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It's no wonder that propaganda works. It has the emotional valence to make an imprint. It tells us stories and then tells them again and then again, each time a little different but the same. We love hearing stories that make us feel, and we love hearing stories we're already familiar with. It grooves paths in the brain and each time we hear the stories the paths are grooved a little deeper. Until they becomes the most comfortable -- yet exciting! -- area of our internal canon. Concomitant, the assurance there are always more stories to come, whenever we want them, as much as we want of them. Also a vast and growing community of similar, proper-minded people... brotherhood to secure us in this increasingly alarming and isolating world. Together we can set it right! Just tell us what to do!  
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Aug 25, 2021 22:17
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Ran across this one in the wild https://imgur.com/gallery/PpsK4Xn
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Sep 1, 2021 17:01
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Glory to Italia!
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I am so loving happy I cut contact with my mom in the before-times.
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Sep 1, 2021 19:42
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Only choice to guarantee sanity for at least one of the parties involved.
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Sep 1, 2021 19:56
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indiscriminately posted:It's no wonder that propaganda works. It has the emotional valence to make an imprint. It tells us stories and then tells them again and then again, each time a little different but the same. We love hearing stories that make us feel, and we love hearing stories we're already familiar with. It grooves paths in the brain and each time we hear the stories the paths are grooved a little deeper. Until they becomes the most comfortable -- yet exciting! -- area of our internal canon. Concomitant, the assurance there are always more stories to come, whenever we want them, as much as we want of them. Also a vast and growing community of similar, proper-minded people... brotherhood to secure us in this increasingly alarming and isolating world. Together we can set it right! Just tell us what to do! Well said, and it dovetails well into what I think is the most frustrating thing about current politics - very people seem to have core values, and go along with partyline policies. The idea that Republicans went from being all in on the Bush family and then just being all in on Trump within a decade shows me that there are a ton of people that basically stand for nothing, and just want to root for a team.
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Sep 4, 2021 15:29
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My mom today decided to liven the meal with some bullshit story about building mosques in <country> vs. Saudi not letting churches be built. I just insisted we leave those discussions out. My toddler is non verbal so no harm done. But I don't one bullshit and fear of the other from a trusted figure. We are debating making it clear that that kind of talk means we walk away from them right there and then. Meal/meeting is over, no discussion. See if pavlovian training works. What experience do you, friends, have in protecting your children from hate speech from family?
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Sep 4, 2021 15:51
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Dawncloack posted:What experience do you, friends, have in protecting your children from hate speech from family?
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Sep 4, 2021 15:58
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It must be complicated by the fact that people who talk like that have literally no other interests and nothing else going on in their lives except reactionary media consumption. You’d think they would love their children enough to not do it, but they don’t have a self apart from it. I mean, left politics are important to me, but I’ve learned not to share the things I believe or the work that I’ve done with my family because they’re hostile to those things, and I can manage to do that successfully.
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Sep 4, 2021 16:13
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Dawncloack posted:
I called them out on their racism without mincing words and eventually just cut contact.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:01
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:It must be complicated by the fact that people who talk like that have literally no other interests and nothing else going on in their lives except reactionary media consumption. You’d think they would love their children enough to not do it, but they don’t have a self apart from it. That's part of what gets me, how can they not read the room? Do they really care that little that they are obviously making their loved ones uncomfortable? What do they think that thousand-yard stare and that attempt to change the subject to the local weather is all about? Do I LOOK like I want to hear your poo poo?? Or do they understand completely and they just think it's that important to proselytize
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Sep 7, 2021 02:47
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I think it's a mix of only hearing that stuff and also wanting to spread it. The way some of these sources present stuff makes people want to get it into conversation in a "gotcha" way -at least my parents. I invited my mom to a kid sporting event the other day and thought all was going well until I mentioned that my friends and I are happy because a few of us have beagle mix dogs and they all get along like gangbusters. My mom took that chance to tell me "oh, beagles are the kind of dog that Fauci loves to experiment on" WTF! It would be so easy not to talk about that, and I have asked both of my parents to chill about politics too many times to count. Sadly, they have Fox on 23 hours a day, so after "how about that weather" it all devolves into "you have to admit we wouldn't have the vaccine without Trump!" E: And yes, my parents are both very "sheltered" in that they don't go out, don't do anything, don't try anything new except sit and watch conservative TV. It sucks, but in the last 20 years, I can't get them to try a new restaurant, let alone listen to a different perspective on anything. HungryMedusa fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 03:17
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I can’t imagine that poo poo being the first or only thing to come into your head upon thinking about beagles. The thought terrifies me. It just becomes so natural that you don’t have any sense you’re being rude and you can’t think anything else.
