 2-years when I sense a crack in the door to their normally closed minds. This book wreaks havoc on Liberal assumptions. Just do it, PhilD.
NCS
33-Year Neocon and Refugee from the Darkside
RA,
I have yet to meet anyone who suffered from confirmation bias or intellectual laziness, with perhaps “the urge to belong to the Right Sort of People” who had any interest whatsoever in getting to the truth of an issue. The motivations of such as they center entirely upon egoistic satisfaction.
Still waiting on “Phil D” to chime back in on this interesting question.
Responsibility is in direct line to what you did. But large operations aren’t done by a single person or their life time. So responsibility is diluted according to intensity, number of people, and time. It’s a project, and some people do more and others do less.
Hypothetically, if a person obeying authority Obeyed Hussein O and got their family into ObamaCare, and some of them died as a result, then the natural and logickal atonement process is to convince part of Hussein O’s family or army of loyalists to join Program X and have them be killed.
And if you think that is crazy, then don’t start talking about atonement, because it goes that way more times than not. People find crazy ways to get rid of their guilt. If you don’t want the crazy… don’t start talking about their guilt. Most humans can ignore their guilt for a time, but not when it comes to the surface. Then they start doing things. Things you won’t be able to control with Authority any more.
Of course, I like to see the crazy come out, so I wouldn’t mind exposing some more guilt in modern America, for what people have done. Although I, at least, know what the potential consequences. The clowns do not, but pretend they do.
WRT Columbus.
Something’s off. It’s about 10k-11k from Spain’s coast to Asia, depending on where you plan to end up.
Columbus was working in part with map by the Italian Toscanelli. Toscanelli, in part by trying to figure Marco Polo’s travels, had stuck Asia about 2500 miles too far east. Means the apparent distance is about 7500 miles. Now Columbus reworked Toscanelli and added another 2500,. reducing the apparent distance to 5000 miles. Then, considering Earth might not be spherical and that degrees of longitude at that latitude had to be less than thought, the apparent distance would be 2500 miles.
Strangely, it was 2500 miles. Which, as a professional sailor, might have been Columbus’ idea of the max he could get his guys to go. And he was right. He even kept two sets of navigation books. His daily figures to his captains were for less distance made good than he figured he’d done. He knew 2500 miles was about the max. And that’s what he had.
Go figure.
W/ regard to Columbus, if you’re getting caught up in the math and the projections you’re missing my point. It’s about sailing unknown seas.
Do we ever give any thought to the fact that when one argues with a liberal and one is winning the argument there are usually one of two reactions; either the ad hominem attacks kick in or they walk away (“I don’t want to discuss it any more.”) They have yet to reach the level of courage and curiosity to confront new ideas. to sail those seas yet unknown to them (Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”). They rely on: “If I wish it, it will be so, and if threatened with facts I run to the maternalistic bosom of my socialist nanny-state ideology.”
To even investigate such change is a very personal and independent quest. As such, our job must be to continue to get those facts and ideas out there so that they can take root where they may. One just never knows when one simple thought, fact, or observed contradiction will create a “light bulb” moment as it has for Stephie (@3:18 pm above).
The emotion you describe at the end is very similar to the feeling you have when you’ve just been robbed or assaulted.
Victimized, helpless, angry, afraid. No longer in control, you’ve become a piece of flotsam.
I’ve considered myself a “9-11 conservative” for awhile. But when I was young, I voted Republican. Carter had been president–he was such a disaster, what else could someone coming of age be? But on college, I got swayed to join the Dark Side. While I sympathized with the “communist/socialist ideal” O knew the Soviet Union was a terrible place, China as bad. Is one of those people who argued that that was not “really” communism. The only “real” communism was the kibbutzim, and see? it worked there. Except it wasn’t really either. It was a self selecting group of people who played at the communist ideal.
I was lucky enough to go to a college with a strong Russian department staffed by realistic faculty: love Russia, Russian literature, Russian culture, etc. Hated the Soviet Union and what it had done to Russia. I also knew a lot of people fighting for the refuseniks. So I never really bought into the Soviet Union as the Great Communist Ideal. But o grew to be about about Reagan. Voted for all those democrats up to and including Gore. Sigh. How embarrassing.
