Why does propaganda work?
Commenter Richard Aubrey wants to know something:
Why so many people buy in with all the fervor of a drugged-up bolo fighter in the Philippine Insurrection – original simile, you may use it without attribution – puzzles me. If, by puzzle, you conflate gobsmacked with alarmed plus brassed off.
These are people who are smart enough to show up to work with their pants on, to come in out of the rain, to survive without minders.
These are people who face opposing facts with alarmed confusion and then resort to either, “I don’t believe it,” or ad hom.
These are people who, in other areas of their lives can make considered judgments. But in this area, 2+2=5, if necessary and no arranging of pebbles on a table will convince them otherwise, until 7 is the required answer and then…seven is the answer…
And people who are, mostly, reasonably kind in their personal lives are constantly fulminating with baseless, vindictive rage. For what?
I am completely out of ideas here. Except if there’s such a thing as virtue signaling to oneself…
Problem is, these clowns are the willing foot soldiers of the operatives. And there are so many of them.
What he is asking is, essentially, “Why does propaganda work?” Because without propaganda, I don’t think most of these people would evaluate events in quite the same way.
Propaganda works because (a) most people don’t think for themselves, especially if it would contradict what they’re reading and hearing from others (b) (related) most people don’t want to move away from the prevailing public opinion consensus (c) most people don’t do their own research; it takes too much time and effort, and one has to be especially motivated to even bother in the first place.
That is why propaganda works even on the intelligent. Intelligence is not the same as thinking independently in order to evaluate what you read and hear. Intelligence can sometimes just mean that a person is good at taking in information and remembering that information – which can make one particularly susceptible to propaganda, actually. Intelligence is not really the determinative factor. Nor is niceness, which can also make a person more likely to go with the crowd and less likely to challenge it.
And then, once a political opinion or stance has been formed in a person, there’s the common phenomenon of confirmation bias.
So I don’t think it’s a mystery at all.
The single biggest reason propaganda works, lying about somebody else or some other group, is because …
So many people WANT the lie to be true.
The “bad guys” don’t deserve success.
When you feel that the bad guys are bad, you feel they deserve punishment, and then you WANT to believe they are bad and deserve the punishment you want to give them. Many studies show many people are willing to punish, strongly, those they believe deserve it. People DO want justice, and DO want to punish the unjust.
German Nazis felt the Jews did NOT deserve to be so successful, and deserved punishment.
So did Russian landless peasants against small land-owning kulaks, like the Holodomor starvation in Ukraine.
So did the (French educated led) Khmer Rouge against educated Cambodians, in the Killing Fields (murder of 25%, over 2 mln.).
So did the Hutus against the taller, economically dominant Tutsis in Rwanda (over 1mln. murdered)
Democrats lie about Republicans, and WANT the lie to be true. Thus, they believe “propaganda”. It helps provide easy “rationalization”, which they (falsely) claim are “rational reasons”.
Plus – all smart people, including me (and Neo!), are smart enough to tell ourselves lies which we believe. No way to know for sure the truth – but Neo seems more true, more often, than any other blogger actually saying things.
(Glenn at Instapundit says far less; Arnold Kling often uses a current situation to discuss important issues but without judging on that situation; most who do say something … “talk too much”! [what’s a blog reader to do??]).
Name it and laugh at them for it.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome
The current propaganda from the left in this country is ubiquitous (emanating from K-12, academia, the MSM, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, corporate America, professional athletics, and all forms of pop culture, to say nothing of Congress and taxpayer-supported NPR and PBS). Moreover, unlike the relatively crude and unconvincing agitprop of failed Communist regimes, it is often well-produced and superficially at least somewhat plausible; perhaps most important of all is that it produces in the minds of its believers the sense that they are on the “right side of history”, that they are moral and motivated by righteousness, as well as being superior in intelligence to the unenlightened. Finally, one should never forget that “mundus vult decipi.”
I think there is an individual psychological/personality element that allows/causes some folks to be more susceptible to propaganda than other folks.
A loose analogy would be hypnosis; some folks readily fall under the spell of the hypnotist and others can not be brought under an hypnotic spell no matter the efforts of the hypnotist.
Why is this?
I have no idea.
But the persistent, constant drone of propaganda’s message , for some folks is like being subjected, 24/7/365 to the “suggestions” of a hypnotist. And the “victims” will bark like a dog when asked and will meow like a cat when asked and will “awaken” when told to awaken.
The propagandists know all this; that the constant drumbeat of a theme, a message will convince folks of just about anything.
The facility with which the masses can be brainwashed is truly frightening.
I don’t think the commenter is just asking why propaganda works, nor is the answer that people don’t think for themselves.
‘These are people who, in other areas of their lives can make considered judgments.’
His question is why do people think for themselves in some areas but not think for themselves in others. There are plenty of great scientists for instance who accept socialism (e.g. Einstein). There are other great thinkers who have supremely ordered thoughts in some areas but whose personal lives are dysfunctional. This is called compartmentalization the ability to fence off areas in your mind and apply different world views to them.
Part of it is that if people still believe with the NYT and WaPo print and what CNN airs.
I am in total agreement with your analysis. QANON is the perfect example of how perfectly normal people can fall into their confirmation bias.
Social media has a way of amplifying the desired message.
When propaganda become toxic in a sense is when people feel powerless to impact their life outcomes. When outside entities control your life choices. Then you fixate on “the other” for redress of grievance. History abounds with such examples.
When a different paradigm (reality) emerges many people are mentally healthy enough to adapt. But for some it is too much. When the wall fell many Western Communist couldn’t accept it. Several Nazi’s killed themselves when the 3rd Reich fell with Goebbels’s being the most prominent.
The reality break for many people is going to be the upcoming debt crisis. This is where the comfortably well off middle management set is going to get a rude awakening. While at the Washington rally many people were talking of a monetary reset where currency would be exchanged for digital currency. I don’t know if that is a QANON topic but people were treating it seriously.
I think the original question dismisses as “virtue-signaling to oneself” something that is actually a very powerful and typical human response: We buy into messaging that reinforces the image we want to have of ourselves. We buy into messaging that gives us a sense of purpose, meaning, and relevance in life. And when we have bought sufficiently into that messaging, to attack it is to attack us — that’s why we react with rage to some disagreements but not others; the first kind are experienced, on a gut emotional level, as real threats.
If I had to pick one thing that has marked most fervent progressivists I’ve known or observed, it would be that the experiences that made them progressivist were marked by a traumatic destruction of the ability to find meaning in what used to be common, everyday elements of life: work; marriage; family; church; neighbourhood community. Lots of this disappointment is understandable and genuinely not their fault — economic changes, no-fault divorce, religious scandals and info-/entertainment overload have done real damage to these things. But much of it has also been deliberately aggravated by media advocacy always eager to see itself as a moral champion for the underdog, and those media will persuade any faction it can to see itself as an underdog for the sake of chasing the moral high of defending it. When life hands you lemons, you become very loyal to whoever praises you for making a particular kind of lemonade out of them.
For myself, I think the basic solution is simple: If we want our kids to grow up with any resemblance to the mental health of previous generations, we have to keep them off the Internet. Completely. Make sure their first and most important relationships are with real people, period, paragraph. Media societam delenda est.
I’m with Cornhead. The liberals in my family are all longtime devotees of the New York Times and NPR, and deeply suspicious of any “conservative” news sources. My 85-year-old mother gets all of her news from MSNBC and CNN, and is still under the impression that the Democrats are the party of JFK and the “little guy.” We avoid discussions about politics in order to preserve family harmony. Or I should say, I am the one who refrains from speaking my mind about politics.
I have a problem with the folks who make two plus two equal five, or whatever.
What puzzles me is the intensity of the HATE.
Anybody can disagree with policy, right or wrong. What I don’t get is the slavering for prosecution for Trump’s family forever after.