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Sep 7, 2021 03:54
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I ran into an old friend of my sisters who spent some time ranting about how hard it is to be a conservative right now. She and everyone else like her have some story of losing a close friend after being called a racist or something. She starts breaking down because she's had to bottle up her thoughts and then thinks we're sympathetic and spends a good while on a few bootstrap/means-testing/anti-homeless rants. Seemed to me like they're bursting at the seams to gush and try to convince people they're reasonable. At one point it seemed like the right thing to observe decorum and try to talk things out, but I think we finally seeing the results of the subsequent social pressure to isolate them. It's working, to discomfort them, at least. They don't take a second to self evaluate and just think the people that abandon them are closed minded or more hateful than they are. They have the choice of being alone or shutting up. Or finding a militia to join. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 04:06
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To some people, attention is attention. If they have to go into religious ecstasies, fake injury, spend themselves broke, or eat live insects, all the same. Attention is a human need, and some people can't get what they (think they) deserve. The one technique I've had success with (once) is going "Oh, don't start that again," dismissively; this positions them as the one lacking propriety and encourages others to join you. Or demand a "no mentioning politics" deposit, if you're hosting.
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Sep 7, 2021 06:50
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I have a strict "no politics" rule when I host Thanksgiving, and that's when we're all more or less on the same page. Anyone who violates the rule is banished from the table and gets to eat dry toast and stale Halloween candy instead of the big feast.
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Sep 7, 2021 14:08
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For the thoroughly pilled, I think it's like being obsessed with a lovely MMO, sinking hours into it every day. Yet unlike an MMO it takes place irl, you are your character, there's no logging off for a change of context to reflect wtf are you doing. And there's no deleting your character and uninstalling that part of your life forever. Simply turning on the TV or checking your newsfeed will call you right back into it with positive reinforcement from all the people you've been groomed to respect, the talking heads and internet personalities. And pathetic fellow players- often your irl pals. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, many of your nearest mental associations are to game poo poo because you're always kinda present in the game.
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Sep 7, 2021 17:01
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Hijinks Ensue posted:I have a strict "no politics" rule when I host Thanksgiving, and that's when we're all more or less on the same page. Anyone who violates the rule is banished from the table and gets to eat dry toast and stale Halloween candy instead of the big feast. My mom has a strict "No conservatives at Thanksgiving/Christmas" rule. Conservative family is still family. But that's why we have an annual family reunion and Easter and Mother's Day and Father's Day and the 4th of July and holiday parties that DON'T fall on those particular 2 dates. Everybody is happier if we just mail gifts and cards and we can yell about fukkin Trump, and they can yell about fukkin Fauci and the streams don't cross.
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Sep 7, 2021 17:48
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I feel like none of this is really limited to these people. Attention seeking, wanting to be included, wanting to be part of something... What is pretty special about these people is that ultimately the course of their life, for one reason or other, has resulted it being expressed in the worst way possible aside from literal crimes. I feel like that's still bad enough to write them off. Cut off contact to what degree is functionally possible.
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Sep 7, 2021 20:06
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As I see it, the special sauce that leads to fascists is a powerful, unjustified sense of wound pride. The more unearned and tenuous the better. If you feel like pride is wounded, you get to feel like a victim even when you retain all the power. A victim complex like that lets you turn the slightest thing going against you into an epic struggle. It makes you easy to manipulate, and snowballs as you drive away anyone around you who has even the slightest bit more perspective than you. It lets you use your unacknowledged power without ever having to examine its use. If you face a consequence then, well, that's just more fuel for the fire. With that in mind, alienating your family seems like a pretty natural progression of events. Either you get so far gone that no one involved can stand each other, or your family is an easy target of abuse for feeding your oh-so-precious pride. Either way, you get to nurse your unhinged grudges, safe from meaningful pushback.
