- My Imaginary GF
- Jul 17, 2005
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by R. Guyovich
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There ain't no loving quest, the oppo wants to win and loves power. Everyone loves power, its loving amazing. Individuals attempt to empower themselves by coalescing in communities which afford them accolades; some of these accolades take the form of actual power and wealth, others, of imagined wealth.
The importance ain't that everyone is out for more, its that proper institutions force individuals to abandon their priviledges and accept the burdens of responsibility.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:53
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May 11, 2024 15:59
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- My Imaginary GF
- Jul 17, 2005
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by R. Guyovich
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Interesting article. For my two cents, I would say that the key to challenging closed-minded thinking is to not engage it rationally but rather through building rapport and trust with the individual in question. Humanities' tribal nature that helped us band together as hunters and gatherers is what now holds us back as we stubbornly pick Right/Left, Republican/Democrat, etc. Any direct confrontation with the closed-minded will be viewed as an antagonistic action regardless of intent because they will view such interactions as being from an "Other". By engaging the social parts of a person's mind first, you are taking a backdoor past their mental defenses and moving from being seen as "Other" to being seen as "One of the Tribe". It is at that point that open and honest discussion can be had with the close-minded.
Daryl Davis is one of my personal heroes on this matter. The absolute balls it took to be a black man risking an interview with KKK leadership coupled with a godlike amount of compassion and tolerance to engage the members without hostility just blows my mind. And you can't argue with the results. The man has a closet full of KKK robes from former members who quit after he befriended them.
Also, as much as I hate to admit it, I was also once part of the Religious Right. I grew up deep in the Bible Belt born to a ultra-conservative fundamentalist family and homeschooled to boot. So to say I was entrenched in that ideology is an understatement. I have specific memories from that time of trying to explore opposing points of view and unfortunately the (as I percieved it) abrasive manner in which I first experienced things like feminism and socialism drove me away from exploring them fully. At that point I mistakenly regarded my limited knowledge of those concepts as being indicative of the whole and I went back to the comfortable echo chambers of my church groups and talk radio. It wasn't until my early twenties during a major existential crisis that I bothered to challenge my ideas again. That time around, helped in part by this forum and the maturation of the internet in general, I was able to get a much clearer picture of many topics regarding religion, gender issues, and politics. But who knows? If I hadn't read level-headed discussions on the flaws of conservative politics, would I have changed my political beliefs? If I hadn't read a critical analysis of the movie Aliens, would I have taken the road toward third-wave feminism? I'd like to think that I am smart enough that I would have done so eventually. But who know?
The key to changing minds is to force individuals to admit inappropriate opinions are inappropriate through whatever means necessary, be it bullying, violence, ostrication, isolation, imprisonment, or general throwing them to institutional wolves.
Some individuals respond to carot; some to stick; still others are too far gone for appropriate life.
I'm thinking Walter Cronkite times. You had a three-channel media, and people still read the same newspapers. Vetted, legitimate information was stored in libraries. Access to non-mainstream ideas took real work, and people with weird, out-there ideas were isolated, rather than connected by the internet.
The media consolidation created more unified opinions and for better or for worse, tended to limit the diversity of opinions on world events. The fracturing caused by the explosion of options near the end of Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, and finally, 24 hour news and the advent of the internet have massively democratized the information ecosystem.
I think it took away a comforting (if possibly misguided) sense that Americans had that old Walter Cronkite was delivering them news they could trust, and not feel fooled or lied to.
I could be wrong, but that's the impression I have gotted of the period.
You vomit wordsalad. Times are changing, control over narrative loosened, methodologies to improvd predictive analysis of the street are the future and why BM owns and you just bones, grandpa.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:00
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Mar 17, 2015 21:53
