Posted on 01/19/2013 6:13:45 AM PST by AnonymousConservative
I was emailing with a reader, who has noticed the same things about Liberal debating tactics that I have. His perception was that every interaction must have a component which will shame the Liberal. It must have some aspect which the Liberal will not want anyone else to see. Of course the reason that such a component would be shameful, is due to the fact that if it became widely known, the Liberal would be out-grouped. It is the threat of being out-grouped which motivates the Liberal to abandon Liberalism. However, there may be more to it, and there may be subtleties that we may want to examine.
Of course, from an evolutionary, and r/K standpoint, shame will only carry Darwinian consequence in a K-selective environment. Only in such a resource-limited environment will one need to belong to a group. If conditions are r-selecting and resources are everywhere, then being ejected from a group will have less consequence on survival, and may even be advantageous, since you will no longer be sacrificing for the good of the group. Under r-selection, shamelessness may be highly adaptive, even as it will get you killed in a K-selective environment.
As the reader and I compared notes, and I reviewed his arguments and mine, one thing I noticed was the most effective shaming tactics may incorporate an opening with a subtle intimation that we are in a violent, K-selective environment. The opening may even personalize the threat this poses to the Liberal. This may be a necessary foundation which greatly enhances the effect of the subsequent out-grouping. If the Liberal has a slight frame in their head that they are threatened, and could get hurt, it may lead the Liberal to feel that they need a group to hide behind, if they are to survive. Because let’s face it, none of these characters would last a minute in a K-selective state of nature.
This introducing a threat frame prior to your argument may be important, given how we seem programmed to respond to these cues subconsciously. If threats are not everywhere, and violence is not seen as real, people may not be shamed as easily over their shameful behavior, since they may not care if they are part of a group or not. I think this is why a civilized, highly productive society will be afflicted with Liberalism to begin with. Under these conditions, being out-grouped may actually be advantageous evolutionarily, and they may embrace it. Just look at how shameless our society is today. I suspect if violence returns in the coming collapse, shame will as well.
This observation of the effectiveness of providing a threat frame, before making your case is supported by scientific research, as well.
John Jost noted that when examining adherence to ideological opinions,
Situational variables—including system threat and mortality salience… affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties, and opinions.
Much as the Great Depression precipitated rightward shifts in Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Japan, and other nations, heightened perceptions of uncertainty and threat in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, generally increased the appeal of conservative leaders and opinions
Since the publication of our meta-analysis, several additional studies have demonstrated that reminders of death and terrorism increase the attractiveness of conservative leaders and opinions.
Landau et al. (2004) demonstrated that subliminal and supraliminal 9/11 and death primes led college students (a relatively liberal population) to show increased support for President Bush and his counterterrorism policies and decreased support for the liberal challenger John Kerry. These effects were replicated by Cohen et al. (2005) immediately prior to the Bush–Kerry election in 2004. A Spanish study found that in the aftermath of the Madrid terrorist attacks of March 11, 2004, survey respondents scored higher on measures of authoritarianism and prejudice and were more likely to endorse conservative values and less likely to endorse liberal values, compared with baseline levels calculated prior to the attacks (Echebarria & Ferna´ndez, 2006).
An experimental study by Jost, Fitzsimons, and Kay (2004) demonstrated that priming people with images evoking death (e.g., images of a funeral hearse, a “Dead End” street sign, and a chalk outline of a human body) led liberals and moderates as well as conservatives to more strongly endorse politically conservative opinions on issues such as taxation, same-sex marriage, and stem cell research, compared with a standard control condition in which participants were primed with images evoking pain (e.g., a dentist’s chair, a bandaged arm, and a bee sting removal). This finding is particularly important because it demonstrates that death reminders increase support for conservative opinions as well as leaders and therefore rules out charismatic leadership as an alternative explanation for the results (see Cohen et al., 2005).
A recently conducted study of the political attitudes of World Trade Center survivors provides further support for the notion that threat precipitates “conservative shift” even among people who were not initially conservative (Bonanno & Jost, in press).
Thus, if presented fearful/threatening “mortal salience stimuli,” individuals reflexively became more Conservative on subsequent questionnaires, and they do so across all measures of Conservatism. Perhaps he was presenting what should be a foundational structure of an out-grouping attack, and noting an openness to Conservatism motivated by a reflexive desire to avoid out-grouping.
It is important to note, this isn’t a threatening presentation, which the Liberal could use to out-group you as violent and unstable. It is not telling the Liberal you are going to kill him. That only works if you are able to, and about to swiftly follow-up on it (in which case, the Liberal will immediately agree with you). Rather what I am describing here is merely a wholly unemotional aside, pointing out impartially, that the environment that everyone inhabits is violent and dangerous, and the Liberal may have to face that danger, like everyone else.
