People don’t actually guide themselves by Logic.
In fact they undermine their own logical thinking abilities, especially by seeking only that information which confirms that which they already believe in (because it makes them feel to good to “be right”) and avoid or deny that information which disproves that which they believe in (because it makes them feel bad to “be wrong”).
Even very intelligent people will reach the dumbest of conclusions because of how their own emotions control the inputs to their thinking, the kind of things they think about and even which conclusions they immediately accept without challenge and which they actively try and disprove.
Also add to this that only a small number of people are familiar with the practices of Analytical Thinking (such as used in Science) so are prone to falling for all manner of fallacies and observer cognitive errors (stuff like how one spots mostly that which happens, not the absence of things that should be happening, how others react to one’s own non-verbal cues and shape their responses to one’s expectations and other such things affecting what one observes and which led to things like Science have double-blind experiments).
Its weird that you mention a need to be right. As a nurse we are taught to question everything and anything but when it comes to doctors we are suppose to keep our mouth shut. I took a semester on drug abuse and signs as an elective and you would be surprised on how many doctors who operate or diagnose patient look and act or exhbit the behavior of a drug addict.
Yeah, that’s the thing: the things commonly associated with logic and careful thinking such as Formal Education (even in STEM domains) or Intelligence are no defense against one’s emotional needs, wants and fears.
As I’ve said more than once: no matter how Intelligent a person is, their Subconscious is just as Intelligent and hence just as capable of subverting their Conscious mind.
Knowledge and Wisdom are two very different things.
Remember that racial segregation in the US wasn’t that long ago, historically speaking.
Some of children who lived through that era were raised with racism and these values were passed to their children who became Gen X and Y.
Religion also had a bigger influence in the previous generations. Homophobia and transphobia was normalized and you could even be arrested for being any of LGBTQ up until very recently and it’s still the case in some regions.
Nazi ideology never really left either. And the way this ideology came to be was through disenfranchised people who were angry and needed someone to be angry against. Someone came at the right place at the right time and gave these people a scapegoat.
Fascism is kind of the same but with a cult of personality.
Racism and bigotry aren’t logical positions, but emotional ones. People have an emotional need to be part of a group and feel included. If the group a person joins is antagonistic towards other groups then the person will internalize that and become bigoted. The dislike of other groups becomes a part of their identity and belonging.
The documentary Behind The Curve illustrates this pretty effectively. They follow some flat eathers around and interview them and they all say the same thing. They love being a part of the group. They didn’t have a group before and now they do. Their beliefs keep the group together and they’re not going to get rid of them just because the beliefs can be proven to be wrong.
The desire to be a part of a group is strong enough that people will believe anything as long as it gets them some friends. There isn’t anything wrong with that unless the beliefs of the group are harmful and hateful.
There’s a lot of information, there’s also a lot of misinformation. Many people don’t trust authorities, sometimes for understandable reasons, so they end up in the fringes.
Also, the Nazis, and even the Confederates, weren’t all that long ago in the grand scheme. A couple generations. Many people learn these tendencies from their family.
Also incels are somewhat different from Nazis/fascists. There’s obviously a lot of overlap. There’s always been men who had trouble with women, but I think being a male virgin after a certain age is enormously more vilified these days than it was in, for instance, the 50s, even among more progressive, left leaning groups. Admittedly, that’s anecdotal so I could be wrong.
but I think being a male virgin after a certain age is enormously more vilified these days than it was in, for instance, the 50s, even among more progressive, left leaning groups.
Not sure if this is true, but I’m pretty sure that research says that people were having more sex back then. So probably fewer virgins back then.
There was less to do for entertainment in the 50s, lol
Still a culture shift. Back then you were a stand up guy waiting for a dynamite gal to call his own, now you’re that weird 30yo who couldn’t get an easy lay in college and is too socially akward to date now.
Part of it is education and critical thinking. People don’t know what to trust because they don’t know how to test information for truthfulness and can’t reliably fact check. So they depend on an authority figure to tell them what and how to think, with expected results.
Note this isn’t limited to these people; some people just pick better authority figures than others.
The Internet is like a library: repository of knowledge, it’s also like cable TV where every crackpot has a broadcast license.
How you use it is up to you.
Don’t Be a Sucker
This is an anti-fascism film made by the U.S. in the 1940s. It pretty much focuses on answering your exact question. It’s a decent film too.
They are being constantly bombarded with algorithm-fueled targeted media designed to make them feel just good enough about themselves to keep watching the next video of ‘woke woman gets owned on camera and everybody claps’. Source: my childhood friend gets recommended this trash daily on his youtube homepage. I try to push against it without re-enforcing the narrative that The Liberals are the reason why he doesn’t have any friends. I don’t think it’s working.