Cute, innocent kids….. HATE.
How to make a roomful of democrats pee themselves laughing: Ask in all innocence, “Don’t we need evidence?”
I get how propaganda works. What I don’t get is progressing so far past disagreements, however “spirited” over policy and presumed results to such heat-of-a-thousand-suns hate. And how self-righteous the haters appear. Self satisfied.
Intelligence is not the same as thinking independently in order to evaluate what you read and hear.
This
I go with the thinking lie often enough it will become the fact. Every media organization spouts the exact same rhetoric, if you think they are telling you the truth you believe it must be.
Again, I have to agree with Richard. I understand the propaganda aspect. It’s the pure HATE and blood lust emanating from seemingly normal people. OK, maybe they are a bit liberal, but to seem devolve to wild eyed raging over not just Trump, but now anything “conservative” or GOP. I still can’t fathom it.
Propaganda is effective because humans are pack hunters by nature. Propaganda exploits the need for an alpha or authority to dominate and show us the way as well as the need to be part of the pack and safe and fed, rather than the outsider. Neo’s theories (A) and (B) are in line with our pack animal/social ‘wiring’.
It’s possible that people who question the propaganda more, or have an immunity to it are defective, as far as being a pack ahunter goes.
Though, I don’t think this was Richard Aubrey’s question, per se, I think our pack animal nature also addresses his questions as well: interlopers or outsiders are a threat, as far as our operating system goes, and cannot be tolerated.
CV wrote: “I’m with Cornhead. The liberals in my family are all longtime devotees of the New York Times and NPR, and deeply suspicious of any “conservative” news sources. My 85-year-old mother gets all of her news from MSNBC and CNN, and is still under the impression that the Democrats are the party of JFK and the “little guy.” We avoid discussions about politics in order to preserve family harmony. Or I should say, I am the one who refrains from speaking my mind about politics.”
Gosh, I came to the comments to write nearly the exact same thing. There are people who still believe that the NYT and WaPo are honest brokers. They take the legacy media as their standard for what is true and unbiased. And so they never even hear about Hunter’s laptop, Kamala’s support for bailing out Antifa rioters, the utter incompetence of Gov. Cuomo’s handling of COVID, etc.
Someone very close to me — a very smart scientist — gets ALL of her news from NPR, the NYT, and WaPo. I’ve given up trying to introduce conflicting information — if it’s not in those sources, it’s a lie, period. I’d rather preserve our relationship than continue to beat my head against the wall, even though that means biting my tongue whenever she spouts off about Trump et al.
Because when Trump says this:
“I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country,” Trump said in a video message on Wednesday. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence. No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag.”
….a goofball like McCabe can then say this:
“President Trump is a master at coded language and the use of dog whistles. And there is no question that that statement included some of those same references…he sends a signal to his folks to fight on,” McCabe said.
And no one in MSM calls McCabe out.
No one questions him on what exactly does he mean by “fight on”?
No one asks the simple question “When you say it’s coded language and dogwhistles to fight on, do you think the President means fight violently?”
And everyone in MSM knows that the important words are “coded language” and “dog whistles” which is what the easily propagandized seize upon.
No one challenges McCabe hard to his face and no opinion writer/speaker on the left will point out the silliness of McCabe’s statement.
My points (a) and (b) were based on the idea that most Democrats get virtually all their information from the MSM or those who follow the MSM line. In other words, when I wrote ” what they’re reading and hearing from others” and “the prevailing public opinion consensus” I’m referring to the MSM and its readers.
For many years, polls have indicated the vast majority of people don’t trust the MSM. But I’ve always maintained that, whatever they may say in a poll, most people (and definitely most Democrats) are highly influenced by the MSM. And there are still a lot of people who fully trust it.
I also know plenty of people who will not accept as valid any source on the right, whatever the credentials of the person making the statement. It is rejected out of hand. So it’s very hard to give them any information that could even begin to counter their belief system.
As far as the depth of anger goes, I think that is the result of three things. The first is, once again, propaganda – for example, Trump is Hitler. If he’s Hitler, why shouldn’t he be hated? He’s evil. The second is, once again, the prevailing opinion around you. If everyone hates Trump, it fuels the idea that Trump-hatred is common, acceptable, and even perhaps desirable. The third is something about Trump himself – his personality traits can obviously rub people the wrong way, so that fuels the hatred.
There is propaganda against all politicians on the right, but they are not all hated to the same degree. For example, although people were stirred up into disliking Romney in 2012, there was nothing like the depth of hatred on the left that there is for Trump or even that there was for Bush. And now, of course, Romney’s a great guy to the left.
Remember this 2003 New Republic piece by Jonathan Chait? I sure do. He explained why he hated George Bush. And I mean hated.
An excerpt:
There are some people who need to hate, for whatever reason. The press tells them who to hate, and it helps if their friends hate that person too. But not every target is equally hateable. Some stir that feeling up more easily than others.
In That Hideous Strength, C S Lewis says that it is precisely the educated classes who are most susceptible to what they read in their favored papers. The working classes are skeptical about everything but the sports scores.
the chiefdoms, a blogger some here are aware of, attended the Cap Hill Rally, and has a detailed report on the propaganda value yielded. He concludes:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/the-non-incitement-the-instigators/
I need to add because this fact has been memory-holed. Congress critters were in their secure location, vacating the Cap Hill public spaces, because of a threat from Iran deem credible.
If so, where was Trump while the “threat” was being acted on in Congress? Awfully convenient timing, don’t you think? Just like pulling a fire alarm in HS was back in the day!
Why no follow up on this kindling event story?
I come from the left. I grew up on the left. I went to an experimental college with the left. I was hippie on the left. I was in communes with the left. I was an activist with a clipboard on the left. I marched with the left. I was in an affinity group planning civil disobedience with the left. I worked in a countercultural magazine with the left. I contributed to leftist causes.
I’ve known a lot of people on the left. Not much of what I read on this blog, aside from circle dancing and the NY Times/NPR connection, fits with my experience of the left.
There is no root cause for the left. There is no single personality type for the left. There is no one psychological disorder for the left. There is no one philosophical mistake for the left.
It’s complicated. The left is many kinds of people who were born or came to the left in many ways. Reducing them to A or B or even A, B or C, is futile in my view.
The left’s real problem, if one must go there, is they are human.
The post is about propaganda IIRC. The left’s real problem today is a far far different thing than their “righteous causes” of your youth. But then there were avowed anarchistic communists and genocidal maniacs in the left back then. It’s better now. 🙂
We are all muffin-heads to some extent or another, those of us in our 70’s were the first generation to have TV sets bringing the news into our homes multiple times each day. As a child we had a morning and evening newspaper each day and a radio which was only turned on for music. When TV entered our lives there were tiny bits of ‘listen to this terrible thing’ and then two minutes of whatever instead of reading an actual news story. Of course we were also bombarded with commercials hours each day promising better living if we bought their crap. We have been as conditioned as Pavlov’s Dogs to respond to tales of woe for the down-trodden for decades.
No surprise that folks who have been fed a steady diet of shocking news on a daily basis react with emotion instead of asking for the source, the actual circumstances and the long term effects of the terrible situation. We are a civilized world of muffin-heads who can’t enjoy living in the best circumstances that have existed in human history. This is kind of ‘Old Testament’ stuff.
The two psychologically most healthy friends I’ve known — coming from beautiful intact families, who were intelligent, attractive, moral and socially adept, who went on to make good marriages, no divorce and raise good families — were solidly on the left. They hated George Bush and now they hate Donald Trump.
It’s deep and visceral and not something they can question. It’s close to taboo and the bubble takes care of the rest. Their identities are shaped by what they like and what they don’t. All their circles hate Bush and Trump, and they do too.