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Sep 7, 2021 22:11
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:I can’t imagine that poo poo being the first or only thing to come into your head upon thinking about beagles. The thought terrifies me. It just becomes so natural that you don’t have any sense you’re being rude and you can’t think anything else. I was visiting a friend who'd just gone through a painful miscarriage, and she told me something which made my blood boil. She knew for a while that she was probably going to lose the baby and was heartbroken. She asked her mother to driver her to her latest doctor's appointment because she wasn't in any state to drive. Her mother replied that she didn't want to because "what if that doctor makes you have an abortion." She's trying to do everything in her power to have a child, and all her mom can think about is "baby + doctor = abortion." That's psychotic.
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Sep 11, 2021 18:11
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My uncle is covid vaccinated. He got the shots early on, which somewhat surprised me considering he's that type of individual that doesn't just breathe Fox News, but Fox Business News. He believes that since others are getting ill from breakthrough cases, that the vaccinations are useless. He lives in Florida.
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Sep 13, 2021 03:35
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For those of you who have parents or siblings that can "leave politics at the door" and "agree to disagree", consider yourselves extremely lucky because I envy you. If your family members have any personality disorders like NPD or BPD, conservative politics can turn into outright abuse. My mom doesn't even like Trump, hates Trump worshipping Republicans, but somehow finds them more tolerable than me. She's an old school fiscal conservative. "Tax dollars go to lazy people who don't want to work. I've worked hard for my wealth, so it shouldn't be taken from me and given to someone less deserving. Government is always incompetent and a horrible steward of tax dollars and shouldn't be regulating small businesses..." Now that she's older, she's bought into the cancel culture crap and loves making GBS threads on Millennials. If you say anything even remotely tangentially related to politics (even if it isn't, she'll find a way in which it is related), she'll launch into a sermon that hits the same points every loving time. You cannot push back on any of it because it will then be considered a personal attack and she'll respond in kind. I've learned to just nod my head and go "uh huh", "really, I didn't know that", "I can't believe that either", ... Ever since my dad died, she's gotten worse and I'm held hostage by her. I don't want to elaborate why I can't sever, because I've been mocked in this forum before and I don't feel like going through that again. I just feel an amazing amount of empathy for others who are going through the same thing. There are people who can't fight back against this horrible narrative within their family or social group. They're powerless.
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Sep 14, 2021 20:20
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Shoutout to those of us who know we have to  but can't because of ~reasons~ we don't want to go into. It's entirely valid and even if venting helplessly is all we can do, it's better than just silently sucking it up forever.
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Sep 14, 2021 20:31
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There's no safe level of exposure to someone like this but you might be able to lessen reactivity and therefore lessen damage to yourself with the grey rock strategy (fake edit: on review, sounds like this is what you're already doing, actually). This kind of person is a master improviser / segue artist, whatever you give them can be yes-anded into an opportunity to further expound their bullshit. It hurts to be around it. So be as boring as possible, giving them as little as possible. There's a cost to being a grey rock as in doing so you are being your false self, which gradually chips away at your self-respect, but you might be able to square it with your unconscious by framing the obdurate cluster B person as though they're a patient in hospice. Or maybe closer to the truth, a child without emotional regulation or empathy. What they say can just pass over you, it's no skin off your back, they don't even understand it themselves, and how unfortunate are they to be who they are. (This might not work for you though, it depends on the details of your situation.) Put in your time when you have to and then get on with your life. I'm sorry you can't sever.
