Ideological Fault Lines in (Post-)Mormonism

[jpatterson]

This thread should probably be in spirit paradise.

ME and I have sidetracked what was on-topic into political territory. So I'm moving that side discussion to Paradise.

I think the general premise of the thread still applies here.

[Analytics]

...The "we" that existed was not because of opposition to the Soviet Union and in fact pre-existed the Soviet Union....

Before the Soviet Union we were we, and they were the Nazis and Japanese. My impression was that politicians who belong to the "greatest generation" tended to get along relatively well was because so many of them fought together in WWII. That may have been a high point for Congress functioning. Or a myth. Believe whatever narratives you prefer.

It's obvious that this pathology manifest differently on each side, and that there is not a single one-to-one equivalency. But the left hand and the right hand are extensions of the same sick body, and the self-righteousness paranoia emanating from that body is the one the thing all Americans are united on. This thread starts out at realizing that there is something rotten in Denmark, but it quickly turns into a series of self-admiring apologia for Claudius because of the convenient and apparently comforting truth that Hamlet really is insane.

You aren't crazy if your dead father's ghost really does tell you to avenge his death.

Anyway, you do make some good points. There are psychological and sociological reasons why people divide themselves up into us vs. them, and see virtue in us and malevolence in them. That's totally true. And our relatively mobile and semi-virtual universe allows an actual and virtual Great Sort to happen. We no longer have to get our news from the local paper and Walter Cronkite, and we no longer have to talk to our neighbors if they hold the wrong political views. And we don't even have to stay in that neighborhood if the political ads on their front lawns get too obnoxious. So we don't have to confront the reality of their views and can feel righteous indignation about the caricature we have of them.

And the problem is exasperated by a two-party system where too much power is controlled by the party itself. If you don't fall in line with your party's leader, the party will not support your legislative agenda or your reelection campaign. Your own party will punish you severely for doing anything other than falling in line.

Having gotten all that out of the way, let's return to the real issue--that They on the Right really are worse than Us on the Left. Quoting Psychology Today:

Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals.The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.

That goes a long way to describe why Conservatives get their news from fearmongers on Fox News and AM talk radio, while Liberals get their news from NPR and the New York Times.

The other thing that is different is that America's political right really has figured out the science of demonizing their political opponents. I'm not saying the left doesn't make some effort to implement their own propaganda, but the manipulators on the right really are without conscience. The best example of this is the right's reaction to Obamacare. The truth of the matter is that Obamacare had many shortcomings and weaknesses. It had major room for improvement. But still, its underlying premise was based upon Romneycare in Massachusetts, which in turn was based on a plan originally devised by the Heritage Foundation.

Did the Republicans in Congress make any constructive suggestions for improving a law that fundamentally was conservative in nature? No. Did they engage in honest debate about the law's merits? No. Did they offer any alternatives to the healthcare system? No.

Did they even try to understand the bill? No!

Instead, they hired Frank Luntz to conduct focus groups to scientifically determine what description of a complicated healthcare bill would be the scariest to average Americans. It turns out that calling Obamacare a "government takeover of the healthcare system" was scientifically proven to be the scariest thing they could say, despite the fact that this characterization had nothing to do with what Obamacare actually proposed. So Republicans at all levels and their pundits went on a 24/7 blitz of calling Obamacare a government takeover of healthcare.

[Symmachus]

Before the Soviet Union we were we, and they were the Nazis and Japanese. My impression was that politicians who belong to the "greatest generation" tended to get along relatively well was because so many of them fought together in WWII. That may have been a high point for Congress functioning. Or a myth. Believe whatever narratives you prefer.

I think that is not entirely a myth, though it has taken on features of myth, with consequent distortions. The dysfunction of congress and much else in American government, in my view, has much more to do with structural changes, which in turn have had a warping effect on a disintegrating national culture. Americans had a very strong sense of shared national identity even before the Second World War. The kinds of rhetoric about American identity that we have seen since the late 60s and which have been loudly amplified in recent decades have been part of an overall erosion of American identity.

Here's an example of what I mean: the progressive scholars of US history writing at the turn of the last century had some very radical ideas for the time about the origin of the country (Charles Beard, for example, is often incorrectly characterized as Marxist, because he often reads that way). Yet even critiques like his, which basically interpret the United States as a project of the propertied classes against the masses in order to enrich themselves, did not mean, to the progressive historians, that America was a fundamentally evil creation. Not so with our progressive historians today. Merely flying an American flag will in many parts of the country—and in certain institutions where historians are lucky enough to be paid—will be interpreted as an assertion of white supremacy and endorsement of genocide and exploitation. That kind of sentiment is only on the rise in many those parts of society that dominate the cultural and political agendas, and there is no way a shared identity can hold when the ruling classes of the country and their supporters thinks all the rest are evil, stupid, or some combination of both. That is a new development. That is merely one example but they are legion.

