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Nth Doctor posted:The male shooter recorded a video to his wife and it was really chilling just how he so casually saying: Wow, I had not seen this before, thank you. I could only watch about a minute of that video honestly, hit too close to home for the person I was pre diagnosis/treatment. (Not that I was homicidal, but I was very distraught and very suicidal.) What is on display in this video is exactly what I am concerned about. People so deep in the paranoid bubble that they lose touch and drift away into their own fantasy world are not unheard of, however, in the current media environment the rash of petrified screaming terror that RWM is feeding into is like dropping cherry bombs into the crazy pond. God knows what is going to start to float to the surface. Right now it is taking the form of all these absurd legal stunts like the "Kill the Sodomites At" or the Indiana insanity. Eventually though, just as we see are seeing a steady and accelerating increase in the rhetoric coming out of Evangelicals', I expect to see that steady and accelerating increase mirrored in actions. We may even go beyond the "Lone Nut" type of events and see some actual organized actions. (Say for example, some backwoods bigoted militia with a mentally ill leader decides to show up with 20 or so heavily armed members to the local backwoods county building and seize control of it to prevent the issuance of SSM certificates.) Whether these events turn violent or not will remain to be seen (as will if my projections turn out to have some accuracy or not), but the groups that become this deranged will be more than ready to initiate violence. I would like to state that just last year at the Bundy Ranch we nearly had a shootout that could have easily left hundreds dead. The Bundy Ranch standoff ended when 200+ literally loving charged in a battle line right at an entrenched federal position. (And that was over some godamned cattle, imagine what they will do to protect their babies from the dangerous perverts that want to dress as women and molest people in restrooms.) As a nation we got extremely lucky that cooler heads prevailed and the feds managed to have such remarkable discipline that despite being charged by an armed mob no one fired and a stand down order was issued.
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May 19, 2015 23:39
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Morroque posted:In some psychological groups I know of, there has recently been this touting of a new study done that found a .6 positive correlation between geographic areas where the majority of people would score very high on a given right-wing authoritarianism ranking scale, and that area's given prevalence of contagious disease. From what I understand, a 60% correlative factor is so strong that it is nearly unheard of in soft-science studies. However, while I keep hearing about the study and its results, I can't seem to find the actual study itself. (Google Scholar is no help here.) Can anyone here try finding it from JSTOR or a similar university access database? This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. That is to say, it is a socially transmissible mental illness whose primary transmission vector is via a particular type of child abuse, although simple concentrated exposure is enough to "infect" (if you will) adults. Consider the model of a computer virus. If we temporarily take the viewpoint that the physical brain is analogous to a physical computer (hardware) and the personality of a given individual is analogous to an operating system (software), then mental illness like Schizophrenia would be a hardware problem, and mental illness like the Authoritarian behavior pattern would be a software problem. If we consider for a moment that perhaps what we understand as viruses may be a naturally occurring phenomena inherent to any complex system of data transmission (which biological DNA would qualify as), then it makes sense that the psychological equivalent of viruses could evolve as self sustaining multi-generational behavior patterns. This perspective I think is quite fascinating. It explains much of what is otherwise baffling and bizarre about Authoritarians. From the mind virus perspective, the main purpose of the behavior pattern is to sustain the behaviour pattern. This makes sense of Authoritarians' staunch defense of the necessity of child abuse (protecting the primary transmission vector), why Authoritarians target social programs that are not conducive to the spreading of the pattern (food stamps for example, starving people are easy to "infect", well fed people not so much), and explains why so many Authoritarian mass behaviors are so dangerous to the individual. If we consider for a moment that the purpose of actions like the Bundy Ranch is (from our theoretical min virus' perspective) not to "win" the battle, but to destabilize society violently. (Consider how much more overtly Authoritarian areas of the world with low stability are compared to areas of the world with high stability.) I personally am not sold on this particular hypothesis, but I do think it holds a great deal of promise and I have been giving it a great deal of thought. I would be fascinated to ehar some feedback on the idea.