Of course, I immediately see Colonel Connell when he began his brilliant out-grouping attack on Mike Wallace by saying,
“Two days later they (the reporters – Jennings and Wallace) are both walking off my hilltop and they’re 200 yards away, and they get ambushed and they’re lying there wounded. And they’re going to expect I’m going to send Marines out there to get them.”
You can’t create a perception of a K-selective environment much better than by creating an image of dead and dying Liberals, strewn across a battlefield, desperately screaming and begging for their lives, like the pathetic pansies they are – their only chance for survival being the group of K-selected Warriors they have just pissed off.
This was doubly beautiful, since it combined this violent threat frame with a Diminution of Stature attack, portraying the Liberal to the crowd as weak, helpless, and pathetic.
Is the presentation of violent imagery a necessary foundational opening to an out-grouping attack? I think the science and evidence says it is, and we will explore its use further in future posts as we continue this journey.
“....a lot of right wing adrenaline junkies”
“goose stepping goonery of K threat”
Notice, the mere talk of threat freaked you out enough you exposed yourself. That is amygdala, and you can’t think clearly with it going off in your head. I’m not even sure you understood what I wrote, from your reply.
Here’s how it will go. The Conservative machine will ignore me, and continue to play nice, because they are idiots. Leftism will continue to advance for a short while longer, and then we will be back in Lord of the Flies, because Liberals have screwed up our finances so bad, government will basically be cut back to nothing but national defense.
It will happen much sooner and much faster than anyone thinks, because as Kyle Bass has noted, when it is this big, everybody lies, and things are always worse than they are portrayed, by a lot.
Get ready for the threat environment.
And thanks for playing.
In liberal arts colleges, part opf the brain is replaced with a Borg implant.
Intelligence is irrelevant
Reason is futile.
You forgot the RINOs, but I am thinking they would either be Opportunistic Weasels who pretend to be K selected by in reality are r selected.
What is a “K-selective environment?” I hate it when people use jargon and fail to tell me what it means. I skipped the rest of your potentially good article because of this.
You are dead on. Although I will add one thing. Ideology seems to be associated with a brain structure called the amygdala, which develops in response to threat. Basically, as you experience danger, and learn how to cope with it, your amygdala develops, and if the MRI studies are any measure, you become more Conservative.
In some ways, Liberals may deny reality as a way of shielding the amygdala, by avoiding risk. Threat stimuli, like the article describes, may say risk can no longer be ignored, and thus one has no choice but to prepare oneself to deal with it, mentally. Once neurologically prepared to confront risk, Conservatism may be more acceptable to you.
One thing that struck me was the whole attack on the amygdala of conservatives recently in the media. In certain scientific articles recently they said that the Conservatives were “obviously more primitive because their Amygdala was a lot larger and thus more primitive” and that the liberal mind was superior because their “primitive part of their brain was smaller”. However this is predicated upon the false narrative that the Amygdala is what makes one primitive and is only as these articles put it “an organ of fear”.
You grasp the idea that this part of the brain is very much needed for actually DEALING with fear and coordinating with the rest of the brain in coming up with solutions. Thus someone with an underdeveloped amygdala would in essence “short circuit” as they never really develop this part of the brain. Seems to be a link with neural plasticity, as in the whole adage “if you don’t use it you lose it” and as such it could be liberalism is nothing more than people learning incorrectly at a young age to avoid certain things that then cause their brain to wire itself into the patterns of liberalism. Of course there could be a genetic component to neural plasticity as well making some people more prone to it if they were not raised right. This could also be why the welfare state is a self perpetuating meme that builds itself up in time when resources are not an issue. Welfare creates large pastures for rabbits where they can roam free and not have to worry about the wolves called reality, thus leading the people to be raised there to never have to exercise that part of their brain they need in a k selection scenario...
What I also find funny is the whole gist of these articles on how bad it is to have a large amygdala seem to be a liberal attempt at “outgrouping” conservatives by trying to make them feel they are part of a small group who is primitive and “no longer needed” it is astounding to me how ironic this after reading your material.
Just some musings on this, very good and fascinating stuff... I will try to remeber this next time I am taking to some liberal acquaintances.
Sorry about that. I write these things for a blog community that follows me, and as a result, I forget to explain the basic stuff. Thank you for pointing it out. In the future I will alter the posts on FR to include basic stuff.
