Hurting Economically Does Not Absolve a Trump Vote

[_honorentheos]

Honor, maybe this is closer to what you were looking for:

I come from a generation where if you were really good at something, you were rewarded for it, and if you were average, you got squat.

These days, everyone's a winner!

There's this idea, for instance, that we shouldn't fat shame. Bill Maher was talking a couple weeks ago about how it should make a comeback, and my reaction to that bit was "Holy crap, yes it does!!"

Shame is a very useful societal tool. It gets people to excel. It forces many to act better than they would otherwise. Shame is a good thing. Shameless is bad.

If people do something that is demonstrably stupid, counter to known facts, we aren't progressing anything by saving them their feelings, or giving them the impression their voice is as important as other, more realistic ones.

I'm sorry, but people need to know: if they voted for Trump, they made a moronic damned choice, no matter what their stated reason is for doing so. They did a dumb damned thing and they should own it for the mistake it was.

I know most won't, but I'll keep telling them anyway. “F” the morons.

I often assume you and I are within 10 years of one another. Most often I read you as essentially being close enough we would have been in high school at the same time, give or take a couple of grades one way or the other.

I remember things being a bit different in that while achievement was rewarded, being a low B, high C student wasn't viewed as inevitably consigning a person to low wage jobs and retail sales. It was more likely you were known by the group you associated with first and then were known as the smart one or the reckless one of that group or whatever. Being fat was more or less shameable depending on who you were and what group you were in. Linemen among the jocks were supposed to be "big boned". Not so much most everyone else, granted. But context mattered and the group plus ones role in it formed that context.

Shamming worked as a boundary maintenance device for the groups, and relied on group identity to be effective as a mechanism for change. Good or bad, someone has to want to fit in to give any "F"s about what others think. Most people who were being shamed didn't go on a diet and get fit, either. They felt bullied and became more antisocial.

I don't see how this is a mechanism for effective change.

[Jersey Girl]

Why Democrats Should Be Losing Sleep Over Generation Z

A majority of Millennials approve of Trump; Nearly half of Generation Z voters approve of Trump; Trump is winning back Hispanic, Independent, college educated and urban voters

It makes you wonder if the Republicans have found some way to bind powerful hallucinogenics to the Vitamin E acetate molecule in some vaping inhalers of indeterminate (Russian?) origin.

[_EAllusion]

Remember when overt racism in public became shameful and incidents of overt racism in public plummeted and each generation exposed to this environment is less racist than the past?

[_Maksutov]

Remember when overt racism in public became shameful and incidents of overt racism in public plummeted and each generation exposed to this environment is less racist than the past?

That was in the BT Era.

[_honorentheos]

Remember when overt racism in public became shameful and incidents of overt racism in public plummeted and each generation exposed to this environment is less racist than the past?

It's interesting how different levels of shaming can be effective but, at some point it flips. Weaponizing it and overusing it for everything ever all the time causes groups to reconstruct and reform (which is what happened) rather than effect positive change. Solutions that reform shared identity are necessary if you want to be able to effect any kind of change that isn't at the end of a barrel of a gun eventually.

[_EAllusion]

Shame is a powerful social tool for sculpting behavior and is a key factor in people behaving morally. It is a basic, universal part of child rearing. Of course, shame can be used for illicit or just purposes, but the idea that (most) people don't respond to it strikes me as extremely misguided. It's the emotion of lack of social cohesion and the experience of it makes people think they are bad and are to be avoided. This does produce avoidance of shame-producing events. People talk about "overcoming shame" because it has a hold on them and influences their behavior.

It's good when someone feels shame for doing something very bad so long as they can cope with it appropriately. It's not good when someone feels shame for, I don't know, being 20 pounds overweight.

[_honorentheos]

It works in multiple directions and has effects on group identity that includes dissolving and rearranging into different forms of social order. It isn't shameful when it comes from an outsider. There is no amount of shaming from someone you don't respect that's going to change your behaviour. Given the complexity of human behavior it shouldn't need arguing that a mechanism for dealing with shame is to redefine people into outsider status. It's the most common, first reaction. Given enough others with whom to form a group around a new identity, the result is just more, deeper division rather than reform.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

It works in multiple directions and has effects on group identity that includes dissolving and rearranging into different forms of social order. It isn't shameful when it comes from an outsider. There is no amount of shaming from someone you don't respect that's going to change your behaviour. Given the complexity of human behavior it shouldn't need arguing that a mechanism for dealing with shame is to redefine people into outsider status. It's the most common, first reaction. Given enough others with whom to form a group around a new identity, the result is just more, deeper division rather than reform.

This is an interesting and probably on point observation, Honor. I think people tend to entrench when attacked, however people seem to move when honest and thoughtful discourse happens. Unfortunately, getting an individual into the hedspace that's actually necessary for this to happen is often impossible as evidenced over and over again on this forum and across other platforms.

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

Good points, Doc. I feel a bit like a broken record when I say this, but I sincerely believe the only real solutions are ones that are able to restore some sense of shared identity. Approaches and reactions towards others that reenforce the assumed superior position of one group over another will be counter productive. If anything, our politics are being most severely damaged by it having taken on almost every aspect of American identity where it is impossible to find common ground. If we could restrain our political disagreements to economic questions and foreign policy but let go our love/hate of football, church, whether or not eating at an Applebee's is a good place to go to as a family or a moral failing only basic slobs consider an option when eating out, etc., then perhaps there is hope.

If Schmo wants people to care about his opinion enough to have it affect their behavior, they have to care about his opinion as the first condition. Telling them he thinks they are stupid "F"s is probably working against his stated aim.

[_Smokey]

Yeah, when combined with knowledge that Gen Z holds traditionally liberal positions on these issues, the logical implication is that a portion of Gen Z calls liberal positions on these issues "conservative" or "moderate."

In other words, “let me spin this and reframe one of the issues as a liberal position so that I win the argument.”

Legalization of Cannabis is not a liberal position. Generation Z grew up with legalized Cannabis. They are not going to vote for another pedophile Democrat because Dude, Weed, lmfao.