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May 20, 2015 00:00
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Prester John posted:I would like to state that just last year at the Bundy Ranch we nearly had a shootout that could have easily left hundreds dead. The Bundy Ranch standoff ended when 200+ literally loving charged in a battle line right at an entrenched federal position. (And that was over some godamned cattle, imagine what they will do to protect their babies from the dangerous perverts that want to dress as women and molest people in restrooms.) As a nation we got extremely lucky that cooler heads prevailed and the feds managed to have such remarkable discipline that despite being charged by an armed mob no one fired and a stand down order was issued. There is also this, which was just revealed to the public a few days ago: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2015/5/16/300568/Former-3rd-District-Congressional.aspx quote:Former 4th District Congressional Candidate Admits Plotting Armed Militia Attack, Firebombing Of Muslim Community In New York Not against gay people, but there are some whackos out there like this guy. Also lol that this old white guy gets out on bail and is only going to get 5 years max for plotting the annihilation of an entire community. Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 00:16 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 00:14
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Prester John posted:Say for example, some backwoods bigoted militia with a mentally ill leader decides to show up with 20 or so heavily armed members to the local backwoods county building and seize control of it to prevent the issuance of SSM certificates. How worried are you about more official acts of defiance from the states? The governor of Texas mobilized the State Guard to monitor Jade Helm 15, after all, and that was just some stupid bullshit instead of the end of a big battle they've been fighting for years. Prester John posted:This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. This sounds somewhat similar to memetics, which you might want to look into. I'm not an expert in it, so I don't want to give a summary that might be totally wrong.
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May 20, 2015 00:14
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Nolanar posted:How worried are you about more official acts of defiance from the states? Well my viewpoint is that once the SCOTUS hands down their decision the GOP will have two options, either go along with what the Evangelicals and mega-donors want (many of whom are very bigoted), or have a very public civil war with the entire Social Conservative wing of the party in the middle of primary season. What I am saying is I expect to see all kinds of innovative obstructionist fuckery come out of the states.
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May 20, 2015 00:58
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I don't see it being that last-standy. So far, Gay Rights have been an absolute cakewalk compared to Desegregation/the Civil Rights Movement. While abortion is a constructed issue* I see Gay Rights as being similar in terms of its overall impact. It will deepen the Rural/Urban divide and will cause a critical case of fussiness on both sides in the suburban debate but that's because it will be used as a shibboleth. You may be right, we're starting to get a crop of anti-abortion people who really do care so they want to restrict abortion period, without allowing exceptions for things like rape or incest. But even when anti-abortionists were willing to really go full-hog, they only managed to kill, what, 8 people total in the US? While a lot more gay people are killed than that, I just don't see it being the end-of-the-world maker. It seems like a lot of apocalyptic thinking. *Evangelicals started caring about abortion after Roe v Wade, before then it was more of a radical Catholic thing -- and since Catholics were Democrats, Evangelicals didn't care. The "Moral Majority" and other Reagan-era Evangelical movements changed this by creating an artificial divide between Catholic "social" concerns (like abortion) and Catholic "economic" concerns (like providing for the poor) while capitalizing on the racist social concerns and FYGM economic concerns of the (now vitally important) Catholic suburban swing vote.