If not for 9/11 I think I might have come around to some sort of sanity anyhow. I just think 9/11 made it happen faster.
One thing I am truly grateful for is that I came to my sense while my dad was still alive and I could talk to him about it. And apologize for being a jerk for so many years.
T. To oontinue to be literal….Maybe the seas were not unknown to Columbus. He worked the math to get the result he knew was correct. From what?
Agree about the results of lib/prog collision with facts. Accusations of racism, greed, lack of compassion, or walking away with one’s fingers. figuratively speaking, stuck in ears.
Friend of mine, a committed greenie, when I linked him some stuff on non-existent global warming, “If I were retired, I could research this stuff, too.” Implication that looking this stuff up was illegitimate and the facts were, therefore, irrelevant if not false.
I agree with NeoConScum’s book recommendation, “David Mamet: “The Secret Knowledge: On Dismantling of American Culture” I too have bought several copies for others.
Regarding the discussion about Columbus, T. it’s not an effective analogy to your point. Your point regarding people’s fears and unwillingness to change is great! But the points others have made about Columbus are correct. And, sure, many folks were superstitious (just as today) and believed in sea monsters, but even without sea monsters the open ocean is a very scary place. There really are animals that could destroy ships the size of Columbus’, but one doesn’t even need Leviathans to fear such a journey. The weather and the ocean itself brought countless ships and crew to their demise, even on journeys of a few miles.
Is the Head/Heart thing a false dichotomy? Isn’t just another (of a bazillion) Leftoid talking points used to excuse their treasonous and/or generally bad behavior?
You can explain to them til they are blue in the face that 2+2=4; but their “hearts” make them say it is 5.
Etc.
Rufus,
” . . .even without sea monsters the open ocean is a very scary place.”
One may quibble. and perhaps rightly so, with the analogy, but I offer that the “open ocean” as you note (i.e., the unknown unknown), is both literally and figuratively still the point.
RA,
““If I were retired, I could research this stuff, too.”
That’s my point. There’s always an excuse to ignore the facts. The facts are out there, our job is to constantly bring them to the attention of others, but that “other” must have the curiosity to at least recognize those facts and, ultimately, must want to change himself/herself.
We just never know when or where that will take root.
Neo-neocon, you should put out an e-book monologue based on your “change posts”. Sell it online for $5, which is typical for e-books.
One of the strange things about the left is how innately totalitarian they are. I’ve spoken to, been friendly with a few socialists in my life but the overwhelming majority of those on the left are completely incapable of having a civil conversation on any aspect of politics.
It never occurred to me until reading this post and the comments, but maybe people are naturally “wired” differently and that affects how we see the things around us. Psychology is a subject I know almost nothing about (and neoneocon is an expert), so I could be about to make a fool of myself (it won’t be the first or last time), but here goes…
As far as I know I’ve always been curious and always searched for the most “real” or likely answer to problems. I don’t recall ever considering any biases or preferences I might have had on a subject; I simply want to know the truth. In the absence of enough information to know the truth I’ll settle for the best guess that can be made with the information at hand. Whether what I initially thought or assumed turns out to be correct or not is not part of the equation. Nor is what others think.
Regarding Artfldgr’s comment about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny; I remember examining those as a kid, but I don’t recall any attempt to hang on to either notion irrationally, nor do I recall being upset when I figured out they were fictitious. It was always conceivable to me they could be real or mythical and as my powers of deductive and inductive reasoning developed I came to the correct conclusion. I think I instantly identified the Easter Bunny (and tooth fairy) as myths the first time my mom told me about them. It was not possible a 6’ tall bunny could hop around Chicago (and the entire world) giving Gentile kids baskets full of candy (and a kite!). My young mind hadn’t worked out the logistics in depth to totally rule out what I was being told about Santa Claus, but I was neither afraid to consider he was a myth, nor consider he was not. When I got old enough to comprehend the enormity of the planet and the number of children on it I became convinced it was highly unlikely it could be real. Another clue was the absence of any reference to a flying breed of reindeer in any encyclopedia I could find. However, the one thing that caused me to consider Santa Claus may be real was knowing my parents could not afford the gifts I received from him. When I finally did understand that it really was my parents I recall being very impressed at their humility in ascribing credit for their generosity to another. However, I am quite certain I placed no importance on the number of people who did seem to believe (including my own parents) when considering whether he was not real.