You aren't crazy if your dead father's ghost really does tell you to avenge his death.

Both can be true.

There are psychological and sociological reasons why people divide themselves up into us vs. them, and see virtue in us and malevolence in them. That's totally true. And our relatively mobile and semi-virtual universe allows an actual and virtual Great Sort to happen. We no longer have to get our news from the local paper and Walter Cronkite, and we no longer have to talk to our neighbors if they hold the wrong political views. And we don't even have to stay in that neighborhood if the political ads on their front lawns get too obnoxious. So we don't have to confront the reality of their views and can feel righteous indignation about the caricature we have of them.

I don't see that that is actually what is happening. This isn't about politics primarily, though politics is where it is most readily on display and certainly policies can have distorting effect. People aren't self-segregating and choosing news sources that confirm their biases because they have passionate views on foreign policy or the marginal tax rate or health care reform. Even those issues are now framed culturally (for example, Democrats recently linking Middle Eastern politics to the identity politics—not my favorite descriptor, but it will have to do for now—of this country; Republicans do likewise with other issues).

And the problem is exasperated by a two-party system where too much power is controlled by the party itself. If you don't fall in line with your party's leader, the party will not support your legislative agenda or your reelection campaign. Your own party will punish you severely for doing anything other than falling in line.

Not the party but the primary voters and especially the donors. Campaign finance reform was a terrible idea. It has made the parties extremely weak by historical standards. Added to that, most voters aren't even responding to politicians; they are responding to networks. Fox News is much more powerful than the Republican party, as the so obviously liberal media establishments are much more powerful than the Democratic party, which is blurry-lined shadow of its former self. It was really something to see the New York Times interrogating the would-be nominees in the Democratic presidential race. Very instructive indeed.

Having gotten all that out of the way, let's return to the real issue--that They on the Right really are worse than Us on the Left. Quoting Psychology Today:

Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals.The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.

You’re endorsing an approach towards people who view things differently from you that bypasses their own self-understanding and instead simply pathologists them and medicalises their perspective. This pseudo-science isn't worth taking seriously, sorry. Not merely on its own terms—this is hardly a clinically rigorous study, and "conservative" has a different meaning in the UK, especially back in 2011, and of course "conservative" and "liberal" are not objective terms anyway, nor is "fear" for that matter—but I have watched liberals obsessively scratching themselves in panic since Trump got elected. The pandemic response invalidates in my mind the very tired narrative liberals tell each other: conservatives are just scared of what is new, unlike we open-minded liberals. Uh huh. Sure. What happened to Kwaku's amygdala, by the way?

That goes a long way to describe why Conservatives get their news from fearmongers on Fox News and AM talk radio, while Liberals get their news from NPR and the New York Times.

Oh, you're serious?

All American media is fear mongering and entertainment. Everybody now is following the Fox News model because it is the only profitable one. These are goddamn media companies, not public services.

By the way, have you ever read Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent?

And also, how much C-SPAN do you watch? I don't mean a call-in show like Washington Journal or even the televised performances in Congress but the lectures at think tanks, interviews on Book Notes, and so on. One can see discussions and questions that aren't filtered through narratives—everything the media do is couched in narrative—and you will find many, many smart people in government or academia or in institutions connected to government who have worthwhile and persuasive things to say—conservatives and liberals and many in between and outside that imaginary divide who are both committed to their political ideals and trying to do what they think is right. It is one thing to see a politician on a cable news slot but something else when they are given a free form to answer sincere questions rather than the bullsh!t questions of mid-wit journalists. When a narrative is not being imposed on you by an intermediary—that is literally what "media" means—you see people much differently.

The other thing that is different is that America's political right really has figured out the science of demonizing their political opponents.

Again, complete lack of self-awareness here. You yourself have just posted a claim dressed up as science that the other side is suffering from a brain issue that leaves them in a state of fear, and you imply that they lack agency because they are manipulated by propagandists who play to their irrational fears—and you believe this is all just the objective reality that you, the analytical person, have approached rationally! Doesn't that strike you as an amazing coincidence to have found out that the people you disagree with are just crazy? You can now dismiss these humans as irrelevant. I would submit to you that the left has done an amazing job of demonizing their political opponents, because they have convinced you of all this to the point that you exhibit no skepticism and on this post at least no awareness of what a caricature you are presenting, not only of the other side but of your own—and you back it up with a link to a half-assed political project dressed in social science garb popularized in an online magazine. The New York Times knows how to play to their audience just as well as Fox news does. In fact, I think they are much better, because Fox News viewers know they are watching conservative news, but New York Times readers and NPR listeners think they are just being good citizens by getting their news-entertainment from respectable and supposedly reputable outlets: there is no wall in their mind between their own perceptions and reality. It reminds me of the old Soviet joke: What's the difference between a New York Times reader and a Pravda reader? The Pravda reader knows it's all bullsh!t.

