All cultures are Guilt and Forgiveness, Shame and Honour or Fear Pathological. Worryingly, Western cultures are becoming a hybrid of all three. This essay was inspired by The Victims' Race at Quillette. A somewhat misleading title, which has more to do with mental health crises and cultural dysfunction than race.
As soon I began to read the subject matter, my mind brimmed with specific instances of the phenomenon. Imagine my surprise when the author covered almost all of them- there is a cusp of synchronicity with deep intellectual thinkers which really is quite edifying, because it makes us feel as though we are on the right track. Great article. Well-written and thought provoking.
A couple of additions. I don’t think the concepts of dignity versus honour are sufficiently developed, although I understand that this might be case of simplification for the sake of brevity. The dignity culture is better thought of as guilt and forgiveness model, or punishment and forgiveness, in which it possible to sin socially or criminally, but forgiveness can be attained through contrition, voluntary or otherwise.
Honour cultures are more properly thought of as honour and shame cultures. Duelling is one aspect of this, but this is actually an expression of the urge to avoid shame, by any means necessary. In honour and shame cultures there is no road to redemption from shame. Japanese managers can spend an entire career doing nothing all day but stare out of the window, as a result of some past shame. Aokigahara Forest in Japan has the notable distinction of being one of world’s most popular suicide destination spots in the world. It’s history is a cultural adaption for those those who could no longer bear the weight of their shame.
The third type of culture is a fear and grievance/victimhood culture and these are usually deeply pathological in nature. They can be seen in the denunciations of the Soviet era, the Chinese Struggle Sessions of the Cultural Revolution and the ways in which the German population oscillated between meek complicity and the reporting of ‘deviant’ neighbours as both a means of personal advancement and fear-based loyalty affirmation under the Nazi Regime.
I would like the thank the author so much for joining the dots in relation to animal biology and the possible connotations with victimhood culture. I was aware of phenomena such as great ape supplication and the various roles within a wolf pack, but I had failed to make the connection with our current social paradigm. It is an interesting thought which I will have to consider in greater depth.
I would only add that there is one obvious conclusion to all of these considerations is that we are rapidly becoming a hybrid of these three archetypal cultures and this in itself is worrying, even before we consider how destructive and counterproductive to human life fear cultures really are. The various atrocities of war in the Twentieth century pale by comparison to the body count entailed with fear culture running amok through our societies. The ethnonationalists and fascists have had their Disappeared, mass executions and genocides every bit as much as the Ideological Left have had the same, as well as the famines and the gulags.
Of course, the primary modus of this fracturing and hybridisation of cultures is social media. It is worth noting that as intersectionality and victimhood culture began to spread from a few elite East and West coast universities, it was not its teaching within a few obscure and relatively unimportant academic fields which was responsible for transmission and viral acceptance, but social media. The triggering agent was a slew of Police Brutality videos, which although alarming and tragic, were a deeply flawed and misrepresentative depiction of American policing.
Recently, a survey was conducted to gauge public perceptions of the total number of unarmed black men shot by police in 2019- the perceptions were wildly out of kilter with actual numbers in general, but the mistaken beliefs were more heavily focused in the very liberal group- just over 22% of very liberal individuals believed the number to be 10,000 or above. The actual number was 13.
This is not to downplay the tragedy of such appalling displays, but it is easy to see that the social media only compounds the tragedy with terribly misinformative memetic ideas. It is easy to see how young impressionable, impressively smart, yet naive minds might go running to eclectic academic studies for explanations as to these tragedies. And this is not to say that structural racism doesn’t exist in all manner of forms, such as the statistical hegemony of credit ratings, finance and insurance, or that affinity bias in hiring and promotions seems to be made worse, not better by implicit bias or diversity training.
But by far the worst and most pervasive form of structural racism is the soft bigotry of low expectations, once pronounced by George W. Bush. It explains why California spends more money per pupil on K-12 education than a whole slew of lower expenditure States which achieve perennially better academic outcomes, whilst 75% of African American boys fail to meet State basic standards in literacy and reading. Simply put, Black parents are desperate for schools which insist upon high standards of behaviour and educational attainment, and the British State Education system proves it is possible, but ultra-liberals are so committed to walking on eggshells around gritty realities and so afraid of being accused of racism, that they, in effect, become so through low expectations.
It is difficult to see how outcomes can be raised, without pretending that basic literacy and numeracy at graduation doesn’t matter. And this one simple metric of success informs all our other inequalities proliferating outwards. Because if trajectories can be changed, they can be changed most during the earliest and most malleable segments of our lives. It is little wonder then that income levels for white and black British people are the same, on average, if they happen to be aged between 18 and 30, given that their educational performance in exams at 16 is so similar.
And the problem with baleful effects of viral social media metanarratives is that they not only warp our culture into a strange hybrid of guilt, shame and fear, but they also make it more, not less, difficult to solve these thorny problems. We lose the capacity for the virtuous side of these cultures- forgiveness, honour and cultural bravery. And the culture we’ve allowed our young to become victim to, in a real sense, is appalling- through the simple absence of adults at any point in their development to assert their presence and authority.
It’s dystopian. Record levels of suicide and self-harm through cutting. A whole generation of young people who are anxious and depressed, with alarming tendencies towards mental health problems, whose media and social media landscape presents them with apocalyptic problems which are, in reality, serious, but not civilisation threatening- and requires disciplined, diligent and compassionate study to solve, not protests. Scotland has a perfectly good model of public health-based model of proactive policing waiting to go, which has had impressive results in youth reform, cutting crime- and all whilst reducing the total number of people who need to be incarcerated- but you wouldn’t know it given some of the lunatic and ludicrous solutions being proposed, and in some cases implemented.
And I really don’t know what the solution is, other than perhaps amplifying heterodox, moderate and non-establishment partisan voices. I think if every information portal and hub gave users the chance to set their preferences in terms of content, media and users they were exposed to it might go some way to healing the damage- because social media tends to offer us the intellectual equivalent of fast food, rather than the food for thought to which we might otherwise aspire. But it would also require telling the Tech Giants to fundamentally disengage from the method of negative engagement they use to capitalise upon the attention economy, and that would be something they would be loathe to do. Depressing, isn’t it?
Do you get sucked in by social media? Do you fall into rabbit holes, odd conspiracy theories or become really mean towards others? Blaming others for your behavior and choices falls into which cultural category?
I believe that too many adults, never escaping childhood, simply prefer to have others make decisions for them, to tell them what is moral/immoral, legal/illegal, good/bad, safe/unsafe, correct/incorrect, so they can just follow orders, trust authority and not feel responsible for their decisions and taking risks related to the future. Submission and grading start in childhood, in which minds are raised to obey, to regurgitate, to believe "father" knows best for all.
