What you shouldn't think
yuvalaizenman.posthaven.com
yuvalaizenman.posthaven.com
My sense is that the hyper-normative "correct" credo presented by mass media and social media is an equal and opposite response to something.
The paradigmatic selfie-taking "successful professional" who says and does all the right things has never seemed more a neurotic wreck underneath. The soul must pay for the energy it takes to maintain that appearance.
But also on a societal level, governments mobilising against hate speech and fake news, and the power of niche outrage groups, is proportional to the explosion of diversification and difference under the surface of "post-modern" society.
In other words, people act more normal than ever, but underneath feel more deviant and alienated than ever. That's somehow connected with the real roots of "imposter syndrome". No doubt it's a well recognised phenomenon amongst sociologists and probably has a name I'm ignorant of.
People write a lot about how they can’t express their beliefs anymore, but you can be a flat earther and be on YouTube and have conventions. There might be, in the US, less people willing to listen to the racist, sexist, and homophobic views that were so popular in the past without protest, but that response is because that is speech directed against people, not for an idea.
https://ifunny.co/picture/conservative-i-have-been-censored-...
Not monolithic but compressed. And not in actuality but in expectation.
> In my lifetime I have seen the variety of speech (US based tho I understand it is a global change) conveyed thru mass media explode in variety.
Yes! 60 years ago you had one job for life and dressed accordingly. Today you've been a Punk who works at Tesco, an Emo in IT, a Greaser in sales and a management suit by the time you're 25. The acceptable expectation is that you "advance". Restive variety of expression is de rigueur.
> From three TV stations and the newspaper to hundreds of channels, espousing everything from Yoga...
I disagree here. While the manifest variety of (mainly user generated) content has enriched, late capitalism has compressed meaningful choice via consolidation. There were 60 newspapers only couple of decades ago, scores of media companies... now we talk about the Big Five (or is it the Big Three now?)
> People write a lot about how they can’t express their beliefs anymore, but you can be a flat earther and be on YouTube and have conventions.
Indeed, that's part of the paradox around expectation. Writing about being oppressed by the man is normative. A "flat earther" could even work for NASA doing orbital calculations, and nobody would bat an eyelid, provided they did "flat earth stuff" in a respectable, acceptable way.
What is allowed and what is "expected" (and most cruelly expected of/by ourselves) are different things.
Who do you think cleans the windows on the ISS? And still they don't beleive.
I can't see how anyone can say this seriously. In our urban college-educated tech circles, your speech is heavily censored.
Joe Rogan runs the most popular podcast among young American men, and I haven't been in a single room over the last 5 years where I could openly profess to listening to him in an unqualified manner. Similarly, I haven't heard a single person say "I think ex-social justice darlings and the most successful comedian (Chapelle) and author (JK Rowling) are misunderstood".
In my 6 years as relatively extroverted person in the US, I have yet to run into a single Republican my age. That's half of all voters in this country. I had to jump around and obfuscate using vague language to even suggest that the books of Kendi/DiAngelo might have some criticisms. There are at least 10 more opinions which I think are 'duh' obvious and I won't dare say them on an account which can be traced to my identity.
In 2022, everyone lives in bubbles and those bubbles enforce a "monolithic hyper-normative 'correct' credo" onto everyone in that circle. I can only point to the ones I see in mine. The big change is that these circles are now all encompassing. The same wealthy-urban-highly-educated circle encompasses my work, friendships and dating life.
> There might be, in the US, less people willing to listen to the racist, sexist, and homophobic views that were so popular in the past without protest, but that response is because that is speech directed against people, not for an idea.
IMO, under the guise of 'good intentions' a lot of privileged Americans are happy to discard anyone who does not perfectly fit into their definition of 'ally'. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy too, because once you're accused, you are deemed guilty and immediately discarded. These outcasts then go to the only place that will professionally and socially them, and that usually tends to be the other similarly demanding circle of MAGA Republicans.
The idea that everyone's opinions are expected to naturally move in lock step with 2022 activists college students opinions is hilarious. The fact that this isn't obvious to some people deep in these circles is a scathing indictment and proof of how isolating these bubbles can be.
p.s: I am criticizing one type of 'imposing monolith' because it is the one I most often see myself surrounded by. I am sure there is a similar story of 'other groups monolith', but I don't have much visibility into that life.
People do not really discard easily - you must actually do or say something that is actively harmful, especially to them, and has been repeatedly shown to do so to be actually excluded. There is often a reason things are not said or done, and it is not something to be discarded offhand without looking into it. "But free speech" is never an excuse to be harmful.
People often do things without reflection. You already said you're a republican, branding yourself an ideologue or team sports player rather than someone one would want to discuss with. After all, how many ideologues does one need to talk with to know all their points in detail, especially as simple as US brand of neoliberal social conservatism?
