My man. You had to read a lot to get to the BT, apprec

And that was a floundering slogan before the pandemic and economic collapse rendered it moot.

I’m only saying that Republicans are NOT a party of Ayn Randian bootstrappers. Her response to them would be go learn some new skills and get another job. The market doesn’t want coal when natural gas is so much cheaper and cleaner and it’s not on us to take care of you.

It doesn’t matter if Fauci is great or not. Do you agree he is largely saying what the medical establishment hierarchy thinks and people like Louie Gohmert who speculated that wearing a mask caused him to be infected are purposely trying to undermine the existing, largely merit and science based medical establishment hierarchy? This isn’t unconscious at all. The right hates the notion of expertise or an elite cabal of intelligent, hard working specialists knowing more than a hick congressman.

Academia is a one of the most hierarchical structures in modern society and I would say filled with individuals considered “great”. The right is not unconsciously opposed to them. They explicitly rant about it. The far left thinks cops are more an example of what happens when you give to much power to people who aren’t qualified ie the opposite of greatness or meritocracy. And it should be pointed out that both Biden and Bernie Sanders want to increase funding for police departments.

Fox is kind of just noise. They fear monger about the deep state FBI hierarchy when it suits them, then prop up police when the wind blows that way. They’ll go from super anti government to authoritarian without much regard for an overall philosophy but rather who happens to be in power

Vid for the night: Culture, Politics, and the Perpetuation of Trauma

In reverse order: I disagree about Fox, there are clear patterns in their narrative and how they work up their audience IMO. I do some segments on this that are a little bit goofier.

Social science departments in academia, which have become much much more powerful recently, are largely corrupt IMO. That's a larger discussion, but I graduated not too long ago from an Ivy League grad school, and jeeeeeesus christ...And really, academia has allied itself with the anti-structure narrative. I know, I'm not giving any evidence...time for bed, but we can continue that thread tomorrow.

But also, the right's narrative is that they (Fauci, academic dept's) aren't great. Not trying to be a dick, but it seems like you are picking apart the left's strawman of how the right talks. That's not really what they're saying IMO, if you listen to Dave Rubin, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Larry Elder, etc. These guys do push Randian attitudes. I listen to those guys a little, and their narrative is that much of academia is corrupt and not legitimate, Fauci is politically motivated and thus invalid, etc. It's not, "This person is brilliant but we hate them." Whereas I do believe the left is capable of saying "This person is brilliant but a fascist, so f*** them." Again, obv this idea is a big overgeneralization.

I’m not really going to continue on Fox, but I think the only real pattern is whether Democrats or Republicans are in control. Now they are fear mongering over anarchists, 8 years ago it was Obama’s jackbooted fascist thugs.

I completely disagree that social science departments are powerful in academia. I got a PhD in math from an Ivy League school about 10 yrs ago and the social science departments were basically invisible compared to hard science and the professional schools. Both on campus and outside. Granted I was more likely to pay attention when someone from the math or physics department from my school was on NPR vs some rando social science prof I had never heard of.

Also not trying to be a dick but I think you’re strawmanning the hell out of the left and credulously accepting nonsense from the right. I mean do you really think Louie Gohmert is not trying to undermine the “great” US medical establishment hierarchy because he’s genuinely dumb enough to believe masks give you Covid so Fauci must be corrupt? Or you’re actually unwilling to even evaluate that claim on its merits because you are not a doctor?

And those guys may push Randian narratives but at the end of the day mostly support a guy like Trump who is constantly pushing farm welfare and other market distortions completely antithetical to their claimed philosophy. Maybe don’t believe their obvious lying?

Things have changed a s*** ton in the last ten years on campuses man, I'm tellin ya.

Wait, what nonsense am I accepting from the right? I don't really know anything about Louie Gohmert, so I can't speak to him in particular. I'm not anti-mask or anything, I just try to look at it from a group psych perspective.

Curious, who are the intelligent thinkers you follow who are left leaning? I'd like to find more that I can listen to.

Recently I've been following Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Bret and Eric Weinstein, John Wood Jr as some centrist thinkers that I guess some people now consider right-leaning.

I’ll respond to the rest later, but I wasn’t accusing you of being anti-mask. Just that you don’t believe the right is trying to undermine the medical establishment for reasons I don’t get. You claim they believe Fauci is corrupt, but how does that undo the previous? Especially when we are talking about a scientific issue that hopefully we can agree has a correct answer. I would think studying why the right gets it wrong would be far more interesting from a group psych perspective.

Fascinating topic. I'd like to raise a few questions with the intent of simplifying and trying to get at the nub but firstly what do you think of the selfishness point?

i.e We commonly see the right portrayed as selfish while those on the left aren't. Pretty obviously wrong in general but specifically, if the right are pursuing greatness then maybe they do that as unselfishly as the left pursue fairness - USA#1(or the harking back to the Britain#1 I remember growing up and that still somehow lingers) matters to some and it's not the same as their own economics/status anymore than fairness is always about our own economics/status. Pointing out, as is commonly done, that they personally suffer from this greatness as some evidence they are wrong or even lying misses the point completely.

That doesn't mean our own economics/status doesn't also matter. Lots of things matter and they aren't always coherent.