My friends have got good lives. Why mess with the formula?
It’s very hard to hold two contradictory thoughts in one’s head, especially when it leads to cognitive dissonance. They want to feel safe and comfortable, blissfully unaware.
The one thing I find absolutely fascinating is how many conservatives have to tip-toe around family; this is why they win. No one will call them out, so they continue to push their outlandish views.
I find that making a mocking joke, or agreeing with them and taking it to an absurd end really shuts them up. They can’t figure it out.
I think Tom Grey’s assertion that many people WANT the lie i.e. propaganda to be true is an important factor.
Which begs the question as to why some want the propaganda to be true and some do not buy into the propaganda?
I think the answer is confirmation bias. Which consists of our core beliefs. Which works as a mental ‘filter’, similar to a “polarizing” filter through which all light i.e. information is passed but that screens out all light waves (information) which is not aligned with the filter’s screen and only allows in light (information) that does align with the filter’s screen i.e. beliefs.
That filter probably includes the function that commenter ‘OBloodyHell’ refers to as the “Liberal Midnight Reset Button”. If the information slips in, (perhaps through concentrated repetition) the brain (probably while we sleep) automatically and subconsciously performs a ‘clean sweep’ and ejects information that doesn’t align with their ‘filter’ i.e. their confirmation bias.
If so, that would explain why political change is so rare and is typically a gradual process. It seems reasonable to posit that information that in general contradicts an individual’s confirmation bias would need to possess some specific characteristic that does align with part of the individual’s confirmation bias. Such ‘data’ would be like a virus that ‘clings’ to the individual’s mental ‘grid’ of beliefs. If, over time more connected data is gained, like a tumor it grows and can form new biases. Leading in some cases to political change.
I suspect that Alan Dershowitz’s disagreements with the left are an example of this, his confirmation bias regarding legal rationalities doesn’t allow him to embrace the left’s contradictions of those legal biases.
HATE is the result of a belief that oneself or others have been unjustly and gravely victimized. The hater must have an outward object against which to direct their hate. Certainly gathering information through the MSM will reinforce some individual’s seeing of themselves and/or others as unjustly and gravely victimized, engendering the belief that the HATE they feel is justified.
Josh,
Arguing with a closed mind is an exercise in futility. As well try to teach a horse to sing. It only frustrates you and the horse.
Leaving the conservative with a choice; agree to disagree or seek a divorce. While you still remain connected through relations.
An interesting read is “The True Believer; Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements,” by Eric Hoffer.
He explores the personality traits of those who are drawn to radical movements and shows how extremists, regardless of ideology, share common traits such as a need to fit into a group.
It was noticed by many in 1930s Germany that former communists became the most zealous Nazis.
Their MUST be a personality component in regards to who is or is not susceptible to propaganda. Clearly the readers of this blog are not.
Are we special?
What sets us apart from folks like my brother (a hardcore liberal, NY Times , CNN believing ideologue)?
Some folks are deeply religious; they just believe. Try telling them there is no proof of a higher being. And if they experience really bad luck in their life , not of their own doing, they never question their faith or even seek other explanations.
Good luck trying to convince them there is no God.
Some people have to believe in something, for otherwise they do not feel whole . It’s easy belonging to a group that thinks like you. After all, who wants to be the Black Swan?
For some folks it’s religion, for others it’s just easy to swallow the propaganda that is fed to them in the guise of the “news.”
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
? G.K. Chesterton
huxley,
How psychologically healthy can people whose hate is so deep and visceral… actually be? Or do you hold the view that hate does not eventually corrupt the hater?
Neo has several times mentioned “liberty” as a principle and value that sits differently in the values hierarchies of liberals on the one hand, and libertarian leaning/conservative types on the other; and as a word probably even resonates differently and carries different connotations between the two classes.
What was your …
You know what? I’m going to stop here and instead offer up this by now familiar essay by Haidt as a memory provoking device for you (as you are familiar with it already in substance), and as a timely review and reminder for others. https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/28/of-freedom-and-fairness/
And I’ll then ask you if the fairness and liberty versions he describes as being accepted by liberals were the versions and concerns accepted by your leftist friends: Positive liberty versus negative liberty. Fairness as distributive equality vs fairness as proportionality of input in relation to return.
How psychologically healthy can people whose hate is so deep and visceral… actually be? Or do you hold the view that hate does not eventually corrupt the hater?
Geoffrey Britain:
I’ve read plenty of hate on this blog for the left. Are those writers corrupt? Are you?
I regard hate as a common component of the human condition, however regrettable that may be. I don’t throw up my hands over it.
I regard irrationality as basic to the human condition. Rationality is a thin layer on top of that.
Today neo explained that in her opinion Andrew McCarthy, a deeply rational and often wise person I would say, let his emotions get the better of him in his legal decision that Trump had incited and was impeachable.
Leftists are human and what they are doing looks pretty human to me. I don’t see the right as being all that much different. Just at this historical moment IMO the right has the right of it.
JohnTyler,
I agree that “Their MUST be a personality component in regards to who is or is not susceptible to propaganda.”
Certainly some people who believe in God are of the type to say I believe it and case closed.
As for proof of God’s existence I would point to intuition and science. Intuition; “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” And Science; “Why Some Scientists Embrace the ‘Multiverse’”
https://dennisprager.com/column/why-some-scientists-embrace-the-multiverse/
DNW:
You are going to have to let up on the Socratic questioning and suggestions about what I read. I’m not your student. I’m not someone you are guiding to the light.
Haidt is good. I like what he says. But it’s part, not the whole story.
However, I find your notion that humans are morally required to be rational and ought follow ideas to their logical ends — as you see them — practically irrational. Overall that’s not how people work in my experience and according to psychology and evolution as I understand them.
huxley,
“I’ve read plenty of hate on this blog for the left. Are those writers corrupt? Are you?”
No I’m not and the proof of that is that I’m willing to debate on the points and have, on more than one occasion admitted to being in the wrong. Hate does not allow for such.
You mistake righteous anger and disgust with intellectual dishonesty with hate. The anger here with the left is not centered upon a disagreement with their ideology. It is centered upon their intellectual dishonesty in discussing their and our ideologies.
Righteousness is not an aspect of believing oneself to be in the right. Rather it is an aspect of valuing reason and objective truth over and above an emotional need to be right and correctly perceiving those to whom righteous anger and disgust are directed as being knowingly deceitful.
I’ve been regularly, almost daily, visiting this blog since about 2006 and in all that time, I’ve never seen a new visitor who expressed a liberal/leftist point of view initially treated with disdain, much less hate. Instead they were enjoined with reasoned discussion. But once repeated visits or an exchange of comments demonstrated the visitor to be intellectually dishonest… then they received an appropriate level of anger and disgust. A justified reaction to their behavior.
Montage is one example of the above.
Agreeing is easier than disagreeing.
https://news.yale.edu/2021/01/13/disagreeing-takes-lot-brain-real-estate
Propaganda is the symptom – not the disease.
Neo says; There are some people who need to hate, for whatever reason.
Rene Girard’s mimetic theory has been mentioned several times in this blog’s comment section. To my mind it explains the current zeitgeist best – a world viewed through the lens of ‘sacrifice’, not ‘forgiveness’.
What Solzhenitsyn meant when he said ‘Men Have Forgotten God’.
Here is a link to a short explanation of Girard’s theory;
https://violenceandreligion.com/mimetic-theory/
As I started this convo, maybe I can put in a proviso: To my knowledge, none of those whom the left loved to hate–Bush, Reagan, Romney, Nixon, and some other political figures–were to be pursued to their total and ultimate destruction, along with their associates and families after leaving office.
Yet that is the plan.
https://ussanews.com/News1/2021/01/12/forbes-warns-companies-not-to-hire-trump-associates-or-theyll-assume-everything-the-company-says-is-a-lie/
This is not, by any means, the only example.