I am a young-ish immigrant whose most recent partner worked in one of the SJWiest professional jobs. I am best friends with many communists (like real ones, who have immigrated from countries where that's a thing). I am the YIMBYiest of YIMBYs, an atheist and fairly good at keeping appearances. If I could vote, I would've ended up voting Democrat (however reluctantly). My almost-a-coop-house roommates were so diverse that we looked more like the painfully diverse university pamphlets than a real house, and it was the best time of my life. And I am actively moving to arguably the bluest neighborhoods in all of US some time in 2023.
What part of this reads Republican to you ? In fact, it is because I am considered an 'in' person, that I get to hear the kind of blind faith that gets peddled around as facts in many of the circles I inhabit.
> actively harmful
You keep saying that, but never elaborate on what you mean by it. It is convenient to have harmful mean "things said by people I am not supposed to like". I have been bullied enough through school to know what bullying looks like. The pressure to conform is now higher than ever.
The most dangerous people I've ever met have been the ones who are absolutely sure that they are right. Today, I see that strain most often among my fellow educated-urban-blue-coded circles.The fact that they are able to sustain a number of obvious logical contradictions in their heads points to a level of either brainwashing or fear that is dangerous for any human.
I don't dislike this new brand of pseudo-liberals because they hate the christian conservatives. I specifically dislike them because they ARE religious conservatives. Just a different religion.
> as simple as US brand of neoliberal social conservatism
The hubris to make that statement my man. Try to sit down with them for once, over weeks, over months and slowly their side of things will make sense to you. You don't have to agree with it. I don't either. But, 'without reflection' it is not. Sit down with someone with empathy and explore difficult topics. Nothing is obvious in this world. Deriving a worldview that is consistent with your core values is difficult, and we have so little visibility into the long term effects of our actions.
If a kid cannot access and process his emotions, he will eventually lose himself.
And most thoughts are not thought not because of crushing conventionality but because the space of possible thoughts is so large and complex and not all thoughts are useful. Having some dreamers around to generate less constrained ideas is fine, but having a few practical folks around to make the ideas more conventional is also useful.
In general, if you see a segment of society doing something that makes no sense to you, it is your understanding that is lacking; it is usually not that their apparent irrational thoughts serve no function in society.
I do see an ideal where those different thought segments will not override each other.
If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."
There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own: and already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous banner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavours to remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and to come.
Try criticising the moral supremacy of rational prediction (for example algorithmic policing) now, and they'll nail you to tree and set it on fire.
How long can you accurately predict a relatively simple system of weather? Climate only works because our forcing is big and the forces are highly predictable.
Social movements, moral ideas... good luck even setting an equation. Every attempt will be so approximate as to be worthless.
You know that. I know that. Anyone with an IQ in double figures knows that.
But they want it don't they. Or rather, they want to believe in it.
Because otherwise what else is there to put faith in but men, minds and meetings? We'd have to sit down and talk to each other like savages.
> That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed
Well, that's very debatable. "All religious authority"? "All" is doing some heavy-duty work in that sentence.
> It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own
Whenever you read this sentence, this is the most decadent age. This one, the one you're living in!
I looked up the quote and it's from G.K. Chesterton, a Christian apologist. Also the man for which the fence was named. But that's beside the point.
It totally tracks that an apologist would want to cast aspersions on scepticism in general. In a way, it's a tacit admission that religious thought is not rational and can never be defended on the basis of rationality or logic. So they stop trying and start trying to make the claim that rationality and logic just don't exist. That even acceptance of reality requires irrational faith. The idea is that once you accept that premise, you have to accept the premise of a deity also based on irrational faith.
But we can demonstrate that there is a shared reality that is not capable of being "thought" away. You can take any relatively sharp object and stab it through their hand. Now, if reality were subjective and based on irrational faith, he could trust in his faith to make his hand not stabbed. But we both know that's not going to happen, what's going to happen is that he's going to hurt. Solipsism is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
In brief, the brain seems to have affinity for different types of morality. The actual content of that morality is filled in by people you have respect for.
The flavors of morality he uses are
The Care/Harm Foundation
The Fairness/Cheating Foundation
The Loyalty/Betrayal Foundation
The Authority/Subversion Foundation
The Sanctity/Degradation Foundation
The Liberty/Oppression Foundation
These should not be used as absolutes. Humans have always formed tribes. It took me a month to finish the book and that wasn't because the words were hard, the concepts take a lot of emotional bandwidth.
Accidentally saying something unusual\upsetting\strange to family and friends is more likely to have blowback for the rest of your life
My main goal was to approach underlying social norms. I didn’t mean to point out that others do not know them and I do. I’ve tried to generalize examples that we all might notice and reason with.
How could’ve I done that better?
That scales to propaganda and censorship creating a new invariably catastrophic set of social norms (imposed instead of emergent).