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May 20, 2015 01:30
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Prester John posted:This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. That is to say, it is a socially transmissible mental illness whose primary transmission vector is via a particular type of child abuse, although simple concentrated exposure is enough to "infect" (if you will) adults. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
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May 20, 2015 02:48
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PJ, I'm really liking the way you think and the way you can express yourself here, but I'm interested in simplifying the work you've done here. Summing up your list post:Prester John posted:Binary Thinking.: Everything either is, or isn't. A: Failure of imagination: The unwillingness or inability to entertain possibilities that are not immediately obvious. This would lead to binary thinking (false dichotomies), differential cognition (you can't see similarities if you can't conceive of how they could be different, even if that difference doesn't exist in reality) and the absence of nuance. B: Anxiety as the default response to the unknown: Latching onto the possibility of a threat, even if the situation doesn't warrant it. This would lead to the Pillar of Maximum Force (you overestimate how threatening they are), Pillar of Perfect Safety (all unknowns have to be controlled). C: Fear of critical thinking: Basically equivalent to your point of lacking/avoiding introspection, hence the creation of an Outer Narrative (deflect criticism from outside), Belief in Innate Superiority (though I'm not sure which comes first: does the belief in innate superiority lead to a fear of critical thinking, or is it a cover for that fear?) and the Unchangeable God. A + B + C together lead to Victory by Destruction of the Enemy - Compromise or reconciliation isn't possible, they are and will always be a threat, and of course you are perfectly right and they are the source of problems. Which leads inevitably to the death struggle will result in your victory because reasons. So, what do you think of that? Too reductive, have I got cause and effect mixed up or what? rudatron fucked around with this message at 03:09 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 02:58
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Prester John posted:This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. . . . . I'd be careful assigning "intent" to this sort of pattern. A virus doesn't have intent, it isn't deliberate, it doesn't have a "purpose" -- it just is, and because it is a certain way, it perpetuates itself, like a crack in a rock face widening and lengthening over time because it's already the weakest point in the rock face. Similarly, certain kinds of behavior patterns might be particularly "good" at perpetuating themselves over generations -- for example, authoritarian behaviors leading to violent abuse creating increased authoritarian behaviors in the next generation -- but that would be a different phenomenon than (for example) someone deliberately deciding to abuse their children so that those children will in turn abuse their children and so forth. That said, I think yeah, as an analogy the virus model is a pretty good descriptor of the phenomenon that's taken over the current Republican party -- including the danger to the host. Good lord, imagine if McCain had won, and then had died? Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 03:16
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It's not unusual though, the language of intent pervades language around any evolutionary subject, even if it cannot be the case. I don't think it's unreasonable to always translate 'it wants to do this' to 'the things that do this reproduce more and therefore future version of the things are more likely to do that'. It's just way shorter.
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May 20, 2015 03:26
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Prester John posted:This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. That is to say, it is a socially transmissible mental illness whose primary transmission vector is via a particular type of child abuse, although simple concentrated exposure is enough to "infect" (if you will) adults. I don't know if that is an old thing or a new thing. It would depend on if memetic theory had some clause in it that accounted for biological dominance, as opposed to just cultural dominance. But I think the study I'm hearing about interpreted "disease" to be completely literal, as in actual things that can kill a person. The study linked to right wing authoritarianism only to where public health was in general lows. The more contagions within a given area, the more likely right wing authoritarians are to survive more rounds of natural selection, or so the hypothesis went. I'm still something of a psychological novice, but the theory goes like this... Currently, the DSM runs using a personality theory known as The Big Five, which is made up of five personality variables which have been verified to be statistically measurable: Openness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness. As far as it has been applied in political terms, on average conservatives are higher in conscientiousness, and liberals are higher in openness or neuroticism. Conscientiousness refers primarily to self-discipline and impulse control, whereas neuroticism refers to one's keenness on experiencing negative emotions such as fear. They've since found out that, even though Conscientiousness is easy to measure, conscientious people are difficult to motivate within the lab. So all we really know about Conscientiousness at the moment is what it's been correlated to, and we don't really know for certain why it correlates to the things that it does. For example, conscientiousness is correlated to generalized life success, but seldom to any overachieving effect -- as innovation and entrepreneurship was more linked to Openness than anything else. The reasons why they are success-driven is not the same as it might be for others. One professor's work who I have been reading lately pointed to conscientiousness as link to orderliness, and orderliness is reflected in hygiene, and old religious texts that tend to promote the more "negative" aspect of religiosity usually are linked