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Sep 14, 2021 22:08
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Data Graham posted:That's part of what gets me, how can they not read the room? Do they really care that little that they are obviously making their loved ones uncomfortable? What do they think that thousand-yard stare and that attempt to change the subject to the local weather is all about? Do I LOOK like I want to hear your poo poo?? Others have touched on it but I think some of it has to do with being "edgy" and "telling it like it is". Like, if I'm not offending somebody or making them uncomfortable, I'm just being soft and politically correct because The Truth Doesn't Care about your feelings so I'm softening my opinions (being weak - the ultimate sin). If someone isn't pissed off at my language or my opinion, I must be lying. People like Rush Limbaugh sort of invented the model of the conservative rebel, if you will, and it sort of added a weird kind of cool to it. Prior to that, by the book types, salesmen, business majors, hardcore christians and corporate stuffed shirts were kind of viewed as square. For better or worse, my conservative dad and his wife died before Trump but they were pretty straight laced. My father and I would get into some heated arguments on occasion but mostly they were diffused by a sense of humor. He could be funny sometimes. He'd also admit when he didn't know something and listen to me when I did. I don't know what they'd think about Trump but I'm kind of glad I didn't get to find out. The humor thing to me is big because anymore it seems like most conservatives I know don't have a sense of humor at all and seem to enjoy being angry. They DRIVE angry. They SHOP angry. They DRESS angry (open carry, provocative tshirts, aggressive flag waving, etc.) I get their anger but it seems so woefully misplaced. Most of what they find funny is racist, slapstick or somehow involves punching down. Right wing media, to me, is a huge part of how we got here. 9/11 lit the fuse.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:16
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There's also just the basic element of anger being addictive, and constantly being a pariah in social situations means you're always riding a wave of righteous fury.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:36
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Yeah, and in my sister's childhood friends case, she starts whining about how hard it is to be a Republican right now, and starts gushing when she thinks she has a receptive audience as if it had been building up because she can't openly be herself / share her opinions anymore. Which is awesome. Deplatforming works.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:54
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BiggerBoat posted:Others have touched on it but I think some of it has to do with being "edgy" and "telling it like it is". Like, if I'm not offending somebody or making them uncomfortable, I'm just being soft and politically correct because The Truth Doesn't Care about your feelings so I'm softening my opinions (being weak - the ultimate sin). If someone isn't pissed off at my language or my opinion, I must be lying. People like Rush Limbaugh sort of invented the model of the conservative rebel, if you will, and it sort of added a weird kind of cool to it. The thing is there is a kernel of truth in that in that personal growth or societal growth or business growth, whatever your growth can't occur without conflict and honest disagreement and reflection. But that's the rub here right? Growth requires you to be wrong and self reflective.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:54
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Magic Hate Ball posted:There's also just the basic element of anger being addictive, and constantly being a pariah in social situations means you're always riding a wave of righteous fury. Someone noted this upthread and I think there's a lot of truth to it. I've known people that just always seemed to be finding things wrong, finding things to be angry about, people at work are plotting against them, why are you worrying about X you should be worrying about Y, you can't tell me what to do ... They're just exhausting to be around and you can't talk them out of it, but you also can't talk them into any action ... because then they would have nothing to be angry about.
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Sep 20, 2021 18:26
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Data Graham posted:That's part of what gets me, how can they not read the room? Do they really care that little that they are obviously making their loved ones uncomfortable? What do they think that thousand-yard stare and that attempt to change the subject to the local weather is all about? Do I LOOK like I want to hear your poo poo?? I don't know if this experience can be generalized to anyone else, but in watching my mother become a Trump-worshipper determined to inflict her beliefs on others, I think I see a desire for affirmation of her beliefs. We didn't always agree on politics before 2015 but our disagreements were never that strong, either, partly because her politics were never very coherent or passionate until Trump came along. We'd always had a pleasant relationship before then, so it was a new experience when I started disagreeing with her so vociferously, and I think she found it both thrilling and unsettling. Like a lot of MAGA types, I think she's a very insecure person, and likes how MAGA tells you that you never have to doubt yourself or admit you're wrong about anything, and that all our problems are someone else's fault. But the doubts are still there, and I think they are part of why she'd keep trying to find new angles to bring politics into conversation with me, even though it always went poorly. Over the years we got into a cycle where she'd bring up some political issue and ask my thoughts on it, then slip in some pro-Trump angle, then I'd make clear how awful that was and slam the window shut, and we'd avoid politics again for a few weeks or months. There were times where she would definitely bring it up just to get a rise out of me and thrill at saying something taboo, but every now and then I would get the impression that it bothered her that I wasn't telling her she was right, that she craved me finally admitting she was right and okay to believe what she believed. This was a person who had made motherhood the core of her identity and who probably placed far too much of her own self-worth in the lives of her ((now adult) children rather than her own, and I think it bothers her that we wouldn't validate her beliefs anymore. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this in their relationships. Like others have suggested, I think the thrill of the taboo, and enjoyment of the petty power to make people upset, is still the primary motivator for why MAGA types keep inflicting their poorly-received beliefs on family members. But wonder if an unstated desire for affirmation is part of the story, too.