That’s kind of a weird question. I can’t really think of too many people I would say apply. I mean I read the NYTimes so I guess I read Krugmans column when I see it, but I don’t seek out his opinion on things? I also skim 538 and read articles that sound interesting and I’m a fan of Scott Aaronson’s blog but I’m there for the math content and I usually skip over political posts. I don’t think there is much value on the left as there is on the right in finding fringe crackpot figures like Eric Weinstein to agree with when people like Ed Witten or Terry Tao seem to largely echo mainstream American liberal positions on the rare occasion they opine on politics.

Yeah no worries man, I appreciate the debate. I don't know enough about the medical science to have a strong opinion. Are you citing the mask efficacy specifically for the example of the right trying to undermine medical knowledge?

Wait, Eric Weinstein is considered crackpot fringe-right? I listen to Bret more, but I'm not sure I understand that perspective.

Yep, I think I'd agree with this.

Eric Weinstein seems right in the center aisle from an intellectual stance to me. "We don't understand fully the terror of lynching, and what the black community has been through. Further, we don't understand the techniques that have swelled our jails."

Those sentiments don't seem compatible with the right-wing crackpot label, I don't get it.

I meant his views on math and physics are that of a crackpot. His science background is presumably why you consider him a “thinker” and why he even has a platform. I don’t know enough about his actual political commentary to say whether or not it makes sense, just that his audience is largely conservative, “outsider” etc assuming the intellectual dark web label is accurate.

seeems like this should be moved to the house of bolgs forum

Fair point - I've started a thread there now for ongoing video postings.

I may throw up new vids in Politics & Society as separate threads as feels appropriate.

In Gohmert’s case he was seen most of the time without a mask and a few times with one, then “wondered” if maybe the mask somehow gave him Covid. Do you really not have an opinion on this? I find it hard to believe any educated centrist would have a problem saying “yeah just based on a layman’s understanding of communicable diseases Gohmert’s views are ridiculous. It seems like with your group psychology background you’d be able to give us insight on why American conservatives in particular seem to have such crazy views on basic medical science.

You call yourself a centrist, but that doesn’t mean you should say “well some people say say the holocaust happened, some think it’s made up. I’m not a historian so I don’t have a strong opinion”. That would put you on the fringes of virtually any issue, basically the opposite of centrism.

I don't know enough about the Gohmert situation but on the face of it that sounds irrational, I agree.

I think it's pretty reasonable to decline to hold a strong opinion about subtopics I know little about. Suspended judgment is not the same thing as denial. I wish more people would do this, actually.

But as far as I can tell, your YouTubes are largely contemporary cultural criticisms of various topics which often touches on your analysis of left vs right wing views. I don’t think you can do that effectively when you seem to be doing your best to bury your head when presented with a clear case of right wing nonsense on the most important news story in the world right now. Maybe your personal biases or the audience you want necessitate treating right wing idiocy with kiddy gloves, but I don’t think that’s a good thing.

There's a lot of opinion there, and I don't necessarily agree that Gohmert is the most important story out there. You may be misinterpreting the goal of my channel. It's targeted commentary from a group relations perspective, often. I'm in no way claiming to be a political reporter or anything, I'm interested in the dynamics that develop, how mythical archetypes are acted out in groups, and implications of the narratives I see on both ends.

I don't really know much about Gohmert, and I'd say odds are high I would agree with you about much of the hypocritical stuff you might point out about individual republican politicians. And, in that same vein, there was hypocritical activity on the left with how the virus has been handled, and inconsistent messaging about masks and need for border security, and scare tactics and immature finger-pointing as well. What interests me in this is the congruence all of this has with org psych concepts, such as the drama triangle, how us-vs-them dynamics develop, signs of groupthink (which appear on both sides, but more prominently on the left in my eyes currently--and I wouldn't have said this is true 5 years ago), etc.

In general, I'm a nonbeliever in ascribing negative intentions to people as explanatory for behavior, that's not how people work from a psychological perspective. If you aren't able to conceptualize a group or person's narrative in such a way that they are the hero and it all makes sense to them, then you just don't understand that person, and you're engaging in projective identification, where you put the "bad guy" out there. This is a longer discussion if it's not a topic with which you're already familiar, but it's probably one of the most important gifts from the field of psychology IMO.

This was kind of the idea behind the vid that sparked this convo. It's obviously not a fully accurate picture and super oversimplified, but the idea is the Left says "We're the good guys and we care about fairness" (hence the momentum of social justice rhetoric) and the Right says "We're the good guys and care about greatness". There's always going to be positive intention, even if it ends up taking people to twisted places.

This kind of "both sides are bad" take is absurd in the midst of prominent Republican politicians telling patent lies about the usefulness of facemasks and Trump pitching completely unproven medicines.

Well, the Right is all up in arms about the Left denying the violence in the protests, the Uighur genocide in China, and the efficacy of HCG.

I wasted a lot of energy if people get here itt and think I am just saying "both sides are bad"

The left is denying the persecution of the Uighur? What in Sam Hill are you even talking about?

Essentially the entire Right has been in some bizarre groupthink mode wrt trump. It's like if they even admit 1 fault the entire thing will come crashing down. Plug another collective finger in each new crack--and hold the line!!! lol

What? I'm very confused. Leaving aside the protests thing which is well-worn in other threads in this forum:
- Uyghur genocide? What on earth does that have to do with "the left" or denial???
- Assuming you meant HCQ and not "HCG" - people in the Trump administration also deny its efficacy!

This seems rather incompatible with the preceding paragraph in the same post!