I'm not saying the left doesn't make some effort to implement their own propaganda, but the manipulators on the right really are without conscience.

Yes, again, only the propagandists on your side have a conscience. They only "make an effort" and "implement" something that you admit is propaganda? The whole snake-oil business of "fact-checking" is a lot more than "making an effort" but it is still propaganda.

I'm sure you can point to many examples. Conservatives feel exactly the same about the left and will have their examples (we just saw four years of endless attacks on Trump, many of which were justified, but some of the most egregious falsehoods ended up being completely vicious nonsense, and I see no signs of any conscience about that: of course it hurt Trump, which was the goal, but it hurt the national culture in ways that are beyond repair at this point. Fuc3ing shameful.). But the fact is that political operators and especially political consultants do not have consciences. Period. It's not their job. Ask the Bernie Sanders supporters if they think David Brock has a conscience. You mention Frank Luntz...which side does he support now? Is that because he grew a conscience? Did Dick Morris have a conscience and then lose it? All of these people are opportunists who are trying to maximize their profit. None of them care.

The best example of this is the right's reaction to Obamacare. The truth of the matter is that Obamacare had many shortcomings and weaknesses. It had major room for improvement. But still, its underlying premise was based upon Romneycare in Massachusetts, which in turn was based on a plan originally devised by the Heritage Foundation.

Did the Republicans in Congress make any constructive suggestions for improving a law that fundamentally was conservative in nature? No. Did they engage in honest debate about the law's merits? No. Did they offer any alternatives to the healthcare system? No.

Did they even try to understand the bill? No!

Instead, they hired Frank Luntz to conduct focus groups to scientifically determine what description of a complicated healthcare bill would be the scariest to average Americans. It turns out that calling Obamacare a "government takeover of the healthcare system" was scientifically proven to be the scariest thing they could say, despite the fact that this characterization had nothing to do with what Obamacare actually proposed. So Republicans at all levels and their pundits went on a 24/7 blitz of calling Obamacare a government takeover of healthcare.

See, you think you've got a real gotcha moment here that illustrates the depravity of the Right, when actually you just don't understand them. Sure, the strategy meant to whip up voters was a cheap simplification, as all campaigns are. But no amount messaging one way or the other would change the fact that conservative politicians and activists and conservatives who follow politics were opposed to that because they oppose the federalization of state programs on principle and (rightly) saw Obamacare as nudging the country towards a national health care system—which is exactly where the discussion has gone with "Medicare For All" (puzzling that Democrats don't tout Obamacare as a great success).

Now, that is not a principle I share with them, but I can at least understand it and I accept that it was a trade-off. And if you don't like the fact that they have to whip up voters in this way, how else would you like this to happen in a democratic system with more than 150 million voters? And you too are in that system. So surely you remember that the Democrats also had principled reasons for supporting it (which I did and still do), but they needed to swoop up votes as well in their own net of lies ("you can keep your doctor..." one of only two lines that anybody can ever quote from memory from an Obama speech, despite his reputation for being a great orator). The overall messaging was more positive because it was about helping people rather than preserving a political position, but it was no less duplicitous. Did Obamacare actually do anything about the cost of health care? No, because it needed the support of hospitals, who set prices opaquely, and they have a made killing off of Obamacare (at this point, patients are ATM cards for accessing either private insurance money or medicare/medicaid). Did they repeal that part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, signed by a Democratic President, that effectively limits the number of residencies in the US each year and thus depresses the labor pool of doctors, in turn driving up wages and increasing the cost? No, because the American Medical Association opposed it for obvious reasons. How about prescriptions drugs? And on and on. It's simply not true that Republicans had nothing constructive to offer. I watched hours and hours of hearings on this on C-SPAN in 2009 and 2010, Analytics. Most supported the elements of the law that are still the most popular (especially the issue of pre-conditions). The Obama administration simply didn't need their votes, though, so didn't care about what they had to say and made it clear there were no concessions on offer. Then the Democrats lost an easy election in Massachusetts—by that time it was too late, so they went with budget reconciliation. It was much more complicated than your portrayal (and mine). And it is this way with issue after issue, but you'd never know if you rely on the New York Times and NPR. They are more prestigious and more sophisticated in their presentation and far more skilled at crafting a narrative that appears non-partisan, but they are not essentially different from Fox News and NPR. Not these days, anyway.