SPEAKING OF PROPAGANDA, the Russiagate documents will be declassified by the WH — a stack one and a half feet high — with revelations from Christopher Steele ( it was done to stop Trump), as well as Stephan Halper (who was supposed to insinuate himself into ALL of Trump’s foreign policy influencers and get dirt on them), according to John Solomon.
7 minute podcast
https://justthenews.com/podcasts/john-solomon-reports/bombshell-revelations-trump-declassifies-all-fbi-documents-russia
Text and Tweets
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2021/01/solomon-trump-orders-declass-of-all-fbi.html
This rollout will occur over several days.
It will stoke popular and populist blood lust for Rep. Margorie Greene’s plan to introduce a Bill of Impeachment of Biteme into the House Chamber!
Great to paint the Dems as The Watergate Times Ten Party!
(We hope — because it’s true.)
Molly+Brown—
I’m not on board with Gerard. This view of “sacrifice” is too Christ-ocentric to me because it ignores the secular greed of class interest driven interests so manifestly obvious.
While tries to be a higher explanation, when base drives are simpler and less fraught with misunderstandings, I don’t get the point of it — unless I shared the same frame of Biblical and ethical reference. (Which I don’t.)
huxley—you illustrate the powers of complementary assortative mating to reinforce changer resistant compartmentalisation.
I think there is a very important piece of this puzzle missing. Propaganda works because it issues from the large organization, usually the State. Humans, like most mammals, are highly social creatures. They have a need to belong and be recognized as part of the group, whichever group they identify with, large or small. Once their group is identified, thus begins the intricate process of acquiring social status, of relative position in the hierarchy, of advancing within the group. We have all see this at some point in our lives.
Propaganda purports to be information, collated and condensed in service to the group. There is a strong pressure to conform, and it is felt the most by the people who are the most insecure in their position, for whatever reason. Knowing and repeating the propaganda message provides an important means of competing to elevate status. Propaganda works because its infiltration into the belief system allows for more inspired competition.
Geoffrey Britain:
Your post comes across as something of a Russell conjugation:
We are righteous.
You are emotional. [not me specifically]
They are hate-filled scum.
I grant neo’s blog gives a better reception to leftists than I’ve gotten at, say, the Daily Kos. Much less at David Brin’s place. (Brrr!)
Still, I get the chills with the regular “I love muh guns and I sure wouldn’t mind using them on leftist scum if it comes to pass” comments I see here regularly. You may call that righteous anger. I don’t.
I do consider the right these days more rational than the left, but I still say it’s relative. FWIW, aside from VDH, the “National Review” would say the general views at neo’s are incitements to insurrection and populist demagoguery with intent to loiter. Which would include me as a perp. So I don’t know what to say.
I suggest we consider the left as human beings caught in a typical human trap, rather than evil or defective. And maybe breathe a prayer, “It could have been me.”
Richard Aubrey:
Good point. There IS a difference now and I think that difference is twofold. The first reason the hate is now Ahab-like total destruction is the change in culture and tone – the social media bloodlust, the feeding frenzy atmosphere, the extremity of the MSM and public discourse and entertainment in general. The second is the takeover of the Democratic Party and the MSM by the left, even the far left. The liberals are gone. The moderates are gone. There is a world of difference between liberals and leftists. I know I’ve written posts on that in the past.
Think Sweden vs. the USSR. You may have been on the left in the US years ago, but are you sure it was the same left? The left used to believe – or pretended to believe, and you may have thought they believed – in free speech, for example. No more.
I think people pick up on – for want of a better word – the zeitgeist. Orwell didn’t describe the Two Minutes Hate for nothing – it was fictional, but he didn’t make it up out of nothing. It was based on his knowledge of totalitarian leftism.
Richard Aubrey: “To my knowledge, none of those whom the left loved to hate–Bush, Reagan, Romney, Nixon, and some other political figures–were to be pursued to their total and ultimate destruction, along with their associates and families after leaving office. Yet that is the plan.”
Agreed, to which I would like to add that their hatred of those Republicans did NOT include their common citizens supporters to the same extent that their hatred today includes Trump’s supporters. I don’t recall any Republican supporters in the past being targeted for violence the way Trump supporters were 4 years ago. Nor do I recall any previous supporters being vilified the way Trump supporters are being vilified by the MSM and Democrats today. It is so bad that it just isn’t safe to wear a MAGA hat or any other sign that you support Trump – such outward signs seem to be nothing more than a “kick me” sign on your backside.
It really is more than a hatred for Trump – it is, perhaps, a hatred for those who dare to not stay in there place where their “betters” believe they belong. For example, pro-Brexit folks in the UK were/are just as vilified for their views.
Charles. I’ve thought of wearing a MAGA hat, but since I have a reputation, or one which could be reconstructed from witnesses, of being forever hatless, except sometimes on the beach since I doffed my last Army cover, it might be seen as incitement with malice aforethought should push come to shove.
Quite literally, I have thought of that. I’d love to but the prosecution, should the inevitable happen….
Neo. I was not “on” the left half a century ago. I worked in and with lefty groups who, perforce, found having a big frat/jock guy handy from time to time.
I worked with some faith-based groups–Center for Global Education on a trip to Central America. Got on some mailing lists supposedly only for the Anointed.
I suspect I’m the only guy who went to Mississippi on civil rights work whose next gig involved being an Infantry officer with Airborne quals. Too funny.
Roomed one summer with a couple of SDS guys who, it turned out, were wholesaling weed from the basement. It was so long ago they hadn’t gone metric. Told them to take their business elsewhere, which they did graciously It was interesting to listen to them. Committed, but decent guys. Had a colleague die of diabetic shock and one of my SDS guys came over to talk to me about him, in an entirely sympathetic manner. Also knew a “spacey” type whose name was that of a hot Hollywood type, later on convicted as Weather Underground for violence and later pardoned by, iirc, St. Jimmy Carter.
Then I joined a group working in a community center in a challenged area. I’m not sure that counts, since it was run by sororities.
So I got around. But not “on” the left.
The one big thing I’ve learned in 25 years of playing on the Internet is that many intelligent and educated people use that intelligence and education to rationalize and defend what the feel. As someone up top said…because they want it to be True.
huxley:
Leftist propaganda kills – Jonestown. CHAZ Portland Minneapolis St Louis (Officer Dorn). Don’t tell me about your halcyon days and good intentions. Tell me why leftist propaganda is being manufactured today to demonize 74 million American adults. Leftist control freaks want to deprogram or reeducate those who don’t comply. They are profoundly dangerous, the “good Germans” of our day.
I suggest looking into the history of mind control, Richard Aubrey. Specifically MK Ultra.
Huxley,
Of all the things that I think you might be, a student of mine is not one of them.
Out of all the things I might be trying to do, leading you to the light is most definitely not one of them.
I had hoped you might have had a little light of your own to share, given a bit of prompting.
The thing I am trying to do is to grasp the mind set of the leftist kind, which is necessary for any real tolerance and sympathy, as they do seem to have a radically different set of thought processes.
Obviously they don’t seem to think that their irrationality is a deal breaker … that their presumption kills the “social contract”.
The polar “just accept it” alternatives are to simply shrug your shoulders and say: “Well, what they are is just an inexplicable brute fact and I just have to learn to abide; and to suffer an association with a set of human organisms that just cannot be reasoned with”; or to shrug and say, “Well, enough of this effen shit. This ain’t working and this ain’t worth it, and they ain’t worth it, and shooting, IF we cannot somehow manage to keep them at arms’ length, is better than sharing a moral space with these mindless things”
I doubt that Conservatives will ever get to that point though, since the left seems to be preparing to get the ball rolling themselves preemptively, without ever bothering to explain why in terms non-collectivists can process.