The real problem with social media is the performativity of virtue. The original article on Quillette helped crystalize my thoughts with examples from the animal kingdom. Think of the Chinese Struggle Session- there was an element of ideological purity on display as a means of self-defence. We also hate most what we recognise in ourselves.
It's not the only mechanism- obviously status seeking plays a part it in it, but the far darker element is that it's declarative- please don't hurt me, I 'm just like you- I'm a good person. Pointless really, given the beast is always hungry. How else do you think they've so easily managed to cow the leaders of all the institutions. Once you're sucked in, you are the machine's bitch- ready to roll over in submission.
Sure, but such performance is common in societies, and we see it in religions, politics, and even dress/style/fashion. It all seems tamer than virtue signals required in places like Afghanistan, China and North Korea, but you are right that it could just be a training ground for future authoritarianism to demand you live their virtues.
I believe so too. I'd imagine a business that is successful and its creator and figurehead dies or passes on such a business and that business fails. All because the leadership has been fragmented and the belief system isn't empowering. Everything in this sense is hierarchical and as nationals we absolutely gain passion and resolve and commitment from having a uniting force to support. We in the west are in need of such leadership. We are being torn in weird oppositional directions because we are in dear need of such people. We only require such inspiration and for me a UK citizen, a Thatcher now would quickly restore order and just because she'd inspire the courage in others by her own character. We need the old statesmen back and we need to destroy misinformation and fake culture. We're all talking about what's wrong, we require someone to act on it all.
There are such people but they are destroyed by the media, social media etc before they ever rise to prominence. Why would anyone put themselves up against the howling mobs for beliefs which, if they are intelligent, they are not absolutely certain about.
There are rare exceptions, such as Jordan Peterson, but look at the price he paid.
It's all a bit too broad brush. This is not to say that you're not on the right lines but that it's a topic that needs far more space and depth. Each paragraph could of the post could provide enough material for 2 or 3 posts if done in sufficient detail.
I don't think it's too one sided just that too many topics are being covered at once. For example the suicide issue which has different causes in different cultures. What do you think about group cultures and how they treat suicide (as per Japan) as opposed to individualist cultures?
Fair criticism and a very good question. With Japan I think it's cultural acquiescence to a theme which has been well mapped out and explored. For the West, there is shock, and a veneer-thin stock response that talking about it helps (which is can, but not always) and not a pause to consider that some people had very valid reasons indeed for committing suicide- and by this I am not simply talking about the terminally ill, with immense pain or paralysed decrepitude to look forward to.
At the moment, I'm still using the free-flowing discursive approach- writing it all in one quick burst and allowing myself a few minutes for copy-editing before publishing to the web. But I will certainly take your advice when I decide to start writing more seriously and research topics beyond what I already know from memory.
but of course, PTSD is real, and many people claiming victimhood do suffer from ptsd. not really sure that you have a handle on japanese suicide culture. i lived in tokyo for four years, and its not really ‘a cultural adaption for those those who could no longer bear the weight of their shame‘. its more of a conservative culture that believes “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
Im so exhausted by this partisan warfare. you are the one person advocating conservative ideas - (note how I did not call you conservative) - that I learn from, regularly. but why, why, why are you so unwilling to call out conservatives. to acknowledge anything from progressives.
If i can sum up my thesis, it is this. I dont know anyone who tries to represent both sides. other than me. and i get hate all the time for trying to thread the needle. you dont try to thread the needle - you claim to be reaching conservatives because they are more open minded. which is insane. just as insane, equally insane, as trying to appeal to progressives.
if you think one side of the ideological divide is right, and one side is wrong, you are objectively a dumb ass. you, specificly, are no dumb ass, but you keep acting as if conservatives are the marginalized voice. which is conservative. you cant possibly be the non partisan you claim to be and yet continue to fan the flames of the ideological divide, as you do in EVERY FREAKING POST you make.
sorry bro, but until you stop fanning said flames, you are officially not non partisan.
Jeremy, do you really think cancel culture and public shaming will really stay limited to the Left- of course not, in fact there have already been many instances of conservatives employing exactly the same tactics towards the Left?! But intersectionalism doesn't work- it makes things worse- and much as you and others may believe that it holds the key to diversity, inclusion and equity it is proven to reduce empathy, levels of diversity and teach people to look for racism where none exists. Worse still, although many of its adherents have noble intentions like yourself, the data shows that just like the Alt right it is extraordinarily vulnerable to manipulation by dark triad personality types.
Over a 1,000 additional young Black men died last year in America as a direct result of the BLM protests and the effect they had on policing. Proactive policing is ultimately discretionary, and it was all but inevitable that police would stop using reasonable suspicion policing to target potentially gang affiliated young men. They switched from a proactive to a reactive mode, and as a result gang members felt free to fight over turf and engage in drive-by shootings. One of the most alarming aspects of this spike was the significant rise of young Black children shot as innocent bystanders. And regardless of what you may believe from listening only to activists claiming to speak for their group, 81% of African Americas want the same levels of policing or more than they had before..
I know PTSD is real. I've had it. But mine was caused from seeing a 92 year old wheelchair users head hitting my windshield at a humpback bridge which was subsequently completely changed in the interests of safety. Unlike the 40 plus year old man ten years earlier who subsequently killed himself, leaving a wife and two young children behind, I didn't commit suicide but I came pretty damn close.
That being said I know that PTSD is real, regardless of what many think about overly sensitive types I am not for one second in that camp. But you must know yourself from your own experiences and the literature that the current culture of safetyism, trying to limit potentially offensive speech and those others unjustly label hateful is the exact opposite of what is conducive to mental health. CBT teaches us that in these circumstances people need to be gradually exposed to things they deem objectionable or triggering. Instead we are pursuing a path which is likely to make mental health outcomes worse.
Plus it makes matters worse, not better. Bad ideas always become less potent in the light of day. Think of it this way- whilst it was more acceptable to have discussions about race and IQ, the knowledge was far less widespread than it is now. Plus, people who looked at the issue were given very clear guidance as to the very strong evidence of environmental and nurturing factors.
Now anyone who tries to look for evidence to rebut the arguments about structural racism, whiteness and white privilege is sure to come across the literature sooner or later- without the training or the caveats to understand the very real reductions in the gap in places like the UK. Meanwhile, students studying cognitive science won't come across the literature until the graduate level, even though it the most extensively proven phenomenon in the history of psychology, the most predictive tool of life outcomes and it has clear implications for how we should structure education, possibly narrowing the gap even further.
