Mirror Tribes

The alt right... and to a lesser extent even the more mainstream but still largely reactionary right... have become nothing more than a mirror of the far left; even so far as using the same rhetoric, and tactics, as the Gramscians and the alinskyites.

We have now reached a state where both the left, and the right, are actively trying to destroy western culture and society, in order to "preserve" or "perfect" it.. 

This is exactly what Gramscians, the Frankfurt school, and the other criticalists, set out to achieve in the early part of the 20th century; in their efforts to destroy western capitalism, and introduce "scientific socialism". 

The left have essentially always... and now much of the right have joined them... not just criticised, or rejected, but in fact actively worked to tear down; the individualist ideals of the enlightenment which made this country possible... 

...and which... while flawed and never living up to those ideals as we would like... made this country work reasonably well, most of the time, for most people, over the last 225 years (particularly the last 160 or so).

The left do so, because they fundamentally believe that the individualist ideal is not just false, but is morally wrong; instead believing in a model of collective identity, collective authority, and collective rights; defined by society as a whole, for the benefit of society as a whole. 

This is entirely antithetical to the individualist concept and ideals this nation was not just founded in, but which in fact this nation is an entirely a creature of. Our constitution depends on that concept, derives it's authority and legitimacy from it, and is entirely a creature of it.

Three of the four greatest political achievments of the enlightenment (the other, was the rejection of slavery and other involuntary servitude... which follows necessarily from the other three) were:

First, the elevation and enshrinement of the concept of inherent, fundamental, and preexisting individual rights (no right being greater or superior to any other; nor any rights of any individual being greater or superior to any other individual... be they titled king, or senator or president; nor any rights of any collective, organization, government, state or other entity, or its members, leaders, officers, or agents,  being greater or superior to those of any other individual).

Second... which follows directly from the first... the elevation and enshrinment of the concept that government derives it's legitimate powers and authority, by the consent and delegation of those rights by the governed. Rights which must be respected and protected by any government, and by any law, for any government or law to be legitimate; the powers and authorities of which , are not superior to, greater than, or otherwise exceeding, those of any individual.

Third... which follows directly from the first two... the development of the high trust society; where individuals and organizations, trust that regardless of any "identity" or other factor, or any individual or collective favor or disfavor, enmity or amity; their rights will be protected and respected both by their fellow citizens and by the government (and its agents), that contracts will be fulfilled, that the law will be written fairly and enforced as written, that the government will act as a disinterested arbiter of disputes and enforcer of laws, and that all will be treated equally under the law by the government and it's agents. 

These things are required, for our nation to exist at all... and certainly required for it to prosper. 

Some may say that none of these things were ever true... 

...and that is so... to some extent...

None were ever perfectly true, nor could they be, because people are imperfect, and governments are made up of people... and because the law is an ass...

...But that is not a reason to denigrate or destroy these ideals, or to reject them as false. It is a reason to work towards better embodying and living up to them.

Instead, we are doing the opposite.

The left have for decades, both in an attempt to correct actual or percieved wrongs and inequities, AND as a deliberate attempt to undermine and denigrate the very concepts of individualism, and individual rights as a whole; attempted to carve out specially protected classes and identities, both in law, and in our conception of society.

They have been incredibly successful in doing so, such that the words "protected class" are literally part of many federal, state, and local laws and regulations, and where individual rights conflict with societies or the states expressed desires regarding those "protected classes", those individual rights are abrogated by law.

Further, the left have long attempted to denigrate, dilute, and destroy, the very concept of rights; such that people no longer know what rights are, or why they are important; deliberately conflating state granted franchises, privileges, entitlements etc... with rights. 

They have been frighteningly successful in this as well... to the point where many no longer believe rights exist in any meaningful way at all; rather, that "rights" are actually just privileges collectively decided on by society, and granted, revoked, or modified as society sees fit, subject to the whim of the majority, prettied up as "the will of the people".

In fact, many simply do not believe it could possibly be any other way. They have fully internalized the collectivist concept and ideal... even if they believe themselves to be "conservative" or even "libertarian"; saying such things as "rights are whatever the law says they are" or "you don't have any rights, except what society let's you have, everything else is a fantasy"... or worst of all "rights don't actually exist". 

This, of course, is core to the concept of the collective society... and entirely counter to the individualist concept.

Just because rights are disrespected, violated, and abrogated doesn't mean they don't exist... Otherwise, you are simply accepting the pre-enlightenment notion, that force... might...makes right... It's just that now we have the tyranny of the majority, rather than the tyranny of the "nobility".

In reaction to this, rather than working to tear down such false and destructive notions, and fight for individual rights; many on the "right"... and even many of those who claim to be "libertarian"...  have simply adopted the lefts core conception... that we are all members of separate competing classes, interests, and  "identities", locked in a zero sum game of exploiters and exploited, victims and victimizers...  and that in order to avoid being the victims, we have to "beat them", and be the tyrants. 