In evolutionary biology, K-selection is a condition where there are not enough resources to go around. It creates a selection pressure which culls the population for a specific psychology, namely competitive, monogamous, two-parent rearing, sexually protective of children, and loyal to the in-group which is needed to compete and avoid being denied resources (and killed).
Its opposite is r-selection, which is a condition of free resource availability, where competition with peers is unnecessary. It produces the opposite psychology, namely docile, and competition averse, promiscuous, single parenting, children have sex as early as possible, and there is no loyalty to in-group, since the in-group is not needed to get food. It becomes more personally selfish.
I maintain Liberalism and Conservatism are two psychologies which arise in humans, to adapt us to r or K environments in our civilizations. Let a civilization succeed, and produce free reproduce availability, and the population will go r, and Liberalism will rise. Liberalism carries with it several illogical aspects, which will then crash the civilization, and return it to a K-selected model, which will then grow more Conservative.
You can see the graphic above for a visual represnetation.
You are correct, and very perceptive.
LOL.
Whoah. Fascinating...and scary..I read more at the site, and it makes a lot of sense, especially with the stimulation (and overload) of electronic media and dopamine levels.
I feel a little used...or more like... controlled.
The old saying “A man is an Island” rings true as in if you don’t become a victim of clicks and group think you truly can become independent!
In liberal arts colleges, part of the brain is replaced with a Borg implant.
Intelligence is irrelevant
Reason is futile.
Yeah, Borg are the apex of collectivism...
I was always fond of Larry Elder’s, “Where were you educated? Have you thought of suing for malpractice?”
Yeeesssssss!!!!
To everything there.
“as a prelude to a long held belief - that post-modern leftists don’t (can’t?) argue using reason - they rely on emotion.”
Fear is an emotion. The argument supported in this thread is an appeal to emotion, not logic.
Whatever overturns the self-image he's trying to project. If he's promoting feminism, show his position to be damaging to women. If he's promoting himself as a champion of blacks, expose him as a racist.
At all times, expose him as a coward and worthless human.
Thats how I treat libs. And it works. At events, hold up signs that show the left to really be simpletons. Intersperse those signs with meaningful ones.
When being interviewed, show the left to be simpletons. Talk at the second grade level explaining their degrees in minority studies doesn’t give them an understanding of what you are talking about.
A lib friend of mine complained to me about him being called a low information voter. I explained is is code saying he really is a low intelligence voter. His head exploded.
Thanks for your comments. One interpretation of liberalism is that it tends to be more common when there is less fear of consequences for one’s actions. If one believes one can have frequent, casual sexual encounters without the outcome of obligation as a parent or debilitating disease, then one can believe that’s ok behavior and support rules that promote that societally. If you don’t have to suffer the broad and negative consequences of paying for lavish government spending, then you can reap the mild psychological benefit of imagining it helps somebody somewhere. If a gov’t rule bans the property of someone other than yourself and you don’t see any threat to your personal safety, then you can easily be fooled into illogical justifications for the ban. And on it goes.
“I was always fond of Larry Elder’s, “Where were you educated? Have you thought of suing for malpractice?””
That’s a good one—and there are some tangible examples of malpractice in more than a few college courses. I have seen it firsthand. For some instructors, it is so much easier to deliver editorials than it is to lecture about the subject.
I appreciate the explanation. I went to your jump-link about K-Selection, and it’s just not my brand of jargon. I speak my own jargon, so I don’t use that as a pejorative.....
Your points are very logical...for animals. The point of civilization, seems to me, is to maintain K-like behavior in the face of an r environment. It’s like being thrifty even when well-off. If we’re seeing more problems lately it is because society’s been weakened. If we’re failing something, it’s failure to teach the purpose and manner of civilization to kids, and that’s a failing of gummint schools. Gumint schools weren’t always lousy at it, but they’ve become so over the past 20-40 years.
They’ve been creating animals. Intact families have been doing their best, and with much success, but there are hardly any intact families anymore. Meanwhile, the country is being forced to scarcity of resources (crashing the civilization), so it’s probably a moot point.
Yep. Liberalism is actually an advantageous strategy, from Darwin’s perspective, if actions don’t have consequences.
Sex, food, etc are all good to do, if there is no consequences to doing it freely.
It is only when resources tighten up, that the guy who mates with just any girl will see his numerous offspring killed off by the guy who selects a mate carefully, and monopolizes her with monogamy, to produce a fitter kid.
Likewise with fighting. The guy who avoids fights does well, if he can get food elsewhere. But once the only people who eat are the ones who fight, you see that culled back too.
Yes, perfectly put.
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