The Political Effects of Arrogance

[cwjerome]

Thoughts on the passing scene...

The SJW "movement" is a marginal sideshow, yet it got me thinking about their psychology and how it effects others. I bet a lot of people are partly sympathetic to some aspects of of the general message, but are completely lost by the nature of the argument. Namely, the holier-than-thou aspect and consistently laying down principles as incontrovertibly true.

Instead of the opposition being wrong, the the opposition is morally inferior and even sinister. Instead of the opposition being traditional, or idealistic, or just plain silly, the opposition are less developed humans compared to those who are very special, better, and care more.

The social justice warriors present more theory and certainty than empirical evidence or historical reasoning. They are the anointed, and everybody else are bad people.

The psychological dysfunction of the SJW crowd is the same infection we've had with politics in general. The Left has been pretty good at this for a long time, and the Right has more recently perfected it with their brand of evangelicalism. Now it's solutions over trade-offs, abstractions over pragmatism, and theory over evidence. Now we don't seek the most tolerable imperfections, we seek absolutism. Certainty has replaced compromise. We are extremely partisan and polarized today not because of ideas... it all stems from that basic characteristic we see in the SJW movement: the psychology of superiority, and that the opposition isn't simply wrongheaded, but it's good versus evil.

 

[SMOGZINN]

It is not good vs. evil. It is Us vs. Them. It has always been Us vs. Them. There is little difference between to tribes of people, but one tribe we have labeled US and the other we have labeled THEM. Once you label a group as THEM it becomes increasingly easy to dehumanize them, because they are by definition not like US.

 

[cwjerome]

I believe it's a bit more than Us vs. Them. People construct all varieties of in and out groups for everything from pro sports to ethnicity, and this broad social categorization of peoples is extremely common and in some ways natural. What I'm talking about is more specific... it's a particular type of Us vs. Them that is more virulent based on what I described above. People don't just think differently, but they very are bad people. It's a little less about social identity and a little more about moral superiority.

We've had Us vs. Them political groups for a very long time, but things have changed in the last 20-25 years. For too many, it's crossed over into an implicit good vs. evil paradigm with predictable results like huge increases in partisan polarity. Some might think I'm parsing words, but I don't think the Us vs. Them concept goes far enough in explaining this behavior beyond vague generalities.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Thoughts on the passing scene...

The SJW "movement" is a marginal sideshow, yet it got me thinking about their psychology and how it effects others. I bet a lot of people are partly sympathetic to some aspects of of the general message, but are completely lost by the nature of the argument. Namely, the holier-than-thou aspect and consistently laying down principles as incontrovertibly true.

Instead of the opposition being wrong, the the opposition is morally inferior and even sinister. Instead of the opposition being traditional, or idealistic, or just plain silly, the opposition are less developed humans compared to those who are very special, better, and care more.

The social justice warriors present more theory and certainty than empirical evidence or historical reasoning. They are the anointed, and everybody else are bad people.

The psychological dysfunction of the SJW crowd is the same infection we've had with politics in general. The Left has been pretty good at this for a long time, and the Right has more recently perfected it with their brand of evangelicalism. Now it's solutions over trade-offs, abstractions over pragmatism, and theory over evidence. Now we don't seek the most tolerable imperfections, we seek absolutism. Certainty has replaced compromise. We are extremely partisan and polarized today not because of ideas... it all stems from that basic characteristic we see in the SJW movement: the psychology of superiority, and that the opposition isn't simply wrongheaded, but it's good versus evil.

"I'm so meta, even this acronym"

Was the irony intended? You've managed to be a perfect example of the behavior you're talking about.

I mean, complaining about a movement, and it's insufficient for your to say they're wrong, instead they're arrogant and psychologically dysfunctioning?

 

[cwjerome]

Well... you make a fair point and maybe my wording was a little harsh, but I don't think I am a perfect example of the behavior I am talking about. I advocate moderation and compromise, and I certainly don't see the groups I've mentioned as evil. I only mention psychology because of the relation to social identity and groupthink.

 

[OverVolt]

Just use the internet less. It is culturally deficient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

 

[DigDog]

the SJW phenomenon is funny; as is Modern Atheism, Feminism, PETA, and all this bullshit that generated out of first gen YouTube and social media in general.

because it only exists in the US and you seem to think it's happening worldwide.

sure we might get one or two morons here who take it seriously, but it's not a trend.

 

[cwjerome]

The thrust of my argument isn't about SJW (and I don't know or care if that's happening worldwide), I was using that particular group as an example of a general mindset of the Left-Right divisiveness in American national government. That is, the extreme partisan polarity is in a large part the result of a good versus evil way of thinking, and not so much about the actual ideas.