As far as I know I’ve examined everything in my life that way; from such ethereal things as love and religion, to very substantive things like government and economics or diet and health. I have no sacred cows and all options are on the table. I just want to know what is real, regardless of benefit or harm to me and my current worldview. That just seems to make sense. The more accurately one perceives one’s surroundings the more successful one will be.
However, it does seem like there are others who don’t think that way. I’ve always had difficulty understanding people who place great importance in labels and groups. I also have difficulty relating to incurious people. It seems nearly unbelievable to me that people would not always be examining the things around them and wanting to know how things work, but some people don’t seem to care.
So, maybe some people are seekers of wisdom and truth and others are seekers of consensus or acceptance.
T,
Again, I agree with the point you made, but here are your words, vis a vis Columbus’ voyage: “Why then did it take so long? Sea monsters. Everyone believed that they would be eaten.”
No. Everyone did not believe they would be eaten. Men who made their living from the sea were as able and knowledgeable as men and women who do the same today. The folks today have better technology, but as far as innate ability to read and understand the ocean and its flora and fauna the sailors in Columbus’ day were expert. And some folks were superstitious, just as today. And most all were religious, as some are today.
An irrational fear of “sea monsters” had little to nothing to do with whether a specific voyage would be financed or undertaken. As I wrote earlier, it was understood that weather and waves were much more likely to destroy a ship and its crew than any animal encounter, and weather and water were reason enough to avoid the expense of an unproven mission like Columbus’.
Rufus,
I would offer that you’re quibbling with the color of the tool while we both agree on its function and use in this situation. You may well be correct and I wrong, but I don’t want that to obscure the essence on which we do agree.
In the interest furthering the discussion I concede the point.
T,
We do agree. And I don’t mean to berate you; what you said was profound. I think it’s a conceit of modern man (and has always been the case with most civilized men) that we think we are philosophically superior to prior generations simply because our technology is better. A man who made his living from the sea in Portugal in the 15th century would have much in common with a Portuguese fisherman living today. Columbus was a phenomenally skilled navigator.
Throughout human history, if there was a chance of wealth and/or glory there has been little difficulty finding men and women willing to risk life and limb.
It’s interesting to read the statistics on train wrecks or riverboat disasters in the first 30 – 50 years of both technologies. Modern air travel is orders of magnitude safer, yet there was never any shortage of people willing to travel or work on trains or steamships.
We just never know when or where that will take root.
Given that, it would make more sense for people to artificially manipulate or induce that motivation into Leftists that lack it, rather than wasting energy on “facts” that will never be integrated because there is no Will there.
It’s as if US general command thought, “we don’t know where the Axis will attack”, so refused to attack them and just hunkered down until the Nazis and Imperial Japanese landed in North America.
Rufus,
I never took it as berating, only a quibbling between us over details. That we agree on the fundamental concept is the important point. You wrote:
There is no question about that, and as you point out is has always been so. Thus the sea monsters in the unknown waters; the Mediterranean Sea, whatever it’s dangers, was a somewhat familiar entity at least on its surface. In fact, one might argue precisely the opposite of your quote; that we are philosophically inferior to our ancestors precisely because our technology distances us from confronting out reality; we have become inured to it and take it for granted.
Regardless of the facts of the situation, human nature invents demons to justify its fears; climate change and the melting polar icepacks is just one example; the threat of a worldwide AIDS pandemic was yet another. Take any example from the past seventy years and note what they have in common; those who identify such demons require immediate, thoughtless and knee-jerk reactions to save the planet, the population, the snail darter or whatever.
It is emotional manipulation rather than logic and sense.
Ymarsaker,
If memory serves, we didn’t declare war on Japan until after the attack on Pearl Harbor and we didn’t declare war on Germany their U-Boats in U.S. coastal waters notwithstanding. I know they were sinking British ships, but were they sinking ships of U.S. registry before we entered the war?