I did want to cover the mental health side more thoroughly, but I had covered much of it in the previous segment of my Prisoners of the Mind series. Thinking about it though I might write a segment on how virtue in social media during the teenage years, enables social media bullying and exclusion for those who are less clever in phrasing their words and articulating their support for causes.
What you have to realise is that at the moment, mainstream conservative voices like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder are in the process of being targeted by Big Tech. You may not like what they have to say, and I certainly don't agree with much of their content, but they should remain in place for the simple reason that they speak for broad swathes of ordinary decent people. You may think their followers have bad ideas, but they are by no means bad people.
Most importantly, the American conservative movement- however objectionable you may find it- is the single greatest barrier to the global White Supremacy and neo-Nazi movements. How do we know this? Because the New Zealand Shooter said as much in his manifesto and deliberately tried to smear figures like Candace Owens.
It's also why those odious toads, the groypers, keep trying to infiltrate events featuring speakers like Dan Crenshaw or Ben Shapiro, trying to disrupt and derail them during the questions phrase. They know that globally they will struggle to find recruits whilst the American conservative movement remains online for the world to see- and that they are both completing for the same disaffected and nihilistic young men. Do you really want to see the conservative movement derailed and for those young men to have nowhere else to turn but white supremacy? Regardless of what you may think of Jordan Peterson, he has deradicalised an awful lot of troubled young men.
Did you hear the most recent findings on the Capitol Riot? The FBI found scant evidence of any coordinated effort by Far Right groups or Donald Trump supporters. In previous reporting by Breaking Points, of the 120 key and most active participants in the violence, 85% had experienced a bankruptcy or some other form of financial shock like a home repossession. This is not to excuse their behaviour- what they did was clearly inexcusable and I hope the court gives them an appropriate sentence. But it does show why they did what they did- desperation and derangement can be found in all manner of places.
I do acknowledge the best ideas of economic progressives. I've argued for stronger worker protections, I've written about the housing oligopoly (which I got dogpiled for from many of your former antagonists!). I plan to write about successful worker owner co-operatives (inspired by a particularly healthy exchange between Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Gray on the Bad Faith podcast). I acknowledge the need for economic transfers (redistribution), and have argued for a radical reform of welfare systems which would see welfare recipients only lose 25c of their benefits lost per dollar earned, instead of forced not to work to keep their welfare.
But cultural progressivism is another matter entirely. It eclipses economic progressivism almost entirely, ensuring that the better ideas never see the light of day. It destroys the Left, making them incapable of effective opposition in many countries, and adding to the power of the corporate centre-Left in places like America. It is needlessly divisive with ideas like white privilege, structural determinism and CRT.
It has only exacerbated political partisanship in America, and may will push it to the brink of cold civil war. It brands substantial portions of the Trump base as racist, when the best data we have, shows that only 5% to 10% of Americans are racist, a third of them are Democrats (if one excludes independents who are least likely to be racist) and two-third are over 65. (Source: Steven Pinker)
Worst of all, it makes finding solutions to very real disparities all but impossible, but incorrectly attributing them to structural racism. It is possible to solve affinity bias in hiring and promotions, but not with implicit bias training or standard diversity programs, which fail to address the real problems- deficits of trust, and a drastic overestimation of racism within the customer base (discriminatory hiring is strongest in customer-facing roles). Almost every structural problem is like this- racism of any kind may play some role, but only a small residual amount.
Did you know that the British Criminal Justice system has such a problem with sentencing disparities? But it's not racism- instead the mistaken belief in racism makes clearly guilty defendants from minority backgrounds decide to plead not guilty, which then means that they don't get the substantial discounts to sentencing of which white defendants routinely avail themselves. You may think this is systemic racism of a sort, and I would agree, but it actually caused by the narrative of structural racism!!!
Anyway, I'm sorry if my essay offended you. I hope the length of my response shows that I really do value your opinion- especially in offering me a critique which I generally don't get.
Hey man, you remain the best analyst of the discourse of the day out there in my mind. Me, I remain erratic and unstable, so I hope you can forgive me for ranting. But I'm making a public pledge to you right now - I'm not gonna drink alone anymore, meaning if I write anything public, I'm going to be sober when I do it. I've done this already on FB, and hope my friends hold me accountable, but truth is, I want to be a more reasonable voice. Depression wreaks havoc on self-esteem, and I've badly struggled to express my emotions sober. So, new project - I'm only posting, as empathetically and neutrally as possible, about projects that relate, directly or indirectly, to mental health, and I'm not drinking alone to avoid ranting, and depressants generally. It's this or full sobriety for me at this point, and this feels like the right approach .... soooo ... I posted your most recent article on FB, and hopefully I get some of my friends to find your stuff. I hope to find that sweet spot that you've found, that allows respect across divides, and people will feel safer around me. Ultimately, I agree with you completely on one of your core themes - the toxicity, and total non-productiveness, of a lot of public dialogue. I can do better, and I think your recent post embodies that non-partisan empathy that I'm gunning for.
as for your evidence, it's strong and thought provoking stuff.
'81% of African Americas want the same levels of policing or more than they had before' - you've convinced me on this front, not that it SHOULD be difficult, since this info is robust and readily available, but it's not really considered among progressives, which highlight the ideological blindness you note.
'the current culture of safetyism, trying to limit potentially offensive speech and those others unjustly label hateful is the exact opposite of what is conducive to mental health. CBT teaches us that in these circumstances people need to be gradually exposed to things they deem objectionable or triggering'. - 100% agreed. that, more than anything, is what is motivating me to try to get my shit together. I figure students could really use someone like me, who's walked the woke path, and the grief path, and sees multiple approaches to consider the issues from. For real, you are a big influence on me in this regard.
'I might write a segment on how virtue in social media during the teenage years, enables social media bullying and exclusion for those who are less clever in phrasing their words and articulating their support for causes'.
man, I hope you do, since for real, the ability to speak woke is a huge privilege in itself. there's an intersectional idea that goes against intersectional dogma, right there. and if you ever feel like writing something for a teen audience, I could share that directly with class with no edits. They would need some serious scaffolding to handle your content verbatim, and I haven't met the kids yet to figure out their level of ability. one way or another though, I'm bringing some of our convos into class.
'mainstream conservative voices like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder are in the process of being targeted by Big Tech. You may not like what they have to say, and I certainly don't agree with much of their content, but they should remain in place for the simple reason that they speak for broad swathes of ordinary decent people. You may think their followers have bad ideas, but they are by no means bad people'. Yeah, agreed completely again. Free Speech is free speech - we need to protect it most when we disagree.