So what I am trying to do is to understand what the hell is inside their heads and what their rationales and justifications for their trespasses is; so that we might figure out how to avoid either extreme I mentioned.
I had figured that someone who once was a leftist might be able to explain what it is that leftists think that they are entitled to from other people not like them: in the way of access, and forbearance and tolerance and a “shared fate” and that kind of thing.
Now, the fact is that virtually no one has ever been able to explain the moral reasoning of the leftist mind, including both current and former leftists. Which is why guys like me who are trying to preserve some shred of evidence that leftists are not simply at base an unreasoning alien effen life form having the physical appearance but not moral substance of man, hang our hopes however wan, on guys like Haidt.
You know, we conservatives have a lot of moral inhibitions to go along with our reactance; and hate to think that the only path to freedom is a slashing sword. Jesus does not like that in general, and that is one of the “burdens” we bear that the appetite entities of the left, do not.
But you know, sometimes the appetite things just don’t leave you any selection, as when they are pulling you out of a car or firebombing your store, or most probably, eventually, seizing your bank accounts and that kind of thing..
But I say we keep trying to understand though, for now.
I have wondered whether the strangely intense hate by leftists — which is part of what drove me out of the Democratic party way back when in the Bush years, and has only grown and grown since then — might be a product of the new and, in many ways, laudable sensitivity toward bigotry against the traditionally hated minorities — mainly blacks and what the left would call “brown” people, as well as immigrants and anyone else who’s different by birth and culture. We can’t hate those people anymore — nobody wants to and, especially, those on the left have to advertise their freedom from any such hatred.
But as huxley says, humans are human, and some humans seem to need to hate. Take the old targets away from them, and they won’t stop hating — they’ll just find new targets for their hatred. Today, those targets are the white working class, white “cis” men and, most of all, the right. The venom I’ve seen among otherwise genuinely well-intentioned people on the left who never set out to be governed by hatred is unmistakable and shocking. Some people, maybe many people, seem to need somebody on the outside of their group, whatever it may be, to hate in order to assure themselves that they’re on the inside of the group, safely part of Neo’s circle dance. That attribute seems to be far more common among today’s leftists than among those on the right — maybe because of the left’s focus on community identity, as opposed to the right’s belief in individual freedom. The scariest part is the left’s complete lack of self-awareness, their rationalized belief that they are the good and compassionate ones and that the people they want to hate are the haters, so that their hatred is justified.
John Tyler @ 8:18 – “An interesting read is “The True Believer; Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements,” by Eric Hoffer.”
I second that statement. It is very interesting. One topic was that the time of greatest danger to an organized repressive society is when you let off the oppression just a little bit. Then the people who have no status or feel unsecure in their status can erupt. He used the French Revolution as an example. The modern version is Gorbachov’s Perestroika campaign. Stalin just killed people periodically. Mao had his Cultural Revolution to dampen down the pressure (after his “let 100 flowers bloom” campaign showed the depth of discontent). Castro stuck people on boats and sent them away.
The US has the steam release with elections until this one.
Tucker Carlson last week (Monday I believe) talked about why the university educated middle class feel distain towards the MAGA “mouth breathers”. It is because they are people that look like them and it drives home that their position is insecure in this time of globalization. Hence the contempt because they see what could become of them. This happened to me. I was downsized from an international auto company after 35 years to have my job go to China. My job is now back in the US being done by someone with much less experience (and skill).
But I don’t have contempt because I like people. Many of these insecure snobs deep down dislike others who are not like them. I know because I met so many of them. They are shocked when I don’t display the same class consciousness as they have regarding “those people”. It is the specialized knowledge workers who mainly fall into this category. They really don’t have other life skills. They couldn’t fish, dress game, garden, repair cars, wire a house, replace a water heater or do other manual tasks. They are caricatures of the city slicker when they get to the country and have to employ real life skills. Heck many don’t even know how to cook. Look at all the prepared meals commercials on TV.
Tucker’s assertion makes sense to me because that is how the elite Democrats maintained control during the Jim Crow era over poor white folk. They oppressed the blacks so that the poor whites knew there was someone worse off then them. Like this stolen election, they just dusted off their Jim Crow playbook and used it.
Richard Aubrey @ 9:46 “As I started this convo, maybe I can put in a proviso: To my knowledge, none of those whom the left loved to hate–Bush, Reagan, Romney, Nixon, and some other political figures–were to be pursued to their total and ultimate destruction, along with their associates and families after leaving office.
Yet that is the plan.”
That is because they had not yet gained control of the levers of state power. They have a lot of it now after the Obama administration. Totalitarians always have to have an enemy. Always have to have someone to draw attention away from their failures. And if you show that their policies are a failure their fury and hate multiplies. They will destroy because they can not create only cannibalize. See Venezuela and Argentina. In 1920 Argentina and the United States had the same GDP. Then Peronism came and appealed to the shirtless ones. And the misery has continued.
After a while when control is consolidated then they turn on each other. That is coming. Always. BLM and Antifa will have it out against the Bernie Bro’s. Guess who will win.
I will repeat my warning. During these times, the police are not your friend. They will do what the state orders.
huxley,
“Your post comes across as something of a Russell conjugation:
We are righteous.
You are emotional. [not me specifically]
They are hate-filled scum.”
Nice try at obfuscation. In this venue, it is a willingness to honestly and forthrightly address another’s points in a discussion that separates the righteous from the unrighteous. In every argument between the left and the right, the left inevitably resortes to slander with little to no effort to substantiate their claims. Libel and slander are the left’s default MO.
An argument solely based in emotional declarations and accusations is neither a discussion nor a valid argument. You cannot reason with a man out of a position that they reached absent reason. All you can do is let them yell at you or walk away.
The Left, literally on a minute to minute basis demonstrates and expresses their bileous, pathological hate. Res ipsa loquitur…
“I get the chills with the regular “I love muh guns and I sure wouldn’t mind using them on leftist scum if it comes to pass” comments I see here regularly.”
You’re either confusing this blog’s commenters with Brietbart or you’re bearing false witness. No one here speaks in that manner and I’m not just speaking of the fractured grammer you offer as being common.
A willingness to defend liberty, even onto armed conflict is far from an eagerness to use their guns on “leftist scum”. If you doubt that the left is the mortal enemy of liberty, then you’re simply a fool. But yes, those willing to deny others liberty are scum, as they’ve rejected “self-evident truths”. No Marxist, no criminal, no barbarian honors “life, liberty and the [individual’s] pursuit of happiness”.
Your attempts at equivalence in offering the never-Trump National Review’s POV reveal yourself to be acting as an apologist. They are of the same ilk as those GOP Senators who betrayed their Oath of Office by supporting the most massively fraudulent electoral theft of a Presidential election in history, one that renders the Constitution a dead letter.
Never in America has so foul a deed been done.
GB. Ref your last sentence: I immediately began thinking that the Civil War and what led up to it were worse. Then I thought about it some more. At least, the parties were honest.
And people who are, mostly, reasonably kind in their personal lives are constantly fulminating with baseless, vindictive rage. For what?
I guess human nature isn’t what we (you) thought it was.
“the Krell forgot one deadly danger – their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction.” “ After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.”
I wouldn’t have thought this could happen here. It’s one wrong thing to have baseless, murderous hatred against a minority: Jews, Kulaks, Blacks, and another to have it against a (near?) majority.
I don’t recall any Republican supporters in the past being targeted for violence the way Trump supporters were 4 years ago.
When the IRS is investigating Republicans based on “tips,” you don’t—yet—need mobs storming their houses.
The Left/Communist/Democrats have been calling Republicans “Nazis” since Wendell Willkie. (Can you imagine claiming—or worse believing—Willkie is a Nazi.) It’s a slow, steady drip of hate until the water becomes a flood. That flood is not yet here, but it will be—when the state and mobs unite to eliminate their opponents.