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Sep 20, 2021 19:02
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Blotto_Otter posted:I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this in their relationships. Like others have suggested, I think the thrill of the taboo, and enjoyment of the petty power to make people upset, is still the primary motivator for why MAGA types keep inflicting their poorly-received beliefs on family members. But wonder if an unstated desire for affirmation is part of the story, too. In my experience, it's less of a desire affirmation but rather an utter unwillingness to ever admit that they might have been wrong.
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Sep 20, 2021 20:13
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For my mom I think it's a little bit of both of trying to feel powerful but also not willing to admit mistakes. My mom was a stay at home suburban mom is no higher education. She never tried to challenge herself. She just existed and took care of the kids. It was her choice to do so. After my brother and I got older and she didn't need to be a stay at home mom anymore. She would work kinda crappy jobs part time. All the stuff she got wrapped in made her feel special. She knew something that my dad, brother and I didn't know.
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Sep 20, 2021 20:26
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ILL Machina posted:Yeah, and in my sister's childhood friends case, she starts whining about how hard it is to be a Republican right now, and starts gushing when she thinks she has a receptive audience as if it had been building up because she can't openly be herself / share her opinions anymore. I love it when they compare it to being a victim of, like, sexism and racism. You have control over your own political beliefs and values! If you don't want people to call you out for being hateful, maybe stop saying hateful poo poo all the time?
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Sep 20, 2021 20:41
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ghost emoji posted:I love it when they compare it to being a victim of, like, sexism and racism. You have control over your own political beliefs and values! If you don't want people to call you out for being hateful, maybe stop saying hateful poo poo all the time? But then they'd have to admit that whatever instilled those beliefs and values into them were wrong
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Sep 20, 2021 20:42
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Alterian posted:For my mom I think it's a little bit of both of trying to feel powerful but also not willing to admit mistakes. My mom was a stay at home suburban mom is no higher education. She never tried to challenge herself. She just existed and took care of the kids. It was her choice to do so. After my brother and I got older and she didn't need to be a stay at home mom anymore. She would work kinda crappy jobs part time. All the stuff she got wrapped in made her feel special. She knew something that my dad, brother and I didn't know. I think there's something to this. My step mom was always a weird tradcath but the more her life went off the rails (because of self inflicted problems) the more she turned into a belligerent rear end in a top hat.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:04
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My mom grew up catholic as well. Now she thinks the pope is satan or something like that. I don't remember. There's goat heads and praying mantis involved.
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Sep 21, 2021 18:30
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Alterian posted:praying mantis involved
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Sep 21, 2021 18:45
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Alterian posted:There's goat heads and praying mantis involved. 
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Sep 21, 2021 19:04
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You can google Jonathan Kleck. I don't want to link directly to him. His youtube was down for a while. It looks like a few videos are back up? He's pretty prolific. Locusts, Mantis, insects in general are all the same to him. I think the mantis comes up a lot because they eat men and if you look at something and blur your eyes its's totally a locust so the pope is satan. Edit: This might be his new hidden youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkt9XrHimbraVQYNVVevUvA His videos are freaking an hour or more long of just loving garbage. I can only ever glance at them for a few seconds before turning them off. Alterian fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 19:39
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That guy is enchanted by his own ranting. Somehow his exhaust is also his fuel.
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Sep 21, 2021 21:24
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