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.
Your mention of dopamine interests me for an interesting reason.
The parasite protozoa that causes toxoplasmosis is almost unique in selectively producing an enzyme that causes the brain of its host to secrete dopamine in the pleasure center of its brain. Specifically when the host experiences a stress or fear response to something. Thus the protozoa retrains its host to be attracted, even sexually stimulated, by things it should be afraid of.
This is essential to the reproductive cycle of the protozoa. It is consumed by rodents that it then infects, and retrains them to be strongly attracted to the smell of cat urine. The protozoa wants them to be eaten by a cat, because it can only reproduce in the gut of a feline.
However, the protozoa can and does infect humans as well. Including an estimated 11 million Americans.
Importantly, rodent and human brains have many aspects in common, including the use of dopamine. But since the protozoa secretes its enzyme not based on a particular fear, but fear in general, and intense fear especially, it raises the question.
Does the protozoa retrain their minds to be attracted to things that they fear, or should rightly fear?
Now let us consider liberals. Liberals despise our national friends, and embrace our enemies. They also reject a healthy, normal family and life, embracing things that are unwholesome and destructive.
But at the same time, they are unwilling to just “walk into the mouth of the cat” by themselves. They want everyone to have to follow them to their doom.
Are liberals infected by a protozoa? And if so, are their brains being controlled?
This would benefit with lots of examples of effective arguments.
I am still not certain about the boundaries of using such techniques when arguing with a liberal.
I plan to read this in its entirety later. Some interesting ideas.
I agree totally about liberals not using logic in a debate. This has been my greatest frustration when trying to have an honest and open discussion with them. Regardless of how the debate unfolds, 90% of the time it ends when they run out of arguments, then play their trump card: “You’re mean.”
Translation: You, personally, are not mean, but your ideas are. Why? Because I don’t like them. So by extension, all Republicans and Conservatives are mean. So they are bad people. I’m not one of them. So I’m a good person. So now I feel good about myself.
Bump to read later
Perhaps you have more examples in your book of “how” to set up these situations ... It would help see the application of this in some easy examples. I was not familiar with k/r, perhaps a touch more definition there? Obviously a well thought out piece, hesitating to purchase the book because, frankly, I’m not sure I would understand it. You perhaps need to publish a K/R for Dummies book for the likes of me. :-)
Bump and ping...
Good piece. However I might add something that sums up your entire piece:
“the fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” - Alinsky
The way you beat a liberal is to ridicule the lib. We give liberals a pass. The most effective statement against a liberal in the last 20 years was Joe Wilson’s “you lie” comment made to Obama on the house floor. It drove the liberals nuts and opened pandoras box.
That’s how you win.
Let’s back up for a second. What exactly is the objective here? To correct liberals’ faulty thinking? To make them abandon their position against their own convictions? Or to merely shut them up?
...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.And what exactly *shames* a liberal???
I studied aberrant psychology in college. Your findings here are very interesting to note and I believe that there’s more to it than just making Liberals believe that they are in danger. Liberals suffer from an inability to process information independently. This isn’t a pathology per se but a predisposition to follow as opposed to lead. They want to be feel as if they are a part of a larger organism and not specifically alone in the universe.
Conservatives in general make up for this and understand their place in the cosmos thanks to a healthy appreciation and fear of God and more specifically the unknown. They are willing to face the world as an individual because they understand that God is with them. As such this breeds a sense of self-esteem and individualism thanks to the affirmation that they can tackle many things alone and anything in a group of like minded individuals.
In many ways I believe today’s Republican Party has been overrun by liberals since the conventional mindset of self-preservation and individualism has been replaced by a sort of groupthink led by the GOPe. If we don’t start reframing our arguments in the way that our founders understood them, we might find ourselves all alone in a sea of lemmings.
Joe Wilson should be the Speaker of the House.
> Are liberals infected by a protozoa? And if so, are their brains being controlled?
Sure seems like it sometimes. Makes you wonder if O has had some scientists invent a mind control device that can be used to control liberal minded people. If they succeed in stripping firearms from the public you know an implant is not far behind...
Powder..patch..ball FIRE!
Excellent series of articles!
“Let’s back up for a second. What exactly is the objective here? To correct liberals’ faulty thinking? To make them abandon their position against their own convictions? Or to merely shut them up?”
That’s a great question that can get lost in the scientific jargon and argument presented above. I am not the author of this piece but I interpret the objective to be making liberals experience fear of embarassment and isolation from their social support. If they feel they don’t fit in with the libs, they may seek to belong within conservative society.
Fear of harm or loss of security is shown in the research cited as an influence on adopting conservative views. This may indicate that the fear forced a lack of fit to liberal views and, not wanting to be without a group to feel a part of, the frightened individuals adopted a more conservative orientation. This is somewhat different from the more rational interpretation that fear of danger knocked some sense into those liberal fools and woke them up to the logic of conservatism.
Of course, I am just interpreting the author’s work and am not familiar with the arguments presented. I hope the author can clarify and I apologize for any misinterpretation.
Great Minds Think Alike? Pull the paper here, which also discusses how T. gondii infects the amygdala of the host preferentially, and how Liberals exhibit diminished amygdala development on MRI.
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/modern.pdf
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.
Try clicking on the Mike Wallace link in the article above, for a link to a video of the technique in action. The effect on Wallace is pretty stunning.
LOL. That is hilarious.
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