The Enlightenment is based on limiting power: no consensus in science that can silence dissenters; no election in which the losers are ruined or killed. Socialism renounces both of those.
There was both Nazi and Communist “science” (and Marxism itself is “scientific socialism,” and, of course, socialists (in too many countries to list here) mass murdered their opponents.
The Enlightenment is dying. People tire of its ideas. Its adherents and advocates are corrupted, shadows who don’t believe their own rhetoric.
And so a democracy and republic gives way to a Democratic Republic.
The right sees politics as a game. After it’s over – well played, winners/losers shake hands. Freedom of speech, press, etc. levels the playing field so the game is fair. The left sees politics and everything else as a life/death struggle – as a religion. Propaganda – propagating the faith – is a tool to strengthen the resolve and increase the legions of the believers. Why does it work? It seems people have a hunger for a vengeful god.
Eva Marie. WRT your last sentence. I didn’t used to.
I remember when my parents and grandparents relied on the news from newspapers and the national broadcasts. Back then what was reported was factual. Therefore the next generations followed suit. So in today’s world, what is quoted in the MSM is taken as fact. So unless you question these “facts” you are none the wiser. So my brother for instance, follows the above criteria and his view of the current situation is different to mine.
I ignore the MSM and seek my information from different sources. (Thank you Neo), so my viewpoint is different. So I think this shows the power or influence of the MSM and those that follow should not necessarily be classed as ill-informed or “the enemy”, they are just following the norm or tradition.
(b) (related) most people don’t want to move away from the prevailing public opinion consensus
And that goes double for my friends in the arts/music community who dwell lovingly on every word from NPR. About thirty years ago I would complain about their cultivated tones spouting liberal opinions as if they were ‘news’, and omitting from their considerable research anything to be said in favor of non-progressive POV. To be rebuffed by laughter or bewilderment.
Now it’s blatant, and I’m instantly engaged by outraged Defenders of the Faith whose self-imposed mission is to win the argument, prove me wrong, or shout me down if necessary.
“And people who are, mostly, reasonably kind in their personal lives are constantly fulminating with baseless, vindictive rage. For what?”….and from physicsguy: “It’s the pure HATE and blood lust emanating from seemingly normal people.”
Someone remarked on a blog, several years ago, that ‘If you are bitter, you are basically announcing to the world that you are a failure in your own eyes.”
My comment was, that if that description is true–and I think it is–we certainly have a lot of people in America today who are *failures in their own eyes*.
That category…the bitter people…accounts for maybe 50% of the Angry Progs. But there are still quite a few who seemingly have nothing to be bitter about, and who seem reasonably calm in their personal lives. Those are the harder ones to figure out. A lot of it, I think, is what Neo, following Kundera, has referred to as ‘cricle dancing.’
Free association is gift, or something.
Reading Price’s History of The Vikings…. Referred to a rune stone listing five sons killed abroad. Which put me in mind of The Ballad of William Sycamore, which put me in mind of Steven Vincent Benet. Which put me in mind of The Devil and Dan’l Webster.
I first encountered them in Am Lit anthologies in high school–class of 62. Since then, as well, but long ago, they were in HS anthologies.
They were both written for adults but were in high school Am Lit. Means a couple of things; one is that those who selected them expected the kids to understand the references, or that the teacher could explain them without starting from…maybe the Revolution or something. Not a lot of time, in other words. The other was the values espoused were considered as positive.
I wonder if anybody knows if they’re currently taught or available in HS, if the kids would get the references, and if the Edstablishment would even allow them.
Which may have some connection to the current question.
Geoffrey Britain to Huxley: “You’re either confusing this blog’s commenters with Brietbart or you’re bearing false witness. No one here speaks in that manner and I’m not just speaking of the fractured grammar you offer as being common.”
I have noticed that Progs do that often: they have a stereotype of their opponents and automatically assume that their opponents fit that stereotype. For example, I’ve seen a blogger who I know to be a highly-educated agnostic Jew referred to as ‘one of you ignorant Evangelical rednecks.’
Richard Aubrey, re Steven Vincent Benet’s ‘Ballad of William Sycamore”…there is a musical version of this poem, sung here by Tom Russell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEK-FKCN0sk
I believe the original musical setting was done by Steve Young.
David. Thanks.
“They are shocked when I don’t display the same class consciousness as they have regarding “those people”. It is the specialized knowledge workers who mainly fall into this category. ”
I ran into this constantly while I at the college. As I was an experimentalist running a fairly complex lab which involved a lot of electrical, water, high and low pressure gas, chilled water systems etc, I often needed to enlist the help of the skilled craftsmen from Facilities. Over the years I became quite good friends with a number of them. And in fact, I think my best relations at the school were with the staff. A number of faculty were astounded, and even confused that I would actually engage and enjoy these people whom they obviously thought were beneath them. You could also see the elitism on display, especially in the humanities and social sciences, but also in the sciences to a degree on their emails. I would end my emails with just my name. Many, many, faculty had a permanent signature which would look like:
Dr. Aubrey Smith, PhD
Holder of the Joe Blow Chair in Weaving Materials
Associate Prof. of Basket Weaving
Department of Basket Weaving
NoName College
Yep, I took that as an indication of their basic insecurity and the need to project to the world how good they really were.
Which is why guys like me who are trying to preserve some shred of evidence that leftists are not simply at base an unreasoning alien effen life form having the physical appearance but not moral substance of man, hang our hopes however wan, on guys like Haidt. -DNW https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/01/14/why-does-propaganda-work/#comment-2535725
Nice quote, DNW. I’ll save that for later. Also thanks for trying to understand the loyal opposition. That may not seem useful in the short term but in the longer term, after we rebuild better, it will be more useful.
This is not sarcasm.
Physicsguy – I think one reason is that the technicians are comfortable in their own skin. They have a status and they know it. THEY HAVE A DISCERNABLE SKILL SET. So you could be real with them and vice versa.
Credentialed people don’t necessarily display a skill set. Their skill set more ephemeral and subject to obsolescence than skilled trades. That leads to insecurity. I am expert in this coding language but another code may come along and supplant my value. Or this process can be replaced with another.
There are exceptions to this observation but by and large I think it is valid.
This morning I came across this essay which to this learned erudite community has some resonance. It deals with the homogenization of experience and credentials.
Read the first part that ends with this.
“David and I looked at each other, simultaneously realizing that the after-school special we thought we were in was actually a horror movie. If the medical industry was comprehensively broken, as Norman said, and the media was irrevocably broken, as we knew it was … Was everything in America broken? Was education broken? Housing? Farming? Cities? Was religion broken?
Everything is broken.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/everything-is-broken
She points to the over credentialization of our society. Angelo Codavilla also pointed this out with his famous article “The Country Class vs. the Ruling Class”. A masterful piece of analysis.
Here is the crux of his argument.
“Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America’s upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and “bureaucrat” was a dirty word for all. So was “social engineering.” Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday’s upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.
Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the “in” language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.”
https://spectator.org/americas-ruling-class/
Think of Peter Strozk text to his paramour Lisa Page. “They are Walmart shoppers. You can smell them.” Now you know the mindset of our supposed betters.
Think of the bartender Sandy Cortez who clutches her Boston University degree and proclaims her inchoate and incoherent programs with authority. I would love to take some of her more daft statements and go to the Dean of Boston University Economics Department and ask them if they are proud of the product they produce. I was looking for the Dean’s name and came across their mission statement. I think they would be. Now show this to a parent of someone who is thinking of going to BU and see their reaction.
Welcome to the Economics Department
The mission of the Department of Economics at Boston University is to understand the production and distribution of resources at the levels of the individual, firm and society, and to evaluate social policies that shape these phenomena. We do so by conducting high-quality research on pressing social problems, while providing an exceptional education to students at all levels in economic methods and critical approaches.
