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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Wow - it never occurred to me to frame political peer pressure as a matter of cognitive strain, rather than simply as a matter of personality traits or commitment to principles. I never really considered the fact that it could be physically difficult for people to maintain a set of public-facing lies, and that over time this could have a palpable effect on their actual beliefs. To me, it's water off my back to say that I'm voting for Kamala when I'm actually voting for Trump - I get a thrill out of constructing elaborate lies anyway, I view it as a sort of theatrical performance - but is this the case for everyone? Almost certainly not. It's something to keep in mind, anyway.

And if this does have measurable large-scale social effects, then that's a tough blackpill to swallow, because it implies that any "silent majority" that opposes wokeism will shrink over time, and the perception of wokeism's dominance will more and more become reality.

https://digitalagency.substack.com/p/compliance-and-the-erosion-of-agency

During the Korean War, captured American soldiers found themselves in POW camps run by Chinese Communists. The Red Chinese engaged in what they called “lenient policy,” which was a sophisticated psychological assault on their captives... The Chinese were very effective in getting Americans to inform on one another, in contrast to the behavior of American POWs in WWII.

The Chinese answer was to start small and build. Prisoners were asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential "The United States is not perfect." "In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem." Once they complied with these minor requests, the men were pushed to submit to more substantive ones. A man who had agreed that the United States is not perfect might be asked provide examples. He might then be asked to make a list of "problems with America" and sign his name. Later, he might be asked to read his list in a discussion group with other prisoners. “After all, it’s what you really believe, isn’t it?” Still later he might be asked to write an essay expanding on his list and discussing these problems in greater detail.

Suddenly he would find himself a "collaborator."

Leftists have understood and exploited the nature of human weakness and malleability to power structures for over a century. They are very good at it. Every lie they tell and every middle school bullying tactic is carefully tailored to warp their victims into a shape the torturer wants. They see themselves as sculpting the human mind the way dog trainers condition dogs. "Engineers of The Soul" as one essay put it.

How would you describe the way society worked for millenia before the leftists?

There was no Foucault and no panopticon, just brutal violence and local suppression.

More brute force, fewer mind games

Wow - it never occurred to me to frame political peer pressure as a matter of cognitive strain, rather than simply as a matter of personality traits or commitment to principles. I never really considered the fact that it could be physically difficult for people to maintain a set of public-facing lies, and that over time this could have a palpable effect on their actual beliefs.

This was one of the core themes of 1984, from what I recall, that if you force someone to say a lie enough times, then the cognitive dissonance, or "doublethink," between what they believe and what they say becomes too difficult to maintain, and it gets resolved by their beliefs matching their actions (speech). I think this is an important insight that explains human behavior in all sorts of contexts, not just ideological or political. In the end, Winston truly, honestly, in his heart of hearts, loves Big Brother, just like Picard in that one Star Trek episode about 4 lights that was referencing 1984 truly, honestly believed that he saw 5 lights despite there being 4. I think one aspect 1984 got pretty wrong is in how it vastly overestimated how much effort it would take to cause someone to truly, honestly, believe that metaphorically 2 lights plus 2 lights make 5 lights. The organizations in the novel and the protocols they followed seem like someone bringing an RPG to a situation where a Nerf gun would suffice.

And if this does have measurable large-scale social effects, then that's a tough blackpill to swallow, because it implies that any "silent majority" that opposes wokeism will shrink over time, and the perception of wokeism's dominance will more and more become reality.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen this exact sequence of events outlined by a "woke" person as the means by which they will actually come to become dominant. Honestly, I thought this assumption was sort of "baked in" to any sort of analysis of the "woke" (and more broadly any authoritarian ideological movement that coerces people into repeating certain lines).

IIRC doublethink was not what you describe, but the ability for Ingsoc subjects to believe two contradictory things at the same time and to reflexively shut down any realization of the contradiction ("crimestop"). Good modern examples are instances of what Michael Anton calls "The Celebration Parallax" ("That's not happening, and it's good that it is").

It's been a long time since I read the book, but IIRC "doublethink" had 2 different definitions, possibly contradictory by intentional design. I'd thought that what I wrote was one of the definitions, but it seems similar enough to what you wrote that your definition might be one of the correct ones, and mine isn't.

I could believe that there were two definitions. I don't remember well enough either.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen this exact sequence of events outlined by a "woke" person as the means by which they will actually come to become dominant.

"By informing people that the expression of racist or sexist attitudes in public is unacceptable, people may eventually learn that such views are undesirable in private, as well. Thus, Title VII may advance the goal of eliminating prejudices and biases in our society."

From a footnote to the opinion of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, 858 F. 2d 345 - Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Company

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