For the nazis, a big problem is the alt-right pipeline that plagues sites like Youtube, along with an unstable political climate, which generally causes radicalization (Weimer Germany is also a very good example of this phemona)
As for incels, a big problem is admittably a mental health crisis plauging many men, generally causing them to become resentful of women out of loneliness.
TLDR: Poor mental health and instability
The latter is aided by the same things as the former. Too many youtubers condition young men to think that women are the problem and the fact that they don’t take care of themselves or socialize with others doesn’t matter and it’s really the fault of everyone else. I used to online game with a couple of these guys who weren’t too bad until recently. They were both basically shut-ins who still somehow held strong beliefs about the outside world and why things are the way they are even though they didn’t really participate with the outside world.
YouTube but also porn. As it’s much less regulated in terms of tone and content, you get a lot of casual racism, misogyny and similar just thrown into the videos of pene and vagene
Yeah the Internet is full of traps that are engineered to draw men in. There’s blood on Google’s hands for just letting that happen. (And probably other companies too, but YouTube is big)
Related note: unchecked capitalism makes everything worse. Trying to get dates and the apps are just like “pay us $5 and maybe we’ll show your profile to someone. Be a shame if your beautiful profile just never showed up for anyone.”
Ahhh, your almost there at realizing that capitalism commodified dating and is basically predatory against single men.
unchecked capitalism makes everything worse.
Both in the context of this discussion and in society in general.
One of my closer friends is on a weird path atm. He’s full into Russian propaganda, anti-western stuff, flat earth, anti vaxx and whatnot.
I tried to reason with him. Turns out he doesn’t even know how to verify something he’s read online. Check sources? Nope. Google something you’ve seen in a video that sounds super weird? Nope, just believe it.
I came to accept that he might just be too stupid to navigate modern media without being a victim of misinformation, propaganda and lies.
Check sources? Nope. Google something you’ve seen in a video that sounds super weird? Nope, just believe it.
Those are hardly panacea, as you need a reliable frame of reference for verification.
I remember during the heyday of WikiLeaks, how conservatives and liberals alike dismissed the info dumps as misinformation and edited images/video. You couldn’t talk about PRISM with anyone over 40, because all the Cable News outlets were claiming it had been debunked. You couldn’t talk about Collateral Murder because it was endlessly getting blocked on social media as “disinformation”.
And that was before the advent of AI generated images and whole books churned out with LLMs. What do you say to the guy who is hip deep in “evidence” from the Heritage Foundation? What do you say to a TERF quoting from the Cass Report? What happens when you get a rebuttal in the form of a Tucker Carlson Interview from Moscow?
Yeah, you can just wave that off as “Fake News, doesn’t count”. But then so can they, and we’re back to Square One on validating any kind of underlying truth.
he might just be too stupid to navigate modern media without being a victim of misinformation
None of us are immune to propaganda. Thinking this is a matter of simple intelligence is the first trap you fall into when evaluating a source.
It’s so easy to tell yourself “I’m smarter, therefore you must be wrong” and work backwards from there.
now, this’n right here kids is a prime specimen of what those highfalutin desk jockeys call a “global citizen.”
I’ve been called worse
Tiny peepee
Feels > reals.
If you remember the post trump election memes about economic anxiety being mediaspeak for racism, this is basically where that came from.
Bigotry is a despair response, when the promises of normalcy fail someone, there’s a chance for them to start looking for new meaning to understand a seemingly indifferent world, and in that state of mind, being told you’re part of an exclusive club of inherent superiority is the ego stroke that gets them off.
From the moment they take that poison pill it basically plays out as an analogue of addiction. Even as they watch the sludge they’re mainlining destroy everything around them it doesn’t cut them off from, they just can’t stop, because the validation of feeling that it’s the entire world that’s wrong instead of just you being shit out of luck is too much for a lot of folks to be willing to part with.
It also doesn’t help that these people tend to get fired from jobs that don’t put up with racist bullshit, turning the whole validation needing into a vicious cycle sort of deal.
This is also why some very stupid self described leftists seem to have zero worry about the rise of fascism (even as they insist that they’re the only ones who truly take it seriously as a threat), they think “just do a socialism bro” will instantly fix everything as if economic hardship would never happen to a socialist society even within a vacuum.
They literally think you can just pay the racists to stop being racists, and that you can pay a heroin addict to stop shooting up.