Bernie Sanders has a University of Chicago degree (as well as Saul Alinsky). Intelligence doesn’t equate to smart or wise.
This is why they, the people embedded to the current credential system, hate Trump with a visceral passion that has no bounds. Trump was not oriented to government credentialism but towards Main Street America and he spoke to us as a partner not one to rule over us. That is why he succeeded in changing the parameters of debate. As posted in an earlier blog, national populism isn’t going away. The economic storm that is coming will expose the current set of rulers to be incapable of managing it. Good people are going to be hurt.
We can bring the wealth of experience back to our ruling class by electing people of common sense. So stay involved and work to get the right people in place.
To add to the last paragraph. A solid way of accomplishing this is to have term limits on Congress. I favor 18 years maximum both houses combined. We wouldn’t have a Congress that runs on the behalf of Septuagenarians or Octogenarians.
I favor a constitutional amendment to do this. Effective immediately. People would get behind this and push it. Many states have term limits and it has helped get new blood into the system.
Spartacus,
The idea of term limits for Congress is the true solution to much of the problem, and has been for decades. If it had been implemented earlier we wouldn’t have half the issues we now have. It will NEVER happen. Do you honestly think Congress, with all that money flowing around, is going to agree to fire themselves? And they will fight tooth and nail to prevent any sort of Constitutional convention for such; both GOP and Dems.
One of the quite natural things that has happened here in this thread is that the rationality theme discussed in another thread has taken on a somewhat different coloring and emphasis.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/01/13/impeachment-of-trump-and-demonization-of-his-supporters-have-been-the-lefts-goals-from-the-start/#comment-2535619
Although Huxley is probably consistently hewing to the same point, i.e., that [ if I understand him] the human animal is not fundamentally a rational operator; instead, navigating by habit, and emotion, and expediency as much as anything else, the rest of us are developing the question somewhat differently.
And we focus on progressives’ moral sensibilities; in particular, how accountable, in moral terms as we see moral terms, they can be held for what we, or at least someone like me, sees as their sloppy, and morally indictable and outrageously unjustified structuring of interpersonal claims.
It might – “it”, being the original quasi-anthropological framing – in some ways be called a meta-morality theme, in the same way that so many other presuppositional explorations wind up being called meta this or meta that.
Of course, merely indicting the opposition for “irrationality” is common in politics on both sides. So we cannot allow ourselves to be thrown off track by that. For example, Obama’s reference to bitter clingers hanging on fetishistically to their guns and bibles, was an only slightly covert species of this charge, dressed up as an attempt to extend understanding to the benighted subjects of his disdain.
The famous, “What’s wrong with Kansas? ” indictment, where the left asserted that the American Middle was irrationally incapable of recognizing its own best interests, that is to say, that of yielding to progressive directed life ways, is another.
But what we are talking about here is not an incapacity per se to calculate certain matters in daily life, but the assumption that with regard to the formation of moral poses or stances, a critical analysis of the anthropological grounds for assuming the existence of a “moral community” in the first place, is not only undesirable, but may be off-limits, or even pointless. Their assertion being, ” we just have to assume ‘X’ without evidence ” ( or to pretend, or to create the illusion of) in order to produce a desired ( by some) social effect, which is itself beyond the right or practicality of anyone to question.
Let me come at this from another angle.
Traditionally, in the U.S., our moral relations framework was noticeably deductive in operation. Somewhat, like a traditional Catholic catechism. We start off in our case with certain axiomatic propositions which are formulated in that blended empirical and rationalistic concept we call self-evidence. It is, notice, at least evidence of a kind. And there is an implied telos there.
Since however, the the decline of the culturally influential fideist New England churches, (which were always a weak point in this framework since they were largely based on faith, exclusive of and hostile to papist and Aristotelean reasoning) the now secular intellectual class of the seaboards, has been attempting to find a predicate replacement for the moral anthropology implicit in the Declaration. They are employing the same fideist template used in their failed churches, to now try and draw up a sociopolitical replacement for the predicate of association, rights, and mutual support that was laid out in the Declaration, and implicit in the construction of the plan of federal government found in the Constitution.
They have not found one: not in Utilitarianism, not in Pragmatism, not in Humanism, not in bureaucratic managerialism, or in any combination of the above: all of which rely exclusively on instrumental reason to try and solve questions of why we should tolerate the annoying rather than just kill them or expel them, and be done with the hassle of their presence.
And so now we have arived at the newest fideist, anti-reasoning project: post-modern marxism; where the axiom is not that men are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, but rather that the point is not to interpret or understand what the world and mankind are, but to change them. To “Just do it” as they say …
Because …
My position then, is that to simply refuse to at least try and think this through, makes one unfit to claim rights of association with those who do face it. And that such a failure, is a moral failure. Or, if you prefer, a meta-moral, failure.
You cannot just assume anymore … not that you ever really could.
I am Spartacus:
Term limits is a start. The staffers are another problem, talk about credentialism!
None the less, identification of root causes is always woth while in sorting out problems.
Your comments are much appreciated.
Physicsguy – I concur with your statements. It would extremely difficult. However in times of crisis things that were not possible can become so if there is an organized effort. We have to be ready when it does by preparing the battle space. Also in a Constitutional Convention it is the STATE LEGISLATURES that determine the delegates. Many of whom operate with term limits. Many who would be able to go to Congress if term limits are in place. You can appeal their their self interest in that way.
There is a way.
American Thinker just retracted all statements about Dominion. The counter offense has begun. Here is what I wrote my Michigan Cadre.
____________________________________________________________
American Thinker has retracted all accusations about Dominion machines. I believe it is a matter of financial resources to fight and the more fantastical claims as put forth by QANON.
Do I think that there were problems with the machines? – Yes But that is not what the statement below is dis avowing. It is the QANON stuff that Sidney Powell and Lin Wood have been espousing. Sidney Powell is in trouble. Let’s hope she can work herself out of it.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/statement.html
We received a lengthy letter from Dominion’s defamation lawyers explaining why they believe that their client has been the victim of defamatory statements. Having considered the full import of the letter, we have agreed to their request that we publish the following statement:
American Thinker and contributors Andrea Widburg, R.D. Wedge, Brian Tomlinson, and Peggy Ryan have published pieces on http://www.AmericanThinker.com that falsely accuse US Dominion Inc., Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation (collectively “Dominion”) of conspiring to steal the November 2020 election from Donald Trump. These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion’s supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion’s machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently.
These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact. Industry experts and public officials alike have confirmed that Dominion conducted itself appropriately and that there is simply no evidence to support these claims.
It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion’s track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election. We regret this grave error.
OM – “staffers are a problem”.
Trump started tackling this issue at the very end (October was the announcement timeframe) by trying having some people classified as Schedule K employees. Those are the employees that have some sort of decision making responsibility and with Schedule K designation could be treated as “at will” employees. It didn’t get far but that is something that hopefully another administration could pick up and implement.
Propaganda…Peter Drucker’s first book, ‘The End of Economic Man’ (1939), was about the rise of totalitarianism..especially fascist totalitarianism…and the reasons for same. He critiques several of the then-common explanations, including propaganda as a primary cause:
“I have never been able to find anyone who could reconcile it with the fact that right up to the fascist victory–and in Italy beyond it–literally all means of propaganda were in the hands of uncompromising enemies of fascism. There was not one widely-read newspaper but poured ridicule of Hitler and Mussolini….The radio in Germany, owned by the government, issued one anti-Nazi broadside after the other.”
He goes on to make the argument that “using as an argument against fascism that the masses have been duped by propaganda” is self-negating, “For this would be an argument only in support of fascism…If we ourselves admit that the masses can be lured by propaganda to give up (individual liberty), there can be no justification at all for our creed and we had better become fascists ourselves.”