I will gladly beat up on Republicans, but the blind faith of this thread's many Democratic supporters in their own righteousness is reflective of this turn in the culture that we are all supposed to believe is about politics yet is manifesting itself as something that has the feeling of a religious dispute. I'm not saying that politics is religion or even that it has replaced it (though it clearly is gone!). I can't quite put my finger on it. It seems to me that, basically, there is a series of disruptions that have been happening more or less simultaneously if not in tandem, and they've also started to converge. These kinds of convergences don't resolve themselves gently.

[Mayan Elephant]

I will gladly beat up on Republicans, but the blind faith of this thread's many Democratic supporters in their own righteousness is reflective of this turn in the culture that we are all supposed to believe is about politics yet is manifesting itself as something that has the feeling of a religious dispute. I'm not saying that politics is religion or even that it has replaced it (though it clearly is gone!). I can't quite put my finger on it. It seems to me that, basically, there is a series of disruptions that have been happening more or less simultaneously if not in tandem, and they've also started to converge. These kinds of convergences don't resolve themselves gently.

YES! And, thank you.

So many good points. So many. Well done. Well said. Very thoughtful post. I have selected this highlight for its summary of your post. I am, however, saluting and acknowledging the entirety of your post.

[Mayan Elephant]

By the way, have you ever read Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent?

Reminded me of this. I have not read the whole book. I enjoyed the audio sample and will get to it soon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VY ... Brian Laundrie_vppi_i0

[Mayan Elephant]

I will gladly beat up on Republicans, but the blind faith of this thread's many Democratic supporters in their own righteousness is reflective of this turn in the culture that we are all supposed to believe is about politics yet is manifesting itself as something that has the feeling of a religious dispute. I'm not saying that politics is religion or even that it has replaced it (though it clearly is gone!). I can't quite put my finger on it. It seems to me that, basically, there is a series of disruptions that have been happening more or less simultaneously if not in tandem, and they've also started to converge. These kinds of convergences don't resolve themselves gently.

This may seem redundant to re-quote this summary twice again.

You have, in a subtle way, described the political landscape almost perfectly, while also predicting the next phase.

The righteousness of the D supporters in this thread is not unique, it is the new brand of the left and the party. That is not entirely a bad thing. In moderation, it is a good thing. In spun-out extreme perimeter dickishness, it is not a great thing at all. In a balanced state, the combination of selfishness, conscientiousness and self-care is a great thing. It speaks truth to power. It would have the party and the community taking care of all of us and the country by caring and curing with a keen awareness of the needs of themselves and the group.

This selfish conscientiousness has gone too damn far for too damn long and is now, however, anchored in self-victimization. The party and its supporters have positioned themselves as the only righteous victim. However, they cannot be pacified. It will never be enough. It will never be their fault. They are the only entitled clan and everyone must pay for the all the wrongnesses, both real and imagined.

I am not discounting real victimization. There are real victims of real atrocities. However, every g*damn democrat is not a real victim of the imagined crap they have going on their heads. And, every person that doesn't pacify their nonsense is not the culprit for the self-prescribed feelings of horror and threat that are spun into a feelings goulash by NPR, The NYT and the social media silos and algorithms.

So, what is the convergence ahead? We have a glimpse of it already. It is being advertised and solicited and foreshadowed. Look no further than this thread and its stepchild thread in the Spirit Paradise. It is this simple - The conditions are being set. One side is saying.... We are the victims of your atrocities, accept these terms! The other side will consider whether to accept or reject the terms, and whether to do so in their own spun-out form (possibly aggression, possibly submission, possibly their own self-victimization, possibly they will act like Romney and choose imitation.) They could choose to accept or reject the terms of the self-righteous with a more balanced approach (their own self-care, service, surrender or assertiveness.)

Here is the problem though, the self-righteous instigators are showing that they do not care about credibility and would rather roll the dice and hope for that extreme submission from their opponent. They are underestimating the populists, who find no credibility in either side. When the populists (which are BOTH left and right) choose fight over flight, we will have a problem. I truly believe that this is what the combined McConnell-esque/Schumer-esque cabal want. They want it BAD! They hope the populists fight each other for a long, long, long, long time.

I think the people are good. The people will figure this out. The people have always been good. Eventually, the left populists and the right populists will fight the cabal. But, in the meantime, we just lob self-righteous grenades across these fault lines and wallow in our righteousness.