This is also why some very stupid self described leftists seem to have zero worry about the rise of fascism (even as they insist that they’re the only ones who truly take it seriously as a threat), they think “just do a socialism bro” will instantly fix everything as if economic hardship would never happen to a socialist society even within a vacuum.
I have to admit - I’m having a hard time picturing how this would be expressed. Any particular examples you can point to?
All the “don’t vote” leftists that think democrats not voting Bernie is less forgiveable that the Republicans closing abortion clinics and kicking gay kids out onto the streets.
They think perceived direct opposition to socialism is worse than something they believe will just magically go away once they finish bribing the racists to not be racist.
I think the viewpoint of those folks currently is essentially that Dems will see a direct line between their support of Israel (for example) in the current Gaza genocide event and the fact that they did not heed in any way the voices of progressives, leftists, and others, and realize when Trump wins (again parroting what I believe to be their viewpoint) they should be more inclusive of those groups the next time around.
I personally don’t think that’s a strategy that will have long term or short term benefits, because I don’t think politicians in general seem capable of strategizing to that level of nuance regarding public opinion, but I can see where they are coming from.
Which is a just maddeningly privileged take.
Someone spouting that line off is basically all but admitting they see everyone a second term would put in harm’s way as pawns they can sacrifice at will for the sake of some war against this spectre of an evil conniving and completely unified in purpose and goals DNC establishment.
It is a PoV available only to white kids and those who get their politics from mainly white kids.
Not to mention on the Palestine issue, only a white kid could see the man who handed the Israelis East Jerusalem and West Bank about to get back into power and think the play that helps the cause is threatening to let it happen if we don’t stop everything and listen to their “Imagine” soundboard platitudes and shit.
I agree with you, but that’s where I perceive their viewpoint to come from. I actually think I did see at least one person say something like “it’s bad for gaza now, but will be better for gaza later” or something like that. Happy to be corrected by any folks of similar mindset who want to chime in though.
Emotions are stronger then intellect, much stronger. And most of these people suffered in bad childhoods and were drilled or neglected into disempathy. (That’s not the necessary reaction to such childhoods but it’s a common reaction.)
suffered in bad childhoods
Just to say, but what causes those things are hate and fear.
The second one doesn’t require trauma.
Fear is a general human trait woven into our existences and should/could be reduced in a loving and supporting childhood. If love and support are missing in your childhood you don’t learn to handle your fears in a mature and stable way.
(I know I’m painting this picture with a very broad brush. It’s to point in the general direction of feelings as the most plausible and applicable answer to OPs question.)
Ok so your telling me since when I was bad in my childhood and spanked with a switch that I can become one?
That’s certainly their rationale.
It’s weird how some people turn into neo-nazis or incels after that and I just pay sexy Russian dom mommies to beat me within an inch of my life.
Anyone can become filled with hate.
No. Your response to such childhood is very individual. It’s a very common stance to live your life the opposite way of your parents lifestyle. That’s what produced the 1960s air of change in culture - hippies lived the very opposite of their parents ideals.
I simply point out well researched patterns in childhoods and their influence on character traits. Look up developmental psychology and transgenerational patterns. In Germany there’s a lot of research and publication about “war children” and “war grandchildren” (Kriegskinder und Kriegsenkel) which in general attributes a lot of the countries troubles and shortcomings to the upbringing of kids in a war and post war society with a lot of shame and guilt.
To be fair, those involved in the bad childhoods also are likely to have bad childhoods themselves (the adults I mean).
Transgenerational stuff, victims becoming offenders and the likes.
Yep, you’re right, that’s what’s meant here.
The core of the issue is the “Just World Fallacy” sometimes also called the “Prosperity Doctrine” and a few other things. It boils down to one core idea “Good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.” Basically, everyone tends to think of themselves as, more-or-less, good people. So when bad things happen, as they inevitably do, these people start going “Huh, more bad stuff is happening to me than I’ve done bad things. WTF?” So, they come to a reasonable if flawed conclusion that “someone ELSE is doing bad things, and I’m collateral damage.” This isn’t entirely wrong, although sometimes bad things do just happen. However, since at least as far back as the Civil War (and probably since time immemorial), the people whose fault it REALLY is (i.e., the people with power and privelege) have pointed at outgroups, commonly immigrants but also slaves or Catholics or trans people, and said “THOSE people are being bad. THOSE people are why you are suffering. Give me more power and I’ll get rid of THOSE people.”
Wow, well said and succinct, much love.
Disenfranchisement is a hell of a drug. A lot don’t believe in the ideology at first, but are forced into it because they lacked proper role models when they were young.
Good use of the D word haven’t heard or read it in a while…no sarcasm