to hygienic practices in some way. Ergo, that aspect of human behaviour was a Darwinian Adaptation of some kind. Following that theory, while a liberal's strive for success might be directly based on liberalizing a society, (that is, removing or taming the general sources of fear within a given area,) a conservative's motivation towards success is simply not to be on the bottom of any given dominance hierarchy which they are currently considered within. (As those on the bottom rung of any given society are the first to die when something bad happens.) ... or so the hypothesis currently states. Since conscientiousness seems to override motivational behaviours, psychology as a field has a very difficult time getting genuine measurements of how it works, since most of the times it is measured it is not genuine. (Hence why Altemeyer's research experiments are mostly garbage.) However, conscientiousness has been correlated to Altemeyer's RWA scale positively. (Wiki) Combining RWA and health together, where exactly does that leave the Authoritarians we're talking about here? On one hand, Authoritarian attitudes might not exist beforehand, but instead may be a reaction to given panics in public health. An example: when Indiana passed that Religious Freedom Bill that made it legal to discriminate against homosexuals, (real and perceived,) they were also undergoing a massive outbreak of HIV infections in rural areas outside the cities. At the same time. A negation to that would just be the authoritarians in the US might just be "double highs" in the sense that they are both conscientious and neurotic, resulting in a worst-of-both-worlds approach. Yet... Some part of my mind doesn't want to discount your "mind virus" idea either. Another thing I heard was the States who opposed Obamacare the most and erected the most roadblocks to its implementation were the states where access to health care was already very expensive or scarce, and all of them in republican-led states. They blocked the health care improvements because accepting them would've been political suicide, but that only leads me to wonder...
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May 20, 2015 10:42
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Morroque posted:I don't know if that is an old thing or a new thing. It would depend on if memetic theory had some clause in it that accounted for biological dominance, as opposed to just cultural dominance. If you can find a copy or link to that study or even just detailed information about it, please share! rudatron posted:It's not unusual though, the language of intent pervades language around any evolutionary subject, even if it cannot be the case. I don't think it's unreasonable to always translate 'it wants to do this' to 'the things that do this reproduce more and therefore future version of the things are more likely to do that'. It's just way shorter. I know, it always bothers me though because I feel like it leads to sloppy thinking and analysis.
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May 20, 2015 13:12
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I feel like this confuses cause for effect. Poor people are going to have less access to healthcare and be more susceptible to authoritarian messaging. In Indiana abstinence only sexual education was passed in rural areas which also just plain didn't talk about stds. This lead to predictable result where hiv exploded. But those areas were already poor and right wing.
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May 20, 2015 16:17
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The idea of cultural behaviors as memetic 'viruses' is actually a pretty interesting one and is one that I've thought about quite a lot. Memetics as a term brought in a powerful way of thinking about the way that some behaviors, actions, and attitudes might be transmitted from person to person, and there's actually quite a lot to think about when it comes to assigning authoritarian behaviors to a memetic pattern. Obviously I haven't done any research on the topic, but it's incredibly interesting to think about and imagine. A single person in a position of authority acting in an authoritative manner could start a cascade effect that worms its way through society. As weaker versions of it die off, the lasting versions keep being passed down through social and familial means in a way that perpetuates a certain system of thought we call authoritarian. It's just like a weird organism in that a meme that can[/n] last and propagate [u]may given the right conditions, and now we're just sort of dealing with the aftermath of a thought process that made sense on the plains of Africa, or Babylon, or Rome, or whatever that just hasn't died out because its not sufficiently maladaptive to really be stamped out.
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May 20, 2015 18:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you can find a copy or link to that study or even just detailed information about it, please share! I wish I had more to say about it, but I'm not a student anymore and thus I now lack the ability to search academic journals remotely. All I really have is this where I heard about it in the first place. It rings in my mind as a "if true, then that explains a lot," but even that might just be confirmation bias on my part. I'm curious if anyone else has heard about it as well. Shbobdb posted:I feel like this confuses cause for effect. Poor people are going to have less access to healthcare and be more susceptible to authoritarian messaging. In Indiana abstinence only sexual education was passed in rural areas which also just plain didn't talk about stds. This lead to predictable result where hiv exploded. But those areas were already poor and right wing. That is my worry as well. For as much as I'd like to believe it -- it would effectively explain a large subset of conservatism to me that I simply struggle to understand otherwise -- because it confuses cause and effect to some degree, I worry it falls apart beyond a certain level of analysis. But again, conservative conscientiousness is only a thing that happens on average, so the larger swath of non-Authoritarian conservatives in the population would outweigh the Authoritarian influence. In the case of Prester's description of American Authoritarians, I might be applying psycho-normative metrics to something that just... isn't. Too far gone.
