Mahablog:
Political conservatives are not necessarily bigots, but I think much of today’s right-wing extremism is fueled by irrational fears of the “other” and modernity generally. And because righties conserve cognitive resources by thinking in simplistic stereotypes, they aren’t capable of thinking through their fears and perceiving how irrational most of them are. They also find it inexplicable that there are other people living among them — us — who aren’t afraid of the things they are afraid of. To them, we’re the irrational ones, because we don’t understand that all those islamofacists are lurking just outside the cave and want to break in and murder us and steal our stone tools. Or else, we do understand it, and we’re working for the enemy tribe. They think we must be fixin’ to stab them in the back and invite the enemy into the cave for a mastodon barbecue
[snip]But we really do mean what we say, and when righties conjure up some phony outrage in order to bash liberals, we get all caught up in answering charges, explaining logical fallacies, and pointing out hypocrisies. We do this because we assume they mean what they say. And, frankly, the more cognitively challenged among them probably do mean what they say, because they can’t critically think their way out of a wet paper bag.
But Bill’s hypothesis is that many of the opinion leaders among them — he discusses Michelle Malkin because he knows her personally — don’t mean what they say. They know good and well that many of the outrages they gin up to bash us with are contrived. They’re just trying to bully us, often because (deep down inside) they think we’re trying to bully them. So while we’re exhausting ourselves in a mighty intellectual struggle, they’re just playing tit for tat and barely working up a sweat.
And if this is the case, we’ve got to stop letting them jerk our chains. We should just dismiss their lunacy with “Oh, you’re just being C.C.”
(C.C. = Conservative Correctness).
4 comments:
I think to adopt their tactic as our own would be to transform ourselves into them, unthinking and manipulable by those who do understand what they are doing.
There are a small number of social programmers who write the scripts, and we choose which to enact or write our own. That is the essence of free will right there, and you have limited power to stop the tide when it is coming or going but only to plan for the next time.
To wit, however, don't ever fall into the misperception that there is nobody intelligent directing the Republicans. There are a great many idiots who you will encounter spouting nonsense, but they are the ones who have been brainwahed, not the ones writing the story line.
And I am counterprogramming with cannabis and peace. That is all for now.
Thank you for your peaceful counterprogramming.
I took the post to mean don't TRY to drag out facts, logic, thoughtful discourse to those who will not hear, will not be changed, don't give a shit.
I have done this, thinking that I must not be presenting the facts correctly, must not be logical enough to support my position, somehow have not made myself understood. This post basically says don't waste your time.
These people are fighting in total instinctive defense mode. It doesn't matter what or how you say something, they will beat it down. They HAVE to beat it down. You aren't arguing with those who have the storyline, as you say, but those 33% zombies who are truly brainwashed. The hard core Bush base will not be shifted.
We don't have to be like them to be able to pull back and declare that talking to them isn't worth the time nor effort.
Is this about keeping the lasagna flying?
Had to google it:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eve/273826348.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson
Have fun!
Post a Comment