The problem I see in the war analogy is that it’s not a matter of the correct facts, it has to do with changing people’s minds. Attack now or attack later, one would not change the mind of an ardent Nazi or Japanese imperialist by the timing of the attack; even defeated they remain an ardent Nazi. Likewise isolated relentless attacks against the left oftentimes serve to simply encourage them to dig in. Now pervasive attacks against the left would be another thing altogether, but the right would have to have an infiltration into popular culture that, IMO, does not yet exist in critical mass. Perhaps it is beginning, though, because thanks to at least the internet, there’s more availability of facts out there now than there ever was before.
T..For the record, Hitler declared war on us soon after Pearl Harbor. Simplified things as we certainly would have gone to war against Japan’s Axis Partner anyway.
NeoConScum, I read your post at the library, so I trotted over to the 320s. and grabbed it!
T.
WRT my greenie friend who lamented not being retired:
He said he does not have a dog in the fight. He has no way to make money from Solyndra–of which he had not heard–or wind turbines or corn-based ethanol, or any of the other scams.
He’s right, so far as I know. But he’s thought green, voted green, donated green, raised his kids green, believed green, thought bad thoughts about non-greenies….. How can he abandon that, tho’ it costs him not a dime?
T,
Well stated again, and, unfortunately I share your fear that we are less than our ancestors in some fundamental and important ways.
I imagine, even up through the 18th century, most 12 year olds (perhaps even as young as 8 years old), could kill and dress an animal, knew how to obtain safe drinking water, understood weather patterns, could identify and locate edible plants… A vast encyclopedia of skills and knowledge fundamental to existence that I have frightening little experience with. Raising generations of adults with immature knowledge of the basics of survival and human existence seems risky.
As Winston Churchill said, “The facts of life are conservative.”
I don’t think it is coincidence that, as Western societies outsource the “facts of life” more and more, their citizens become less conservative. Even up through the 1940s, most people in America grew up on small, family farms or very near them. People had a natural understanding of community and helping their neighbors. Our Constitution was built on that structure; most things are local except for 14, enumerated things that are better done centrally, Federally.
When most people live in large, congested urban areas with little exposure to the work necessary for fundamental survival (farming, animal husbandry, textile manufacture, lumber processing…) they lose the sense of local community necessary to make our Republic work.
RA (@11:28pm),
This refers back to my original post about changing a belief system. One cannot change that through outside pressure — remember that Christians died in the Colosseum rather than recant their faith. One can only lead the apostates to the source and hope that there is some epiphany that allows them to begin digesting that information on their own.
Rufus,
This is also true economically. It is easy to believe in the benevolent, bottomless pitcher of the welfare state because our economic system has made the welfare dollar light-years distant from its source just as technology has made us light-years distance from skills needed just to exist.
People simply don’t understand that a dollar must come from somewhere because the government never runs out of money.
Rufus; T:
Imagology vs. reality.
Rufus and Neo,
From Neo’s Imagology post:
A current case in point. A comment from John Hinderaker’s current column “The Profound Stupidity of Liberalism on Display”:
You can lead a horse to water . . .
The link to Hinderaker:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/09/the-profound-stupidity-of-liberalism-on-display.php
Many of these themes — of the disconnect — haunted my days as a stock broker.
It’s THE classic, ‘high-information’ — (high-knowledge?) — role that denies the analyst-broker any direct influence on events.
For example, on August 11, 1982 I predicted that America was about to enter a staggering super bull market. On August 12, I predicted that it would last pretty much for a generation — decades.
So from August 12th through August 17th I was phoning everyone I knew — and even calling cold.
I could not get a single person to invest. All of my peers were silent — waiting for my face-plant.
Then, mid-day August 17th (early by Honolulu time) Henry Kaufman hits the broad tape: he saw what I saw. He’s got ALL of his money LONG.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaps 38.79 points. It was the 4th largest one-day bull move until then. (It’s been beaten.
http://www.net-comber.com/mx.html
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204251404574344230339019304
http://www.amazon.com/On-Money-Markets-Street-Memoir/dp/0071360492
Much of modern, sophisticated employment is as disconnected with results as stock broking. Strangely, the more disconnected, the higher the pay checks:
Advertizing
Propaganda
K-street corruption
Corrupt law — eg Holder’s protection of Big Finance
Performance arts
Corrupt securities trading — high frequency trading
All of the above have seen explosive wage growth — way above the national averages — however defined.