It's disgusting... Frankly it's evil... It's a regression to strongman warlordism, dressed up as "identity politics". 

This is the embodiment of every bad parody  and false narrative the left has ever spouted about capitalism, individualism, "the right", and our country as Asa whole... all those lies they believed were true, because in their collectivist world view, they couldn't NOT be true... Every zero sum dog eat dog, all wealth is exploitation, in order for one man to get ahead five men must be trampled on lie, that they have been telling for not just decades, but centuries...

Rather than asserting the moral, ethical, and practical correctness and superiority of individual rights; and refusing to play the collectivist zero sum game...  

..."The right" are now simply trying to play the collectivist game... and unsurprisingly, they're losing badly... because that game is wrong, and false, and because the left have a hell of a lot more practice at it. 

Worst of all... they're doing it, because the large mass of undereducated and DELIBERATELY misinformed, socially and economically disappointed and sometimes disadvantaged; right reactionary populists... and no, they are in no way conservatives, they are identity politics driven reactionary populists...  

...Who say they believe in individual rights and insividualism, but in reality just want to be back on top of the zero sum pile, above the other "identities" and "classes"...

... are DEMANDING that they do so... Demanding they "take back our country", and "bring back our jobs" and "fight for us", and all the other false narratives they've been convinced they have to "fight" for, or else they'll be the ones exploited by "big business" and "special interests" and "political correctness".

It's disgusting... but entirely predictable. 

We are devolving from an individualist high trust culture, into a collectivist low trust culture... cultural regression to mere tribalism.

... and somehow, most people seem to not notice....

... and most of those who do, are either OK with it, or so worried about being  exploited and victimized by the other tribes, that they are too busy jockeying for position to care.

Do you want to know the secret knowledge?

Would you like some secret dangerous truth that they don't want you to know?

There are no big conspiracies. There can't be, because none of the people and organizations that would need to be so in order for them to work, are smart enough or competent enough, and they can't keep secrets.

It looks like there are, because everyone with any power is doing their damndest to keep it, and get more... and that's what it looks like when everyone "in charge" or "running things" does that. 

They all act in their own best interest, and that aligns with everyone else doing the same thing, making it look like there is some grand master control... when really it's an illusory house of cards, ready to collapse any second.

They aren't actually running things to their advantage...they're trying, but actually they aren't running things at all. The scarier fact, is that NO one is running things, because no-one can... But they keep trying and just making things worse.

The system isn't rigged for them and against you... It's just so horrible, inefficient, ineffective, and destructive, that it seems that way. Not that they wouldn't rig it if they could, but they can't control it enough to rig it.

The smart, the rich, and the connected don't get special treatment by the rigged system.... They just don't even try to work within the system when they need to get things done. They don't wait for approval, they don't ask for permission, and they don't let anyone stop them.

A short lesson on how to lie, with parts of the truth

"My god, this may be the worst disaster in history. You may lose your house and your children may die!"

... A short lesson on how to lie to get what you want... without TECHNICALLY lying...

This headline... while somewhat overblown... may look familiar if you've been reading news and social ,edit sites the last week or three... Or frankly, the last few years, particularly the last 3...

... If not the words, than the sentiment...

.. and that is the problem... it's about emotion and reaction, not information, and reason.

That notional headline, is not about informing you... it's not even specifically about getting your attention; which combined, are the primary purposes of headlines for actual news and information pieces. Or at least they're supposed to be.

Those words, that phrasing, is an editorial choice... the choice to use what is sometimes called "purple prose"... and is not designed to engage and inform you rationally and reasonably...

...  In fact, its a choice specifically designed to bypass reason and rationality, and to enflame and instigate REACTION, rather than reasonable consideration.

Specifically, they want you to react by sharing their links and spreading the irrational and unreasonable reaction to others.

The people who write these pieces, and the sites that publish them, have one job

That job is not to inform you... No matter how reputable a source they may be... 

Even formerly responsible "hard news" organizations, and outlets for serious editorial commentary and opinion; are caught up in the hamster wheel of the online content generation and consumption cycle.

That job is to generate currency... 

Both material currencies like ad revenues, and promotional considerations, and the even more valuable currencies of influence, social capital, and political capital. 

These currencies are generated by audience impact.

Audience impact is measured by traffic (and if they have advanced data mining, by gathering valuable metadata). 

Traffic is generated by getting people to share links.

To get people to share linksat sufficient scale scale to be effective at that one job, generally  requires one ( or more) of three things:

1. The least effective way is to create good feelings... being cute, or interesting or funny, or sweet... That generates the fewest shares and the fewest clicks and the least revenue.