The "anointed ones" on either side see themselves as fundamentally morally superior to the point of disallowing any meaningful, productive relationship with the opposition.

 

[OverVolt]

Yea well as more and more people get their news from the internet and ad revenue is driven by clickbait expect it to just get worse. I've stopped taking anything on the internet seriously long ago. Health, news, politics, you name it. The internet is now a generally shitty source of information.

 

[sm625]

We are extremely partisan and polarized today

This is simply not true. How can people be polarized when both the left and the right are for open borders, mass illegal immigration, exportation of jobs, expansion of federal government power, expansion of corporate power, mass deficits, government intervention in housing and education, government protection of medical monopolies, government arms sales to drug gangs, militarization of police, arming and provoking extremists in the middle east, conducting a pointless and costly war on drugs, the list goes on and on and all of it is supported by the left and the right. The real arrogance is the completely false assumptions that people have about their elementary political party choices meaning anything.

 

[alcoholbob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1tFbZ5kaY8

 

[cwjerome]

This is simply not true. How can people be polarized when both the left and the right are for open borders, mass illegal immigration, exportation of jobs, expansion of federal government power, expansion of corporate power, mass deficits, government intervention in housing and education, government protection of medical monopolies, government arms sales to drug gangs, militarization of police, arming and provoking extremists in the middle east, conducting a pointless and costly war on drugs, the list goes on and on and all of it is supported by the left and the right. The real arrogance is the completely false assumptions that people have about their elementary political party choices meaning anything.

Weird huh? The fact that there can be so much partisan polarization yet real differences between the two are usually just a matter of a few degrees. This makes the situation even more discouraging.

 

[Murloc]

the SJW phenomenon is funny; as is Modern Atheism, Feminism, PETA, and all this bullshit that generated out of first gen YouTube and social media in general.

because it only exists in the US and you seem to think it's happening worldwide.

sure we might get one or two morons here who take it seriously, but it's not a trend.

this

The thrust of my argument isn't about SJW (and I don't know or care if that's happening worldwide), I was using that particular group as an example of a general mindset of the Left-Right divisiveness in American national government. That is, the extreme partisan polarity is in a large part the result of a good versus evil way of thinking, and not so much about the actual ideas.

The "anointed ones" on either side see themselves as fundamentally morally superior to the point of disallowing any meaningful, productive relationship with the opposition.

and this.

A good question is whether this violent debate culture is shaped by the polical system (i.e. the institutional bipolarism encourages political polarization and virulent debate and this spread to the internet and other fields), or whether the political system is a consequence of american debate/political culture and its lib vs con polarization is just one manifestation among several (third wave feminism, SJW etc.).

Still, this polarization is nothing compared to the French revolution and liberal revolutions in the 19th century in general.

My country is exactly the opposite of polarized, yet it was only in 1890 that my state had its last coup d'état in the context of liberal vs conservative fight. Gerrymandering and various games put in place by conservatives to stay in power were part of the reasons it happened.

What happened afterwards is that the swiss federation forced proportional representation and consociationalism on the canton in order to bring peace, creating an experiment that brought political stability to the whole country.

Maybe the american legal system due to its pecularities freezed the political system in place according to the canons of that era (i.e. divisive politics, only one of the two fronts can be in government at a time and must have big powers to get anything accomplished, and there were no socialists or greens back then, just libs and cons), consequently also blocking changes in political culture.

 

[woolfe9998]

Ideological differences expressed as differences of opinion on various issues are masking the real conflict, which is cultural. The real divide is old v. young, urban v. rural, white v. minority, male v. female, south v. north, theist v. atheist, etc. We are intractable in our opinions and demonize those who disagree because fundamentally we don't like them. We don't like them because they are different from us.

 

[Moonbeam]

There is only Love. Sometimes love is called God. The universe was created and sustained by Gods love. Nothing happens that is not God's will and everything that happens happens exactly as it is supposed to. Islam is the surrender to the will pf Allah. There can be no strife or contention. There can be no blame for anyone. Sweet surrender is all that there is.

The mind of God is united. God IS from Alpha to Omega. But we partook of the Apple from the tree of knowledge and started to name things, We invented names for things that don't exist, things like good and evil. We created duality, the notion of opposites like right and left, the right good, the left sinister, all imaginations that have no reality at all, except that we experience these delusions from the time we are born, that how we were born is sinful and we must earn the title of good. In this way did man learn to hate his very true nature and create the pretense of ego, the I that has forgotten its past, the I that is an imagination, the I that creates evil out of thin air. that turns its back and will never touch love again. First love is open and innocent, the place we were in when we were crushed. Now we are ruled by pay back.

Everything happens exactly as it must, the protester becomes the protested. The door out is straight down when you collapse and surrender. There is only love and the grief of we who were broken by the load. The death of ego is the resurrection.