Not germane to the topic. Merely one example of emotion vs reason. But thanks for explicating that very special new branch of "science."
Zeitgeist
- Thread starter Bowser
- Start date
It's a curious contrast of preferences. All domains are frequented and utilized by some percentage of any significant movement, but...
The religious anti-abortionists, the politically pious SJWs, and mob-vandals (that use any social justice outrage as a convenient excuse for violence) tend to commit their disruptions (either legal / illegal) in person... in concrete neighborhoods, campuses, clinics, work and commercial districts.
Whereas the politically blasphemous and countercultural alt-right hipsters troll online communities, usually incognito. Apart from when at rallies or parades of whatever context. But the latter are often composed of literal alt-right groups rather than the web residing libertarian "frat-boys" and late-maturing older adults posing as nationalists, identitarians, radical populists, conspiracists, etc for the sake of baiting / manipulating and emotionally stirring-up the SJW crowd.
Mencius Moldbug: "If you spend 75 years building a pseudo-religion around anything -- an ethnic group, a plaster saint, sexual chastity or the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- don’t be surprised when clever 19-year-olds discover that insulting it is now the funniest ####ing thing in the world." --Is the Alt-Right for Real? ... New Yorker magazine
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In the US, crowds of people cheering the police on in these situations has implications you probably don't want to sign on with in advance.
People might remember, afterwards, which side you were on.
We do see a new attitude - which is an old attitude come 'round again, and so many people seem to be so oddly unaware of where this has always gone in the past, and in other places, and in all the stories: http://book.sidamingzhu.org/html/42792/2404092.html
I feel secure siding with those who own more guns than the military--and that's just happenstance. If those kids understood the wedge they pound between their cause--whatever that might be--and the common man, they might rethink their tactics. They are a sad testimony to what has gone wrong in our society.
It's not insecurity that may attend you - it's shame. I don't think the Trump voters are going to get the pass the W voters got.
They aren't driving any wedges - that's all done from your side. And you aren't as common as you may think - especially when siding with you is siding with Trump. That's something decent people are going to have trouble with, if the current trends mean what they usually have in the historical past.
Alternatively, had Hillary been elected, should her supporters feel the same remorse?
Trump supporters are not smashing windows or blocking traffic or causing any mayhem. From the perspective of an average Joe, the Left looks like a childish tantrum. And I think it's sad because they further any chance of a Trump reelection.
I attended a protest in town, and from my point of view it was peaceful. However, after I left it went to crap, which seems to be the story. The Women's march was probably the most respectable protest so far.
For what? Voting for a standard issue rightwing conservative, another Eisenhower? Not a happy choice, but not this Republican freakshow.
Again: it took five years and Katrina before the W voters started to call themselves "Tea Party" and "Independent" - something tells me it won't take that long with this guy.
They didn't after W was elected either. That isn't going to get them off the hook for electing Trump.
Who cares what stuff looks like to somebody who didn't have the sense not to vote for Trump?
The alternative was Hillary. We're happy with our selection. And to be honest, in my opinion, he was the a narrow alternative. But watching the politics at play--those of the Demoncrats--I'm changing my political party affiliation. They make me sick and I see no movement towards any real change. They can't even own responsibility for their own failures. No, it was the "Russians." How frickin' pathetic. The Democratic Party is dead.
You mentioned shame, there is plenty to go around: Bush Era, Obama Era, Hillary Era. We're all guilty.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I don't like it either. It was coined or at least popularized by Thomas Kuhn, who had a PhD in physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn
My own opinion is that his 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' was one of the most over-rated books of all time. If one takes Kuhn's arguments literally, they are incoherent and hugely corrosive to any pretensions to objectivity and truth that science might have. If the arguments aren't taken literally, then they will need to be qualified somehow, which reduces his over-stated conclusions to non-sequiturs.
But Kuhn published his 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' in 1962, when he was teaching at UC Berkeley. And it stuck a chord (it was in tune with the 1960's 'Zeitgeist'!), seemingly reducing the 'scientific method' to group-think, conformity and sociology. Its ideas were grasped eagerly and quickly adopted by the so-called "social sciences" and by critics of science in the humanities. Pretty soon it seemed like every university class was assigning the book.
If we're all equally shamed, how come only some of us have been changing our names? "Tea Party" and "Independent" and "Alt Right" and yadda yadda yadda. Is there something you guys are not as happy about as you were?
You can't have it both ways. Either you're happy voting for the Ws and Trumps, the McConnells and Gohmerts and Perrys and Issas and Cheneys and so forth, or you share only the common shame - not both. You are to blame for electing Trump, and the consequences of that - not the people who tried to stop you. We aren't to blame, and we aren't going to be shamed for our votes, as you are.
Only some people voted for Trump, or W, or Reagan. Lots and lots of people told you what W was like and what he was likely to do, for example, and they turned out to be right: these people are not responsible for the consequences of electing that administration. Jeff Gannon is not our doing, and neither is the Iraq War. We didn't spend eight years telling lies and throwing feces at the Obama administration, either, nor did we elect the Republican Congressmen who screwed things up so badly; only some people did that, and they are the ones responsible for the consequences. They were warned.
And so forth. There is plenty of shame here, in the last thirty or forty years of American politics, but it doesn't go around - it attaches to the responsible parties. And you're going to be eating a lot more of its sandwiches before Trump is through demonstrating just how completely full of shit you were when you voted for that guy.
Not every Trump voter is happy with their vote. Especially those that depend on the ACA to live.