2. More effective is to make people angry, or to inflame outrage. This is very effective for certain issues... politics and social issues, almost anything about children being abused, things about people being cheated... that sort of thing. These  stories get shared a fair bit, and generate a fair bit of revenue... but they tend to be self limiting, and there's a large percentage of people who just don't care about any particular subject... Even the most important possible subjects you can think of, many people will just tune it out. 

3. Most effective of all? Anything that scares people... especially if it scares people about their homes, their savings, their own life or death.... or absolute worst of all... anything which may seriously harm their children.

You might notice.. Natural disasters offer these outlets the best of all possible scenarios... Even better than the 2nd and 3rd place topics: war, and politics (crime and "justice", , celebrities and pop culture, business money and economics, health wellness and medical issues, popular science {often having little to do with actual science} and "family and children", and "human interest" round out the top ten "mass appeal" topics... Almost all other issues are considered "niche", "genre" or otherwise of limited appeal). 

 

They can write feel good stories about people helping people, and saving pets, and that sort of thing.

They can write stories to make you angry, about looting, and theft, and government failures, and government abuse... the worse the disaster the better...

...but... For either 1 or 2, they still need things to actually happen, so that they can write about them... or at least things need to feel tangible enough, or "real enough" that people will get mad about them.

The real goldmine though... better at creating emotional reaction than anything else...

...is the absolutely INFINITE  possibilities for scaring people... 

With fear, you get all the benefits of anger, combined with even greater likliehood of provoking unthinking reaction, and potentiallyfar broader impact. People are less likely  to ignore or tune out fear than anger, and more likely to react without thinking... or even reading more than the headline... and sharing the link....."just in case".

And the very best thing about fear based stories... even better than feelgood stories, or anger and outrage stories... is nothing needs to ACTUALLY happen.. or even be likely, or have any realistic chance of happening. 

In fact, the thing doesn't even need to actually be plausible in the slightest, so long as they can confuse people enough that they may believe it... or the headline is scary enough that people share without reading... and that uncertainty is even better for creating more fear, and driving more traffic, from everyone who clicked and shared "Just in case". 

So... step back, and look at the framing of the story... the phrasing and language and specific choices made by the author and editor. Look at the headline, and the included pictures. 

... Are there a lot of verifiable facts, or is there a lot of passive interrogative or passive speculative  voice.. maybes, mights, and hypotheticals, presented as if they were facts or certainties? 

Humans are inherently bad at evaluating risk... writers know this, and use it to lie, to create reactions, impressions, and emotions in the reader... while not TECHNICALLY lying. By properly  presenting a potentially catastrophic impact, with horrible unthinkable consequences, they know they can safely ignore the tiny likelihood of those unthinkable  consequences, because most most people, when forcefully and emotionally confronted with such unthinkable things... won't (...think that is... Most will either react with little or no rational thought, or if the feeling of threat or fear is great enough they will shut down both rationally AND emotionally do nothing at all).

 

When you examine the structure and language of a piece,  are  they using conditional or otherwise indefinite, but also extreme superlatives?  For example "this may be the worst thing ever" , or "If this happens, it will be the wost thing ever", or "if these conditions continue to worsen this may be the worst thing ever"... OR even sneakier and often more effective, establishing a set of speculative conditions earlier, then later treating them as if they are established fact; saying things like "the models show that this is the  biggest and worst disaster of all time". 

Is there  an attempt to lay blame, or focus negative feelings for the "bad thing" on some vague and ill defined bogeyman, a  faceless but disfavored or unpopular entity or group, or a much hated specific organization or individual; with little or no attempt to prove or justify such blame, or a provide any kind of plausible rational causal link, or other factual or reasonable justification for such blame, or any other association of such emotions (or the reverse... to give credit to, or associate positive emotions with, someone or someething; without factual causal link, proof, or other rational justification) ?

Are the characterizations emotionally charged, deliberately attempting to induce emotions andreactions, and to create emotionally linked impressions and associations using linguistic psychology; like fear forcing, motive forcing, outrage forcing, suspicion forcing, negative association forcing, tonal forcing, or personal appeal forcing (appeal to ego, appeal to idealism, appeal to altruism, appeal to guilt, appeal to shame, appeal to conscience appeal to prurient interest, appeal to schadenfreude,  appeal to spectacle, appeal to ideology etc...) ?  Does it employ the classical fallacies: ad hominem, post hoc, cum hoc, false dichotomy or dilemma, straw man and the like? 

How does the piece make you feel, rather than think intellectually and rationally? Go back and look at the text and other factors I mentioned above... Can you see these deliberate linguistic forcings, being employed to shape a narrative, specifically designed to create these emotions and reactions?

If the rhetorical content of a piece... written, spoken, or delivered through imagery... deliberately tries to make you feel or react a particular way, regardless of the facts... or even counter to them, or with facts being absent entirely; that piece is not news or information... It's not even editorial commentary or opinion... 

... it's propaganda.