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May 20, 2015 19:45
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Prester John posted:I am working on a big writeup to answer your questions actually and that will probably be the next big piece I put out. You asked some extremely good questions, however my answer involves so many inter-related concepts that I haven't translated yet that I cannot answer it directly. So instead I am working on a sort of story that follows a non-Authoritarian family into becoming an Authoritarian family, then shows how each of their three children turn into separate types of Authoritarians in their adult lives. Its a complicated piece and is taking quite some time, but I think it will demonstrate clearly how the mindset is formed, sustained, and emerges during adulthood.
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May 20, 2015 20:05
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The concept of meme "viruses" was one proposed and explored in the very origin of the word meme in Dawkins The Selfish Gene. A key idea of the book is packages of genes which are not successful by themselves but are successful when present with several others. Likewise, he speculates about packages of memes that are more effective together, such as religions and their dogmas. He didn't really make the jump to calling those packages of memes pathological or equivalent to a disease (though I imagine that if you asked him if religion is a disease now, he'd probably agree).
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May 20, 2015 20:17
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Shbobdb posted:I don't see it being that last-standy. You might be correct, however, the rhetoric they are using does seem to indicate that Evangelical's are treating this as the absolute last stand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOaU0x0YFM GlyphGryph posted:I would still like to read this, do you think you'll be able to share what you've got soon? I really wish I could say "yes", but honestly it has been a gut wrenching experience writing it and "I have had to shelve it until other parts of my life calm down enough. I'm really sorry to disappoint. Comedy Option: "Coming Soon" in the sense of Blizzard Software's "Coming Soon".
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May 21, 2015 01:35
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rudatron posted:PJ, I'm really liking the way you think and the way you can express yourself here, but I'm interested in simplifying the work you've done here. Summing up your list post: Not a bad summary, but I'm not sure it is enough to communicate the concepts to someone who is just encountering them. Not a bad "End of Chapter" type of summary IMO though <3
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May 21, 2015 01:37
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rudatron posted:B: Anxiety as the default response to the unknown: Latching onto the possibility of a threat, even if the situation doesn't warrant it. This would lead to the Pillar of Maximum Force (you overestimate how threatening they are), Pillar of Perfect Safety (all unknowns have to be controlled). This would explain why, for example, a bunch of people are convinced that ISIL are going to invade the US, because they can't comprehend "bad guys" who want anything other than to destroy them personally. e: It's a kind of narcissism I guess? See also "They hate us for our freedoms".
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May 21, 2015 01:44
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But the valid question is which comes first: the narcissism or the anxiety? There's the same issue with introspection vs superiority. I'm tempted to go anxiety + fear of introspection as casual because they're both emotional responses, whereas narcissism and superiority are both beliefs (in this particular case any).