'Do you really want to see the conservative movement derailed and for those young men to have nowhere else to turn but white supremacy? Regardless of what you may think of Jordan Peterson, he has deradicalised an awful lot of troubled young men'. -Heck no, I actually like JP overall. JP, BTW, was part of what drew me into the IDW realm in the first place - kids were asking me what postmodernism meant, and I couldn't understand why, till I realized they were reading JP. So I'm reading "Twelve Rules" right now myself, and for real, it's good stuff. as in, it's helping me, not just something I think could help certain kids. It's stern self help. A certain kind of young man responds really well to that style.
'of the 120 key and most active participants in the violence, 85% had experienced a bankruptcy or some other form of financial shock like a home repossession'. wow. powerful stat.
'cultural progressivism is another matter entirely. It eclipses economic progressivism almost entirely, ensuring that the better ideas never see the light of day ... It has only exacerbated political partisanship in America, and may will push it to the brink of cold civil war. It brands substantial portions of the Trump base as racist, when the best data we have, shows that only 5% to 10% of Americans are racist, a third of them are Democrats (if one excludes independents who are least likely to be racist) and two-third are over 65'. (Source: Steven Pinker) - again, this is great stuff.
'the mistaken belief in racism makes clearly guilty defendants from minority backgrounds decide to plead not guilty, which then means that they don't get the substantial discounts to sentencing of which white defendants routinely avail themselves. You may think this is systemic racism of a sort, and I would agree, but it actually caused by the narrative of structural racism!!!' - this is new info for me, and it's a striking claim. You got a source for this one?
And I appreciate you sharing your own struggles too man. I'm glad you came out of those dark times.
For real man, my struggles are no secret, but I'm working hard to get myself back on track, and appreciate friends like you that can stay patient when I get into a despair cycle like I did the other day. Sober posts only for me from now on, and keep on writing the good fight!
Wow, I'm so sorry I took so long to get back to you on this comment, mate. I'm always trying to keep up with a cycle of an essay every few days, to keep building my knowledge and pushing on. It sometimes, means I don't always check-in on the comments from previous threads.
I hope this reply finds you safe and reasonably comfortable. Life can be one hell of a rollercoaster with a trench full of sewage at the bottom- and our coping strategies like drinking don't always serve us well, when struggling to deal with the grim reality of life, with all its frequent or occasional capacity to knock us down.
Quite frankly, I still struggle with my drinking- but I've found two strategies which, for me, help mitigate the worst of it. First, try to space your drinking- only do it every three weeks or so. Strangely, it actually makes the times when you do go drinking far more fun, especially with friends.
Second, never drink when you are down or to dull the pain- it always makes you feel worse. Instead, try to pick your moments and do it when you can celebrate the company of friends.
Of course, there are the other rules- always put a lining in and drink plenty of water, interspersing the odd pint of water during the session and especially at the end- but I'm sure you know these rules already. I hope this message finds you well!
"And I really don’t know what the solution is, other than perhaps amplifying heterodox, moderate and non-establishment partisan voices. I think if every information portal and hub gave users the chance to set their preferences in terms of content, media and users they were exposed to it might go some way to healing the damage- because social media tends to offer us the intellectual equivalent of fast food, rather than the food for thought to which we might otherwise aspire. But it would also require telling the Tech Giants to fundamentally disengage from the method of negative engagement they use to capitalise upon the attention economy, and that would be something they would be loathe to do. Depressing, isn’t it?" Geary’s quote from his substack.**
Only a heterodox would write such a thing. Lovely balance and perspective and as honest as it is depressingly salient. Scary is the fundamental transformation of western society by numerous factors of which you’ve alluded to and that each segment of direction adds toward the sum of the whole in such a trajectory. We may be of an age to comprehend such a transformative shift as we can compare such a mass capture of societal norms, behaviours and moralities and compare them to our own yesterdays. The fear is that for the young they have no such yesterday and their lived experience is only this new norm and as we flutter away to nirvana the world devolves into a dystopian normalcy the science writers perhaps didn’t ever realise were portents.
Likewise to yourself I’ve always tried to balance out the insanity of polarised thought; that there were two very opposing schools of ideas and causes that I couldn’t quite wholly side with either way; they both held good points. It leads to a form of confusion that in todays new world of partisanship and tribalism marks one as skirting dangerously toward hypocrisy and yet it is not and one must chissel away at pure nuance to express this very thin grey line and put sense to clarity. Arguing it verbally is excessively difficult and one must have that type of brain that spellchecks and autocorrects itself before the wrong combination of words create a “gottya” trap.
Moving back and forth from the countryside to the city and back to the village as a child I was readily aware of the contrast. Time, wisdom and extensive travel made me acutely aware that the same such patterns appeared wherever I travelled. It eventually entered my consciousness that we are instinctively programmed toward threat and safety responses and that visually as we wander or as we drive or as we fall from the air before deploying a chute, that what we’re constantly doing is visually processing metadata and assessing and dismissing in a high energy fashion a constant state of flux in need of superfast survival instinctive responses. A mixture of flight or fight instinctively and a conscious reassertion that society is safe. Walking down that village road the stimulus is low and we have time to take in much more about those around us than by contrast walking down princess street in Edinburgh on a busy day.
The root of what is normal human existence for me lays within that village setting and defines culture globally to myself; the difference being peoples from cities and villagers. they are very very different; like alternate species. I’ll try and explain, but it’s an awareness that I’ve seen wherever I’ve lived and travelled and it’s quite remarkable.
A city family moves to the village and they’ll find themselves suddenly the immediate focal point of village talk and over time they’ll realise that though accepted they will never be one of the villagers. The villager could migrate to the city without this happening. Everybody in that village wants to know about you and what type of character you possess, they can’t fully ever appreciate it of course as they never witnessed your evolution. The village school, perhaps 70-80 pupils taught by three tutors and they’ll know your parents very familiarly. The headmaster will be a highly respected guy and so will the innkeeper and the vicar and the local nurse, the mechanic will serve the whole village and so will the two local builders that all attended that village school. If your car bonnet is raised passers by will stop, call out your name and ask if you need their assistance and an old lady having dropped her groceries will be aided and assisted. The point is that family and a village by extension is a large family is strong in community and in lived and shared experiences. To my mind evolutionarily normal and the interactions are at pace with normal brain processing.
Outside the village there will exist other villages and sometimes the teenage boys and young men will get involved in forms of tribal altercations and I’d imagine this once again as the safety and threat response being played out. Gossip being the messenger and there’s always a ping-ponging of talk surrounding what is happening in these not so far away places. Once upon a time it would be further extended by a far away rider entering the tavern and telling of tales from further afield. Young men will often be a bit more wary of outsiders and of course this once again is to be expected as they’d be the protectors of all. The old and wise are very respected and they are like the village elders who have experienced knowledge on how to act in such matters. But of course without threat there is harmony and that means community get togethers and a sense of togetherness. Family, safety, children. I have the theory regarding male understanding of physical threat responses and knowledge attainment as being a primary reason why forums such as this attracts mostly males of 40 odd years plus. The tribal elders. Community, traditionalism.