They also create worlds that are self-corrupting. Too soon one begins to believe ones own schtick.
Barry Soetoro is at the apex of such a myth-pyramid.
The result is less high-mindedness than it is ‘cloud-mindedness.’
This was addressed, as you’d expect, by Star Trek:
“The Cloud Minders”
In this episode David Gerrold and Oliver Crawford explore two societies disconnected from reality.
1) The elites are up in the clouds — literally — and TOTALLY disconnected with their economic sustainence
2) The trogs are down in the depths — literally — and totally stunted, mentally, by mind altering chemicals in their immediate environment. [ Gerrold and Crawford may well have been alluding to alcohol, pot, and the rest of recreational chemistry. ]
The elites wallowed in self-indulgent ignorance…
The trogs dumbed themselves down… (unwittingly, natch)
Of course, both factions bitterly resented anyone bringing unwelcome information. Drama requires conflict.
&&&&
What no fiction writer has addressed is the deliberate injection of toxic memes into a polity as a long-term, slow-motion form of total warfare.
What America has to face up to is enemies that are as antagonistic as ever — but who realize that they can’t prevail in a stand-up fight.
So, their attack has morphed into ‘memetic warfare.’
I fault Bush for not realizing this character of modern conflict. It can be largely defeated from the presidential lectern. Meme manipulations can’t suffer exposure.
But, by going the other way: “Islam is a religion of peace” Bush buttressed Muslim memes.
CAIR uses the ROP card at every turn.
Until CAIR is exposed — America’s day of revelation is delayed.
Weirdly, even Romney is quiescent about the ROP.
Muslim influence monies ought to be entirely banned — as an adjunct to the War on Fanaticism.
Blert,
Your mention of memetic warfare is congruent with the idea of the Gramscian march through institutions that Neo has oftentimes referenced. Memetic warfare is the strategy, the Gramscian march is the tactic.
I think it also points out the great disadvantage of conservatives. They believe that they can persuade with facts and logic (I commit this sin all the time) where we fall shor tis in the development of precisely those memes which become an autonomically accepted cultural norm.
That is why, even in my comments here, I oftentimes refer to false premesis. In fact I can’t think of a single Progressive argument that is NOT based upon a false premise (which has become a culturally accepted meme).
apologies for the typos and misspells– premsturely hit submit instead of preview
T,
Excellent point regarding economic disconnect. Radio host Andrew Wilkow sometimes laments that just once he’d like to get a thank you card from someone on Welfare. He says it as a sort-of joke, but it’s an important point. Nobody wants to humiliate anyone who legitimately needs public assistance, but when the folks receiving it have no understanding that there is a living, breathing human being on the other end (me) doing with less to provide the money a dangerous precedent is set.
As you write, it’s the “Government’s money” and why shouldn’t we all have more?
blert,
Regarding income inequality and incongruent growth in certain professions; I chalk it up to two separate reasons.
A certain (small) percentage of entertainers have always done well in our society; elite athletes, actors, musicians, dancers, comedians, network news anchors, authors, even public speakers like Sam Clemens and Joel Osteen.
The other group are the people closest to the money; stock brokers, salesmen, CFOs and CEOs, real estate speculators…
neo-neocon,
Regarding imagology vs. reality, interesting link. Seems true to me, but I think some of the problem lies in actual reality. I grew up in a congested, urban area. I thought it was insane that citizens could own handguns. My ideas weren’t skewed by a dishonest media or false statistics; people were literally killed by other people with handguns daily within a few mile radius of my residence. It was a legitimate concern.
Every time the federal government passed a law to restrict gun ownership I was grateful. However, it never occurred to me that my reality might not be the same reality as a rancher in Montana or a home owner in Oklahoma.
The problem you and Kundera write about is real, but it is also the case that more and more Americans live in congested, urban areas. The government necessary to control a populous in a crowded urban area is more restrictive than what is necessary to govern small towns and rural areas.
Not only do we have an issue where the imagology is skewed towards central planning, we have an issue where the reality of a majority of Americans is skewed towards central planning.