rudatron fucked around with this message at 04:03 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 04:00
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Prester John posted:You might be correct, however, the rhetoric they are using does seem to indicate that Evangelical's are treating this as the absolute last stand. Sure, but to me that just seems like rhetoric. I think we don't appreciate rhetoric enough in modern discourse. When we take it seriously, we call it "advertising" or "marketing" but when people use those same techniques absent capital we dismiss it as "rhetoric". They're all on the same spectrum. In smaller/more insular communities, a passionate voice is able to grab a huge share of the market. There is an overlap with "viral marketing" because we are still trying to deal with the science of advertising/marketing on the internet. What happens is you want to tap into ultra-specific parts of the market by telling them that you know what they are thinking and feeling. It is part of the reason why I love Adult Swim. Those little bullshit inter-title commercials they do are really good at communicating that they "get" me and my sense of humor. It makes me feel special. It's also entirely mass produced. The special feeling that I feel is a result of them studying their target demographic. My wife is more socially fluid than I am, but hanging out with her rural Indiana friends, I was able to see the same sort of shibboleths where it is really just a mass-produced nothing but it resonates. "Us vs the World!" is like, the easiest thing ever. Look at the rest of D&D, it's all "evil conservatives" and, yeah, conservatives are evil as poo poo. But in this thread we're discussing "conservatism as a disease" using pseudo-scientific language. Conservapedia does the same thing, only they use pseudo-biblical language. There is a clear appeal there. And I'm not saying something is there. I just feel like the first ~20-50% of what you've got is really solid and very good. But because of your upbringing you've got some blind spots. And in this thread, rather than addressing those potential blind-spots, it's a lot of cheerleading. That creates a self-reinforcing narrative and knocks you into demagoguery instead of real social science. I thought I had done that in this thread but it must have been in response to another one of your comments so I can't find the breakdown. For example, when it comes to Obama, racism plays a big role. But you can't really analyze the mainstream Republican reaction to Obama by showing some Klansman rambling about how "Zionist Occupied Government" has become . . . "NOG" and then use that to extrapolate how the Republican party operates. I like your personal case studies. I think your overall thesis is engaging. It just isn't rigorous enough yet. For example, I feel like the trends you are describing could apply to the "Know Nothing" Party or the "Anti-Masonic" parties in the 19th Century or maybe something more international like contemporary Putanistsas in Russia or ISIS as a Tea Party end game. I know this is still in development, but I think stretching would help you develop it more. It is easy to narrow things down and get lost. You can do that later. You've got a lot of good energy. Broaden it a bit so you can really "snap down" on it later. You've got a compelling idea, I just think it would benefit from "sounding board" you can bounce it off of that isn't personal to you. I like the passion, you can and should keep the passion. That makes you special, but it can also make you blind. Having another case study will help clarify what's "real" and what is exuberance. They don't even have to make it into the final publication, it's just an intellectual exercise.
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May 21, 2015 07:37
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A little crossover from the recent posts in the Freep thread, but can someone tell me why Bill Gothard, the Duggars, et al are not considered to be "cultists"? Is it just because they use the right code words of "God", "Jesus", "Bible", and so on?
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May 23, 2015 07:25
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skaboomizzy posted:A little crossover from the recent posts in the Freep thread, but can someone tell me why Bill Gothard, the Duggars, et al are not considered to be "cultists"? Is it just because they use the right code words of "God", "Jesus", "Bible", and so on? The beliefs of the Duggars, as repugnant and heretical as the specifics and implications of their beliefs may be, do not challenge or repudiate mainstream Christian theology at a casual glance.
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May 23, 2015 08:36
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This was posted in the Freepers thread:Wolfsheim posted:I'm genuinely surprised that freep didn't immediately throw the Duggars under the bus as covert liberals. I forget how exactly Prester John addressed (though I know she did) what I call the Singularity of Evil. Basically the Singularity of Evil is the idea that evil, instead of being a simple descriptor that can be applied to any sort of act that displays wanton disregard for the welfare or feelings of others, is a thing, it is singular (hence the name), and to call a person or thing "evil' in the authoritarian worldview is to accuse him/her (or in the case of deeds or objects, it), of being affiliated with a literal Dark Side (which of course can be Satan but doesn't have to be). Since evil is singular, of course all evil is on the same side, hence the homofascislammunists.
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May 23, 2015 17:49
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Wales Grey posted:The beliefs of the Duggars, as repugnant and heretical as the specifics and implications of their beliefs may be, do not challenge or repudiate mainstream Christian theology at a casual glance. I was reading in the uspol thread that they are part of the Quiverful movement which apparently seeks to reproduce as much as possible in order to have more people think and vote they way they want in order to get the policies they want, which does sound kind of cultish. Fried Chicken posted:Specifically, the quiverfulls want to have a ton of kids raised in an extremely strict fundamentalist lifestyle so that in a few generations they can reclaim the country/world by having enough to win elections and can then legislate gods law on earth. site fucked around with this message at 19:57 on May 23, 2015 |
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May 23, 2015 19:33
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Woolie Wool posted:This was posted in the Freepers thread: I can't pronounce this yet but damned if I'm not going to practice.