I share your mistrust Geary in unsociable media. I see its lure and its addictiveness as hideous and also the way that it takes ownership of a person and atomises him/her. There is also the fact that people acquire knowledge through diversional algorithms that reinforce a direction of thought with little to counter that polarisation. I find this distressing in that people are actually indoctrinating themselves without the ability to comprehend that they’ve deviated by an act of reinforcement of their own making. they’ve simply found information to support their hunches and created definitions of truth. The Covid psychological experiment defines such polarisation. Here we have a situation where most everybody has become his own expert and can readily quote facts and figures at large that are automatic subconscious replies that the owner imagines or intuits as their own. I imagined pulling the first 100 people passing by and herding them toward a stage. Here a speaker could split the crowd like a sheepdog herding sheep. Two tribes polarised by an argument they believe they own. Maybe it’s the freedom discussion, but the passionate one is surely the vax or no vax argument and you can bet there are no virologists or scientists in this crowd and that everyone’s narrative is based upon algorithms.
Just to cheer this post up I’ll tell you a wee tale. One of my labourers can talk for hours about Bill gates, Fauci and nanobytes and the idea that 90 % of the population will be dead in the next 5 years. This was getting out of hand at work and souring the mood. So at breaktime when he brought up the topic for the thousandth time I asked him what discretion would there be in administering the same poison to everybody? He asked me what I meant. " Well Daz what purpose would there actually be to wiping out net positive and net negative people? I mean surely they’d just wipe out the net negative people? He went quiet. Then. “I think you’re actually onto something but you’ve got it back to front.” “What do you mean?” he asked. Well I think the net negatives are all the anti-vax conspiracy theorists that systematically won’t obey for all the wrong reasons and that Covid will eventually wipe them all out." Laughter and for Daz a fair bit of confusion.
Great comment, mate! I loved the humorous anecdote at the end. Nice way to turn a conspiracy theory on its head. But think of this- with vaccine mandates for the military and police officers, one wonders whether they are trying to excommunicate the heretics...
Perhaps steps could be taken to take the profits out of the Victim industry? Or should we just wait for the whole thing to blow over, the way moral panics always do?
Hey mate! I've seen your comments around on other sites. I tried to sign into Areo a while back, but the login took a while- by which time I had lost my typically long-winded post!
I only belong to Quillette and Areo -- which could be as good as Quillette but for their stone age software. I've heard of others having the same problem.
I don't think this is quite right. There are cultures which are fear/power which you missed, then others which are shame/honour, and guilt/justice(or dignity) as you correctly identified. I think our current cultural move is towards a victim/vengeance morality which is scary. But the thing to remember in the cultural taxonomy is that there must be a carrot and a stick, something to avoid and something to strive for, so fear and grievance do not work as a pair. IMHO.
Do you get sucked in by social media? Do you fall into rabbit holes, odd conspiracy theories or become really mean towards others? Blaming others for your behavior and choices falls into which cultural category?
I believe that too many adults, never escaping childhood, simply prefer to have others make decisions for them, to tell them what is moral/immoral, legal/illegal, good/bad, safe/unsafe, correct/incorrect, so they can just follow orders, trust authority and not feel responsible for their decisions and taking risks related to the future. Submission and grading start in childhood, in which minds are raised to obey, to regurgitate, to believe "father" knows best for all.
The real problem with social media is the performativity of virtue. The original article on Quillette helped crystalize my thoughts with examples from the animal kingdom. Think of the Chinese Struggle Session- there was an element of ideological purity on display as a means of self-defence. We also hate most what we recognise in ourselves.
It's not the only mechanism- obviously status seeking plays a part it in it, but the far darker element is that it's declarative- please don't hurt me, I 'm just like you- I'm a good person. Pointless really, given the beast is always hungry. How else do you think they've so easily managed to cow the leaders of all the institutions. Once you're sucked in, you are the machine's bitch- ready to roll over in submission.
Sure, but such performance is common in societies, and we see it in religions, politics, and even dress/style/fashion. It all seems tamer than virtue signals required in places like Afghanistan, China and North Korea, but you are right that it could just be a training ground for future authoritarianism to demand you live their virtues.
I believe so too. I'd imagine a business that is successful and its creator and figurehead dies or passes on such a business and that business fails. All because the leadership has been fragmented and the belief system isn't empowering. Everything in this sense is hierarchical and as nationals we absolutely gain passion and resolve and commitment from having a uniting force to support. We in the west are in need of such leadership. We are being torn in weird oppositional directions because we are in dear need of such people. We only require such inspiration and for me a UK citizen, a Thatcher now would quickly restore order and just because she'd inspire the courage in others by her own character. We need the old statesmen back and we need to destroy misinformation and fake culture. We're all talking about what's wrong, we require someone to act on it all.
Unfortunately, in the modern era no such person exists. Maybe Andrew Neil, but he is too old.
There are such people but they are destroyed by the media, social media etc before they ever rise to prominence. Why would anyone put themselves up against the howling mobs for beliefs which, if they are intelligent, they are not absolutely certain about.
There are rare exceptions, such as Jordan Peterson, but look at the price he paid.
It's all a bit too broad brush. This is not to say that you're not on the right lines but that it's a topic that needs far more space and depth. Each paragraph could of the post could provide enough material for 2 or 3 posts if done in sufficient detail.
I don't think it's too one sided just that too many topics are being covered at once. For example the suicide issue which has different causes in different cultures. What do you think about group cultures and how they treat suicide (as per Japan) as opposed to individualist cultures?
Fair criticism and a very good question. With Japan I think it's cultural acquiescence to a theme which has been well mapped out and explored. For the West, there is shock, and a veneer-thin stock response that talking about it helps (which is can, but not always) and not a pause to consider that some people had very valid reasons indeed for committing suicide- and by this I am not simply talking about the terminally ill, with immense pain or paralysed decrepitude to look forward to.
At the moment, I'm still using the free-flowing discursive approach- writing it all in one quick burst and allowing myself a few minutes for copy-editing before publishing to the web. But I will certainly take your advice when I decide to start writing more seriously and research topics beyond what I already know from memory.
but of course, PTSD is real, and many people claiming victimhood do suffer from ptsd. not really sure that you have a handle on japanese suicide culture. i lived in tokyo for four years, and its not really ‘a cultural adaption for those those who could no longer bear the weight of their shame‘. its more of a conservative culture that believes “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
Im so exhausted by this partisan warfare. you are the one person advocating conservative ideas - (note how I did not call you conservative) - that I learn from, regularly. but why, why, why are you so unwilling to call out conservatives. to acknowledge anything from progressives.