And “to deny liberty and self-determination to the masses in order to shield them from propaganda is no alternative to fascism; nor would absence of propaganda have prevented its spread.”
Of course, there was no such thing as social media when Drucker wrote the above, and today, many of the personal conversations which would previously have taken place in a home or restaurant or via letter are now taking place in the form of text, in a manner which can be easily surveilled and manipulated…which provides propagandists with a whole new set of tools.
QAnon kills, it’s a feature of disinformation IMO.
People who traffic in QAnon are selling the KoolAid (Jonestown) to the gullible, Yammer for instance. Pride keeps propaganda effective; makes it hard to admit you have been gulled.
Ashli Babbit RIP and Sidney Powell, both victims of QAnon.
I am Spartacus:
To fully drain the swamp would cause the Potomac flow like the Mississippi or the Columbia (in May).
And speaking of propaganda, the “diversity” industry as seen from a US Navy perspective
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Diversity Thursday
“Are you ready for what is coming? I hope you are, because the diversity industry is tanned, rested, and ready – and in most places already well down their lines of operation. …..
They have the wind at their back. Have you researched the beliefs of the person set to take over the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice? …….
We simply cannot rely on political, business, and institutional leaders to champion what is right. They are scared more than individual people. ……
The left has always been after your children. As they have had the educational system in their control for decades, this is expected. …..
Critical race theory or any effort to get Americans to identify not as American, but as self-selected sectarian groupings and then told that they are pitted against each other for finite resources … is evil. ……
Fight it where you can. Slow roll it where you can’t.”
They are after your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, all of them.
Below are a couple links on the forensic audit of the Antrim county, MI, Dominion voting systems. It’s about a month old, so there might be newer info but it is what I found easily.
Wash. Examiner
PDF of audit report itself, Dec. 13
People might want to look or keep a copy before the web is scrubbed of troublesome information.
I am Spartacus: thank you for the link to Alana Newhouse’s piece (“Everything Is Broken”) in Tablet Magazine. It’s a depressing read, but it ties together a lot of threads in an elegant way. She does an excellent job of explaining the situation we’re in and how we got here. And she suggests some practical remedies.
In my view, Angelo Codevilla’s 2010 essay “The Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution” is the most important–and the most prescient–essay of the current century. Ms. Newhouse’s piece is in the same league.
More recently, Codevilla’s July 2020 piece “Scamocracy in America” described the mechanisms by which power and wealth are transferred from ordinary people–the once-Great American Middle Class–to the self-appointed ruling class:
https://americanmind.org/salvo/scamocracy-in-america/
Quote: “The U.S. Constitution and the way of life lived under it are historical relics.” Zaphod and the Z Man would certainly agree with that. I agree with it to the extent that our constitutional system is clearly broken and the way of life that many of us knew is over. I would also argue that the principles of governance that found practical expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are not historical relics. Indeed, many of the items in the Declaration’s bill of indictments map well to the present day, once one discounts the bewigged C18 language that annoys some people (or annoyf fome people) on this forum.
To paraphrase DNW in another thread: you need to define the target before taking targeted action. And to do that, you have to be able to define the problem and its etiology. I fear D.C. is a lost cause. The best place to push back against Codevilla’s fraudulent ruling class and its totalitarian behavior is at the state level. There are encouraging signs that that may be now happening, with Idaho, Florida, and North Dakota drafting legislation to protect their residents against Big Tech censorship.
Propaganda works in this country because most people don’t know it’s propaganda.
The small community I live in is a prime example. For context to get the senior citizen discount on our golf course you have to be 80! And that’s not a joke. Many and I mean many. The only access to news is ABC, NBC, CBS. Many does not have internet (it’s very expensive) and have flip phones. I’ve actually had some of the older people ask me … how can NEWS be FAKE?
Thing is they do vote … but I fear that many have no idea what they are voting for!
2+2 is politically congruent (“=”) to 5. Propaganda works because there are special and peculiar interests, people… persons who want to believe, and others who are forced to kneel.
people don’t know it’s propaganda
Case in point: Propaganda Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a conditioning service, but once operated to normalize American interests and philosophy: Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. A philosophy that is a reconciliation of classical liberalism and Judeo-Christian religion.
The Progressive Church/Synagogue/Temple/etc. places its faith in mortal gods and goddesses who preach the Pro-Choice selective, opportunistic, relativistic (“ethical”) quasi-religion with a liberal (i.e. divergent) ideological bent. Separation of “Church” and State. Sure, through semantic games, conceptual corruption, conflation of logical domains, and a profound bigotry (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrisy).
Link to an article by Caitlin Johnstone, an author who lives in Australia and writes extensively about mainstream propaganda and the U.S. empire. I find her insights to be compelling, and I hope you all will, too.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/07/09/as-long-as-mass-media-propaganda-exists-democracy-is-a-sham/
I Am Spartacus, om —
I am perfectly willing to accept both that Sidney Powell said a bunch of unsubstantiated potentially defamatory things about Dominion and that Dominion machines are intrinsically insecure black boxes that should never be used.
Bryan – totally agree. My hope is that Powell is able to change the place of trial from DC to her home state of Texas where it was demonstrated that Dominion machines are insecure and unreliable by the state of Texas. If she is allowed to introduce that plus other evidence into the trial she has a good chance of prevailing. I am particularly interested to see what happens with the Russell Ramstead information if that can be used. He stated that the info did go overseas. He also was part of the Atruim County audit. This is put up or shut up time.
But she is in deep doo doo with the claims of overseas servers, military raids and switching votes. It is disinformation and she declined to retract it. She will lose on that. If that is all that is allowed to be entered as evidence she is sunk. In the DC Court that is most likely to happen. That is why she needs the change of venue. Note Dominion is not located in DC so that is possible. But if she relies on Lin Wood I don’t hold out much hope.
QANON succeeds again. They allowed an effective enemy to destroy themselves without getting actively involved. A Sun Tzu tactic used to great effect. We have to be aware of this and be on our guard.
Here is another link to Atrium Report (pdf didn’t work for me, on Brave)
https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20423772-antrim-county-forensics-report
We could use Term Limits. I support them for all elected officials.
We could use Term Limits on staff, too – “public servants” should be in for 5-10 years and then move on. Out of Fed. gov’t.
(After 10 years, freeze on salary; no promotions. After 12 years a 2% cut each quarter, until they find another job and leave.)
Also should be easier to fire those with “bad performance” – but this means gov’t has to track who is doing good work, and who not. And why, in documentation.
One issue not mentioned too much above – Justice.
Most Dems want justice, and they do not see the US system as “just”. That’s mostly because the reality of inequality in IQ, looks, health, parents, wealth – all the big and little inequalities in real life – they are not “fair”.
But unfair, which is a characteristic of reality, is different than injustice.
Just saying this allows Dems to call me “mean” and selfish and a supporter of injustice. I don’t support injustice, which is based on unjust actions and laws and policies by humans. But I DO recognize that Life Is Not Fair.
Lots of people Hate this fact – life is not fair.
This hate will either be wasted against reality, or turned and used against … Reps.
Reps need to help those who are unfairly unlucky, yet retain the expectation that Good Behavior gives better Life Results than Bad Behavior. Both for lucky folk and unlucky.
For my own record: the conversations at Neo’s are the best on the webs (I’ve spent a lot of time lately on the comment threads at other blogs, looking at the different facets of the conservative zeitgeist).
Many of the situations, conditions, and recommended responses are described thoughtfully, some solutions are possibly feasible, and the general worldview is in line with (surprise!) the social and religious precedents in The Book of Mormon as well as the Hebrew and Christian Testaments.
Spartacus that is not sparticus, why are you buying into disinformation on non existent q anon larpers?