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May 24, 2015 01:41
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BreakAtmo posted:I can't pronounce this yet but damned if I'm not going to practice. If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious.
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May 24, 2015 02:28
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Jack Gladney posted:Have you ever heard of a woman so ruled by hatred for men that she dragged one to death from a chain attached to the hitch of her pickup truck, or a gang of women whose hatred for men was so great that they gathered together to beat one to death?
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May 24, 2015 05:50
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That was a pretty clean assassination, though. Not to trivialize things but it isn't the sort of murder being discussed here.
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May 24, 2015 06:11
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Polybius91 posted:I realize I'm rather late on this, but would Valerie Solanas' assassination attempt on Andy Warhol count? That's the only thing I can think of that could qualify. She was an unmedicated schizophrenic. That's pretty different from the dynamic that makes otherwise healthy people put on robes and cut people apart with corkscrews.
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May 24, 2015 06:53
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site posted:I was reading in the uspol thread that they are part of the Quiverful movement which apparently seeks to reproduce as much as possible in order to have more people think and vote they way they want in order to get the policies they want, which does sound kind of cultish. You're not wrong, they (and the Quiverful movment as a whole) are 110% a cult.
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May 24, 2015 10:01
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Wales Grey posted:You're not wrong, they (and the Quiverful movment as a whole) are 110% a cult. At one point, possibly in LF, we were posting quiverfull fiction. Probably long gone but it was tremendous fun.
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May 24, 2015 10:46
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For Your Own Good by Alice Miller has come up a few times and the entire book is available online HERE. It's a very interesting read and relevant to the abuse aspects.Prester John posted:This actually jibes with my own thinking. I haven't discussed it publicly yet, but I have been toying with the idea that the Authoritarian behavior pattern could be more easily conceived of as an actual mind virus. That is to say, it is a socially transmissible mental illness whose primary transmission vector is via a particular type of child abuse, although simple concentrated exposure is enough to "infect" (if you will) adults. That's pretty much mirror neurons in a nutshell. Mirror neurons allow a person to feel what someone they're observing is feeling, so a child being abused feels both their fear and anxiety and the feelings of their abuser. For adults if they're predisposed to Authoritarianism and keeping themselves in check all it'd take is one emotionally overpowering individual their control to slip. Given the prevalence of child abuse that could end up being a lot of slipping. I'm not sure if it would be a particular type of child abuse so much as different types of abuse leading to different ways of removing the threat though. For example someone that was physically abused would beat the enemy to death whereas emotional abuse would lead to bullying them until they commit suicide. The mental cause and end result is the same in both cases even if the method differs. Shbobdb posted:I know this is still in development, but I think stretching would help you develop it more. It is easy to narrow things down and get lost. You can do that later. You've got a lot of good energy. Broaden it a bit so you can really "snap down" on it later. You've got a compelling idea, I just think it would benefit from "sounding board" you can bounce it off of that isn't personal to you. I like the passion, you can and should keep the passion. That makes you special, but it can also make you blind. Having another case study will help clarify what's "real" and what is exuberance. They don't even have to make it into the final publication, it's just an intellectual exercise. Coming Soon. In the Blizzard sense, of course. I've been meaning to really write things up for ages but writing means thinking. I hate thinking. It hurts too much. Rotoru fucked around with this message at 18:26 on May 24, 2015 |
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May 24, 2015 17:25
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The Politics of Denial is also pretty relevant to the question of childhood abuse and later religious fundamentalism and reactionary politics: http://smile.amazon.com/Politics-De...itics+of+denial The authors specifically read the birth of the moral majority as a result of 80s republicans using the rhetoric of authoritarian parents in their campaigning in a way that mobilized people carrying around religious abuse from childhood: quote:Anger and resentment appear to be playing an increasingly important role in politics, as evidenced by the vociferous opposition to welfare, abortion, and immigrants, and by the rise of the radical Religious Right. The Politics of Denial presents a compelling explanation of these phenomena, providing solid empirical evidence for the role of rigid, harsh childrearing practices in the creation of punitive, authoritarian adult political attitudes. The authors show how political processes in the United States are distorted by the unresolved negative emotions (such as fear, anger, and helplessness) that remain from punitive parenting, and by the politicians and conservative religious leaders who exploit those emotions. Among the many public figures discussed are Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, and Billy Graham. It's dated, but very relevant for the generation we're talking about, and PJ's own upbringing.