If i can sum up my thesis, it is this. I dont know anyone who tries to represent both sides. other than me. and i get hate all the time for trying to thread the needle. you dont try to thread the needle - you claim to be reaching conservatives because they are more open minded. which is insane. just as insane, equally insane, as trying to appeal to progressives.
if you think one side of the ideological divide is right, and one side is wrong, you are objectively a dumb ass. you, specificly, are no dumb ass, but you keep acting as if conservatives are the marginalized voice. which is conservative. you cant possibly be the non partisan you claim to be and yet continue to fan the flames of the ideological divide, as you do in EVERY FREAKING POST you make.
sorry bro, but until you stop fanning said flames, you are officially not non partisan.
Jeremy, do you really think cancel culture and public shaming will really stay limited to the Left- of course not, in fact there have already been many instances of conservatives employing exactly the same tactics towards the Left?! But intersectionalism doesn't work- it makes things worse- and much as you and others may believe that it holds the key to diversity, inclusion and equity it is proven to reduce empathy, levels of diversity and teach people to look for racism where none exists. Worse still, although many of its adherents have noble intentions like yourself, the data shows that just like the Alt right it is extraordinarily vulnerable to manipulation by dark triad personality types.
Over a 1,000 additional young Black men died last year in America as a direct result of the BLM protests and the effect they had on policing. Proactive policing is ultimately discretionary, and it was all but inevitable that police would stop using reasonable suspicion policing to target potentially gang affiliated young men. They switched from a proactive to a reactive mode, and as a result gang members felt free to fight over turf and engage in drive-by shootings. One of the most alarming aspects of this spike was the significant rise of young Black children shot as innocent bystanders. And regardless of what you may believe from listening only to activists claiming to speak for their group, 81% of African Americas want the same levels of policing or more than they had before..
I know PTSD is real. I've had it. But mine was caused from seeing a 92 year old wheelchair users head hitting my windshield at a humpback bridge which was subsequently completely changed in the interests of safety. Unlike the 40 plus year old man ten years earlier who subsequently killed himself, leaving a wife and two young children behind, I didn't commit suicide but I came pretty damn close.
That being said I know that PTSD is real, regardless of what many think about overly sensitive types I am not for one second in that camp. But you must know yourself from your own experiences and the literature that the current culture of safetyism, trying to limit potentially offensive speech and those others unjustly label hateful is the exact opposite of what is conducive to mental health. CBT teaches us that in these circumstances people need to be gradually exposed to things they deem objectionable or triggering. Instead we are pursuing a path which is likely to make mental health outcomes worse.
Plus it makes matters worse, not better. Bad ideas always become less potent in the light of day. Think of it this way- whilst it was more acceptable to have discussions about race and IQ, the knowledge was far less widespread than it is now. Plus, people who looked at the issue were given very clear guidance as to the very strong evidence of environmental and nurturing factors.
Now anyone who tries to look for evidence to rebut the arguments about structural racism, whiteness and white privilege is sure to come across the literature sooner or later- without the training or the caveats to understand the very real reductions in the gap in places like the UK. Meanwhile, students studying cognitive science won't come across the literature until the graduate level, even though it the most extensively proven phenomenon in the history of psychology, the most predictive tool of life outcomes and it has clear implications for how we should structure education, possibly narrowing the gap even further.
I did want to cover the mental health side more thoroughly, but I had covered much of it in the previous segment of my Prisoners of the Mind series. Thinking about it though I might write a segment on how virtue in social media during the teenage years, enables social media bullying and exclusion for those who are less clever in phrasing their words and articulating their support for causes.
What you have to realise is that at the moment, mainstream conservative voices like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder are in the process of being targeted by Big Tech. You may not like what they have to say, and I certainly don't agree with much of their content, but they should remain in place for the simple reason that they speak for broad swathes of ordinary decent people. You may think their followers have bad ideas, but they are by no means bad people.
Most importantly, the American conservative movement- however objectionable you may find it- is the single greatest barrier to the global White Supremacy and neo-Nazi movements. How do we know this? Because the New Zealand Shooter said as much in his manifesto and deliberately tried to smear figures like Candace Owens.
It's also why those odious toads, the groypers, keep trying to infiltrate events featuring speakers like Dan Crenshaw or Ben Shapiro, trying to disrupt and derail them during the questions phrase. They know that globally they will struggle to find recruits whilst the American conservative movement remains online for the world to see- and that they are both completing for the same disaffected and nihilistic young men. Do you really want to see the conservative movement derailed and for those young men to have nowhere else to turn but white supremacy? Regardless of what you may think of Jordan Peterson, he has deradicalised an awful lot of troubled young men.
Did you hear the most recent findings on the Capitol Riot? The FBI found scant evidence of any coordinated effort by Far Right groups or Donald Trump supporters. In previous reporting by Breaking Points, of the 120 key and most active participants in the violence, 85% had experienced a bankruptcy or some other form of financial shock like a home repossession. This is not to excuse their behaviour- what they did was clearly inexcusable and I hope the court gives them an appropriate sentence. But it does show why they did what they did- desperation and derangement can be found in all manner of places.
I do acknowledge the best ideas of economic progressives. I've argued for stronger worker protections, I've written about the housing oligopoly (which I got dogpiled for from many of your former antagonists!). I plan to write about successful worker owner co-operatives (inspired by a particularly healthy exchange between Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Gray on the Bad Faith podcast). I acknowledge the need for economic transfers (redistribution), and have argued for a radical reform of welfare systems which would see welfare recipients only lose 25c of their benefits lost per dollar earned, instead of forced not to work to keep their welfare.
But cultural progressivism is another matter entirely. It eclipses economic progressivism almost entirely, ensuring that the better ideas never see the light of day. It destroys the Left, making them incapable of effective opposition in many countries, and adding to the power of the corporate centre-Left in places like America. It is needlessly divisive with ideas like white privilege, structural determinism and CRT.
It has only exacerbated political partisanship in America, and may will push it to the brink of cold civil war. It brands substantial portions of the Trump base as racist, when the best data we have, shows that only 5% to 10% of Americans are racist, a third of them are Democrats (if one excludes independents who are least likely to be racist) and two-third are over 65. (Source: Steven Pinker)
Worst of all, it makes finding solutions to very real disparities all but impossible, but incorrectly attributing them to structural racism. It is possible to solve affinity bias in hiring and promotions, but not with implicit bias training or standard diversity programs, which fail to address the real problems- deficits of trust, and a drastic overestimation of racism within the customer base (discriminatory hiring is strongest in customer-facing roles). Almost every structural problem is like this- racism of any kind may play some role, but only a small residual amount.