[Physics Guy]

Math and science are alien to human nature in a way that nothing in the humanities or social sciences is.

If by "to human nature" you mean many or possibly even most humans, I would agree. But to say they are "alien to human nature" unfortunately seems to imply that a significant minority of humans are alien.

That's an interesting point, because I think I know what you mean—I sometimes dream about differential equations—but yet I still feel that "unnatural" fits. So of course it could just be that I'm not everyone and other people find math and natural science completely natural. But maybe the point is that "unnatural" needs some nuance.

In one way I don't feel at home with math the way I do with English. Math makes me feel stupid. I rarely make grammatical errors in English but I make arithmetic errors constantly and they drive me nuts. Calculating anything is an exercise in error correction. Most of the things I've published were simple in hindsight and finishing the project only left me feeling stupid for not having seen something so simple much sooner.

And yet on the other hand it's an enormous relief to work with things that actually can be clear like that. There's nothing like turning a vague confusion into a well posed problem. Speaking of aliens, there are things I could discuss with extraterrestrial aliens, probably, because they will surely have to have learned a bunch of physics and theirs will be the same as ours. In some way this must mean that I'm more a citizen of the universe, and at home in it, than people that aren't familiar with things that are more basic than human psychology. Ultimately it's human psychology that's arbitrary and weird, after all.

Maybe for me at least the best analogy is with my situation as an immigrant in Germany. Many important things just seem right to me here. And yet on the other hand I will always be clumsy in the German language. I probably could become significantly better but it would be an inefficient use of my time, when I'm at a level now that basically works. Students seem to enjoy my lectures; it's partly because of my amusing German but I'll take that.

In some ways I feel at home and in other ways alien. Does this make more sense to you?

[Lem]

In some ways I feel at home and in other ways alien. Does this make more sense to you?

I apologize, I don’t think I was clear enough in my point. When you said:

Math and science are alien to human nature in a way that nothing in the humanities or social sciences is.

My response was more to indicate that elements of the humanities and social sciences may feel as alien for some as math and science do. It’s not a comment on human nature, however, but rather an indication of the almost infinite variety of humans within that nature. Your answer was a great example of what I meant, so in the end it seems we agree. Does this make more sense to you?

[cinepro]

I participate in several forums where I'm somewhat anonymous, and a few where my real name (and picture) are shared (FYI, I'm a white guy). I think I'm pretty good at treating everyone the same; I'll needle and joke with a woman (or racial minority) just as much as I will with a white man, and I'll question something a woman (or racial minority) or says just as much as I'll question a white man. But I'll never say anything that is specific to their race or gender; I'll only respond to what they actually say. Certainly, I've spent the most online time at MDDB, and I think Juliann and the other women there can attest to that.

But one thing I've noticed is that in exMo forums where my race and gender are known, women can be very quick to respond and end the conversation with something like "Cisgender white guy sayz" or something equally illuminating. Oddly, this happens in discussions about things that have nothing to do with race or gender issues (apart from everything being about race or gender, of course).

For example, in one forum someone brought up a historical incident where a white, (presumably) cisgender LDS man said something else to a white man. We were discussing what his statement meant, and finally a woman participating in the discussion said she refused to listen to me because I'm a white guy. I could understand if we were discussing, say, the experience of black women in the US or something like that, but it was two white guys talking to each other (and they weren't talking about race or gender).

So there is definitely an impulse to silence certain voices and views in the exMo community (perhaps a reflection of the larger liberal culture), which I find a little odd.

[huckelberry]

This selfish conscientiousness has gone too damn far for too damn long and is now, however, anchored in self-victimization. The party and its supporters have positioned themselves as the only righteous victim. However, they cannot be pacified. It will never be enough. It will never be their fault. They are the only entitled clan and everyone must pay for the all the wrongnesses, both real and imagined.

I am not discounting real victimization. There are real victims of real atrocities. However, every g*damn democrat is not a real victim of the imagined crap they have going on their heads. And, every person that doesn't pacify their nonsense is not the culprit for the self-prescribed feelings of horror and threat that are spun into a feelings goulash by NPR, The NYT and the social media silos and algorithms.

Mayan elephant, I am puzzled enough to find these comments a real stumbling block to understanding your point. As you note victims do existbut I do not see democrats all thinking they are victims. I am a long term democrat liberal sort and do not think of myself as a victim, no good reason to. I have not heard liberal friends speaking about being victims or indicating that they think they are victims.. It appears possible that you are imaging crap going on in other peoples heads which is not actually there.