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May 24, 2015 18:09
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Prester John posted:I personally am not sold on this particular hypothesis, but I do think it holds a great deal of promise and I have been giving it a great deal of thought. I would be fascinated to ehar some feedback on the idea. What you're saying is actually gaining a lot of traction in memetic circles, it jives with some recent talks Daniel Dennet's been giving leading up to his new book on the subject. I found this video a while ago, and as a empirical research oriented psychologist it frustrates me, but it elaborates on the concept you've been discussing. This dynamic social process certainly is important to the authoritarian cycle, but may be more of a general process rather than a specific/specialized part of a specific mechanism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
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May 26, 2015 16:56
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I know that PJ and a lot others are pegging Ted Cruz as having an underdog chance at becoming the republican nomination for president in 2016, but how is that possible? He was born in Canada and only one of his parents was a US citizen at the time of his birth (according to wikipedia his father is only a naturalized citizen and even that didn't happen until 2005). I thought the rules for being the president were pretty clear in that you either had to be born in the US, or if you were born abroad both of your parents had to be US citizens when you were born. Is there some amendment that changed those basic rules? I feel like every other candidate in the republican party should be at least unanimously throwing their opposition against Cruz, because absolute best case scenario he ends up siphoning off a ton of funding that could have gone to another candidate while potentially splitting the republican voting block with faith based voters. How is this guy's candidacy anything but a literal joke?
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May 27, 2015 15:18
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homeless poster posted:I know that PJ and a lot others are pegging Ted Cruz as having an underdog chance at becoming the republican nomination for president in 2016, but how is that possible? He was born in Canada and only one of his parents was a US citizen at the time of his birth (according to wikipedia his father is only a naturalized citizen and even that didn't happen until 2005). I thought the rules for being the president were pretty clear in that you either had to be born in the US, or if you were born abroad both of your parents had to be US citizens when you were born. Is there some amendment that changed those basic rules? I feel like every other candidate in the republican party should be at least unanimously throwing their opposition against Cruz, because absolute best case scenario he ends up siphoning off a ton of funding that could have gone to another candidate while potentially splitting the republican voting block with faith based voters. How is this guy's candidacy anything but a literal joke? There's no consensus as to what the rule for a natual-born citizen is.
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May 27, 2015 15:25
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Series DD Funding posted:There's no consensus as to what the rule for a natual-born citizen is. This. Also, the US practices both Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis, meaning: if you were born on US soil, you are automatically considered a citizen, and if a parent is a citizen at the time of one's birth, that citizenship is also automatically conferred. Ted Cruz is an American thanks to Jus Sanguinis. B-Rock ticks both boxes, since his mother was a citizen and he was born in the US. If he was born in Kenya, he'd still be a citizen thanks to Jus Sanguinis. Children of immigrants who have not yet naturalized are considered who were born in the US are citizens thanks to Jus Soli.
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May 27, 2015 16:08
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Nth Doctor posted:This. Also, the US practices both Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis, meaning: if you were born on US soil, you are automatically considered a citizen, and if a parent is a citizen at the time of one's birth, that citizenship is also automatically conferred. Thanks for the response. I guess in the unlikely event that Cruz somehow ascends to POTUS I will finally understand the fury that all the conservative birthers felt with Barry.
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May 27, 2015 19:01
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