Did you know that the British Criminal Justice system has such a problem with sentencing disparities? But it's not racism- instead the mistaken belief in racism makes clearly guilty defendants from minority backgrounds decide to plead not guilty, which then means that they don't get the substantial discounts to sentencing of which white defendants routinely avail themselves. You may think this is systemic racism of a sort, and I would agree, but it actually caused by the narrative of structural racism!!!
Anyway, I'm sorry if my essay offended you. I hope the length of my response shows that I really do value your opinion- especially in offering me a critique which I generally don't get.
Hey man, you remain the best analyst of the discourse of the day out there in my mind. Me, I remain erratic and unstable, so I hope you can forgive me for ranting. But I'm making a public pledge to you right now - I'm not gonna drink alone anymore, meaning if I write anything public, I'm going to be sober when I do it. I've done this already on FB, and hope my friends hold me accountable, but truth is, I want to be a more reasonable voice. Depression wreaks havoc on self-esteem, and I've badly struggled to express my emotions sober. So, new project - I'm only posting, as empathetically and neutrally as possible, about projects that relate, directly or indirectly, to mental health, and I'm not drinking alone to avoid ranting, and depressants generally. It's this or full sobriety for me at this point, and this feels like the right approach .... soooo ... I posted your most recent article on FB, and hopefully I get some of my friends to find your stuff. I hope to find that sweet spot that you've found, that allows respect across divides, and people will feel safer around me. Ultimately, I agree with you completely on one of your core themes - the toxicity, and total non-productiveness, of a lot of public dialogue. I can do better, and I think your recent post embodies that non-partisan empathy that I'm gunning for.
as for your evidence, it's strong and thought provoking stuff.
'81% of African Americas want the same levels of policing or more than they had before' - you've convinced me on this front, not that it SHOULD be difficult, since this info is robust and readily available, but it's not really considered among progressives, which highlight the ideological blindness you note.
'the current culture of safetyism, trying to limit potentially offensive speech and those others unjustly label hateful is the exact opposite of what is conducive to mental health. CBT teaches us that in these circumstances people need to be gradually exposed to things they deem objectionable or triggering'. - 100% agreed. that, more than anything, is what is motivating me to try to get my shit together. I figure students could really use someone like me, who's walked the woke path, and the grief path, and sees multiple approaches to consider the issues from. For real, you are a big influence on me in this regard.
'I might write a segment on how virtue in social media during the teenage years, enables social media bullying and exclusion for those who are less clever in phrasing their words and articulating their support for causes'.
man, I hope you do, since for real, the ability to speak woke is a huge privilege in itself. there's an intersectional idea that goes against intersectional dogma, right there. and if you ever feel like writing something for a teen audience, I could share that directly with class with no edits. They would need some serious scaffolding to handle your content verbatim, and I haven't met the kids yet to figure out their level of ability. one way or another though, I'm bringing some of our convos into class.
'mainstream conservative voices like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder are in the process of being targeted by Big Tech. You may not like what they have to say, and I certainly don't agree with much of their content, but they should remain in place for the simple reason that they speak for broad swathes of ordinary decent people. You may think their followers have bad ideas, but they are by no means bad people'. Yeah, agreed completely again. Free Speech is free speech - we need to protect it most when we disagree.
'Do you really want to see the conservative movement derailed and for those young men to have nowhere else to turn but white supremacy? Regardless of what you may think of Jordan Peterson, he has deradicalised an awful lot of troubled young men'. -Heck no, I actually like JP overall. JP, BTW, was part of what drew me into the IDW realm in the first place - kids were asking me what postmodernism meant, and I couldn't understand why, till I realized they were reading JP. So I'm reading "Twelve Rules" right now myself, and for real, it's good stuff. as in, it's helping me, not just something I think could help certain kids. It's stern self help. A certain kind of young man responds really well to that style.
'of the 120 key and most active participants in the violence, 85% had experienced a bankruptcy or some other form of financial shock like a home repossession'. wow. powerful stat.
'cultural progressivism is another matter entirely. It eclipses economic progressivism almost entirely, ensuring that the better ideas never see the light of day ... It has only exacerbated political partisanship in America, and may will push it to the brink of cold civil war. It brands substantial portions of the Trump base as racist, when the best data we have, shows that only 5% to 10% of Americans are racist, a third of them are Democrats (if one excludes independents who are least likely to be racist) and two-third are over 65'. (Source: Steven Pinker) - again, this is great stuff.
'the mistaken belief in racism makes clearly guilty defendants from minority backgrounds decide to plead not guilty, which then means that they don't get the substantial discounts to sentencing of which white defendants routinely avail themselves. You may think this is systemic racism of a sort, and I would agree, but it actually caused by the narrative of structural racism!!!' - this is new info for me, and it's a striking claim. You got a source for this one?
And I appreciate you sharing your own struggles too man. I'm glad you came out of those dark times.
For real man, my struggles are no secret, but I'm working hard to get myself back on track, and appreciate friends like you that can stay patient when I get into a despair cycle like I did the other day. Sober posts only for me from now on, and keep on writing the good fight!
Wow, I'm so sorry I took so long to get back to you on this comment, mate. I'm always trying to keep up with a cycle of an essay every few days, to keep building my knowledge and pushing on. It sometimes, means I don't always check-in on the comments from previous threads.
I hope this reply finds you safe and reasonably comfortable. Life can be one hell of a rollercoaster with a trench full of sewage at the bottom- and our coping strategies like drinking don't always serve us well, when struggling to deal with the grim reality of life, with all its frequent or occasional capacity to knock us down.
Quite frankly, I still struggle with my drinking- but I've found two strategies which, for me, help mitigate the worst of it. First, try to space your drinking- only do it every three weeks or so. Strangely, it actually makes the times when you do go drinking far more fun, especially with friends.
Second, never drink when you are down or to dull the pain- it always makes you feel worse. Instead, try to pick your moments and do it when you can celebrate the company of friends.
Of course, there are the other rules- always put a lining in and drink plenty of water, interspersing the odd pint of water during the session and especially at the end- but I'm sure you know these rules already. I hope this message finds you well!
"And I really don’t know what the solution is, other than perhaps amplifying heterodox, moderate and non-establishment partisan voices. I think if every information portal and hub gave users the chance to set their preferences in terms of content, media and users they were exposed to it might go some way to healing the damage- because social media tends to offer us the intellectual equivalent of fast food, rather than the food for thought to which we might otherwise aspire. But it would also require telling the Tech Giants to fundamentally disengage from the method of negative engagement they use to capitalise upon the attention economy, and that would be something they would be loathe to do. Depressing, isn’t it?" Geary’s quote from his substack.**
Only a heterodox would write such a thing. Lovely balance and perspective and as honest as it is depressingly salient. Scary is the fundamental transformation of western society by numerous factors of which you’ve alluded to and that each segment of direction adds toward the sum of the whole in such a trajectory. We may be of an age to comprehend such a transformative shift as we can compare such a mass capture of societal norms, behaviours and moralities and compare them to our own yesterdays. The fear is that for the young they have no such yesterday and their lived experience is only this new norm and as we flutter away to nirvana the world devolves into a dystopian normalcy the science writers perhaps didn’t ever realise were portents.
Likewise to yourself I’ve always tried to balance out the insanity of polarised thought; that there were two very opposing schools of ideas and causes that I couldn’t quite wholly side with either way; they both held good points. It leads to a form of confusion that in todays new world of partisanship and tribalism marks one as skirting dangerously toward hypocrisy and yet it is not and one must chissel away at pure nuance to express this very thin grey line and put sense to clarity. Arguing it verbally is excessively difficult and one must have that type of brain that spellchecks and autocorrects itself before the wrong combination of words create a “gottya” trap.
Moving back and forth from the countryside to the city and back to the village as a child I was readily aware of the contrast. Time, wisdom and extensive travel made me acutely aware that the same such patterns appeared wherever I travelled. It eventually entered my consciousness that we are instinctively programmed toward threat and safety responses and that visually as we wander or as we drive or as we fall from the air before deploying a chute, that what we’re constantly doing is visually processing metadata and assessing and dismissing in a high energy fashion a constant state of flux in need of superfast survival instinctive responses. A mixture of flight or fight instinctively and a conscious reassertion that society is safe. Walking down that village road the stimulus is low and we have time to take in much more about those around us than by contrast walking down princess street in Edinburgh on a busy day.
The root of what is normal human existence for me lays within that village setting and defines culture globally to myself; the difference being peoples from cities and villagers. they are very very different; like alternate species. I’ll try and explain, but it’s an awareness that I’ve seen wherever I’ve lived and travelled and it’s quite remarkable.
A city family moves to the village and they’ll find themselves suddenly the immediate focal point of village talk and over time they’ll realise that though accepted they will never be one of the villagers. The villager could migrate to the city without this happening. Everybody in that village wants to know about you and what type of character you possess, they can’t fully ever appreciate it of course as they never witnessed your evolution. The village school, perhaps 70-80 pupils taught by three tutors and they’ll know your parents very familiarly. The headmaster will be a highly respected guy and so will the innkeeper and the vicar and the local nurse, the mechanic will serve the whole village and so will the two local builders that all attended that village school. If your car bonnet is raised passers by will stop, call out your name and ask if you need their assistance and an old lady having dropped her groceries will be aided and assisted. The point is that family and a village by extension is a large family is strong in community and in lived and shared experiences. To my mind evolutionarily normal and the interactions are at pace with normal brain processing.
Outside the village there will exist other villages and sometimes the teenage boys and young men will get involved in forms of tribal altercations and I’d imagine this once again as the safety and threat response being played out. Gossip being the messenger and there’s always a ping-ponging of talk surrounding what is happening in these not so far away places. Once upon a time it would be further extended by a far away rider entering the tavern and telling of tales from further afield. Young men will often be a bit more wary of outsiders and of course this once again is to be expected as they’d be the protectors of all. The old and wise are very respected and they are like the village elders who have experienced knowledge on how to act in such matters. But of course without threat there is harmony and that means community get togethers and a sense of togetherness. Family, safety, children. I have the theory regarding male understanding of physical threat responses and knowledge attainment as being a primary reason why forums such as this attracts mostly males of 40 odd years plus. The tribal elders. Community, traditionalism.
I share your mistrust Geary in unsociable media. I see its lure and its addictiveness as hideous and also the way that it takes ownership of a person and atomises him/her. There is also the fact that people acquire knowledge through diversional algorithms that reinforce a direction of thought with little to counter that polarisation. I find this distressing in that people are actually indoctrinating themselves without the ability to comprehend that they’ve deviated by an act of reinforcement of their own making. they’ve simply found information to support their hunches and created definitions of truth. The Covid psychological experiment defines such polarisation. Here we have a situation where most everybody has become his own expert and can readily quote facts and figures at large that are automatic subconscious replies that the owner imagines or intuits as their own. I imagined pulling the first 100 people passing by and herding them toward a stage. Here a speaker could split the crowd like a sheepdog herding sheep. Two tribes polarised by an argument they believe they own. Maybe it’s the freedom discussion, but the passionate one is surely the vax or no vax argument and you can bet there are no virologists or scientists in this crowd and that everyone’s narrative is based upon algorithms.
Just to cheer this post up I’ll tell you a wee tale. One of my labourers can talk for hours about Bill gates, Fauci and nanobytes and the idea that 90 % of the population will be dead in the next 5 years. This was getting out of hand at work and souring the mood. So at breaktime when he brought up the topic for the thousandth time I asked him what discretion would there be in administering the same poison to everybody? He asked me what I meant. " Well Daz what purpose would there actually be to wiping out net positive and net negative people? I mean surely they’d just wipe out the net negative people? He went quiet. Then. “I think you’re actually onto something but you’ve got it back to front.” “What do you mean?” he asked. Well I think the net negatives are all the anti-vax conspiracy theorists that systematically won’t obey for all the wrong reasons and that Covid will eventually wipe them all out." Laughter and for Daz a fair bit of confusion.
Great comment, mate! I loved the humorous anecdote at the end. Nice way to turn a conspiracy theory on its head. But think of this- with vaccine mandates for the military and police officers, one wonders whether they are trying to excommunicate the heretics...
Perhaps steps could be taken to take the profits out of the Victim industry? Or should we just wait for the whole thing to blow over, the way moral panics always do?
Hey mate! I've seen your comments around on other sites. I tried to sign into Areo a while back, but the login took a while- by which time I had lost my typically long-winded post!
I only belong to Quillette and Areo -- which could be as good as Quillette but for their stone age software. I've heard of others having the same problem.
I don't think this is quite right. There are cultures which are fear/power which you missed, then others which are shame/honour, and guilt/justice(or dignity) as you correctly identified. I think our current cultural move is towards a victim/vengeance morality which is scary. But the thing to remember in the cultural taxonomy is that there must be a carrot and a stick, something to avoid and something to strive for, so fear and grievance do not work as a pair. IMHO.