I've just finished reading an interesting book called "The Death of Democracy" by Benjamin Hett.
It's about the politics of the Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1933 and how it collapsed.
There was one passage that caught my imagination. It alluded to the notion that those who fell under the spell of the Nazi propaganda were not so much intellectually swayed by the arguments as needing to believe them on an emotional level. It was more about people needing to belong to a group. Perhaps this is an evolutionary trait of humans?
I thought about the ways I may be susceptible to such a need for belonging and how that may warp my perceptions of reality. On a very basic level, my loyalty to my hometown sports team causes me to see close judgment calls by the referee as "wrong" or "right" based on how "my" team is affected. I'm sure I'm guilty of biases in my political views as well.
I considered this phenomenon when trying to understand the MAGA crowd. Obviously, they are not all the same. But among those "belonging" to this group are those disaffected folks whose jobs got outsourced to other countries (even though 85% of those jobs were actually lost to automation). It doesn't give them the right to overthrow the government but they are understandably bitter.
Sadly, if this is something that is wired into our DNA from an evolutionary point of view, it seems unlikely that my earnest factual arguments will effectively persuade them to get off that "team". Like spitting into the wind...
Thoughts?
joj,
You are awesome, my friend!
My immediate thought is that this is Post of the Anthropocene!
https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/age-humans-evolutionary-perspectives-anthropocene
It's actually more deserving than our typical "post of the week" because of the profound implications.
Human psychology, greatly fascinates me as a scientist and the condition you mentioned is powerful in humans and I agree strongly that this tribalism is something that appears to be in our DNA as well as people wanting to believe.
The analogy with sports teams and your own personal connection that is overwhelming in most of us was perfect.
++++++++++++
Post of the Anthropocene!
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/98354/
This recognition, pales as a reward compared to the massive benefits to his own understanding of human behavior and self, which can be applied the rest of his life...........and he's sharing it with us. Thanks very much, joj!
There is nothing more powerful than gaining the ability to step outside oneself to view the world thru eyes which are capable of seeing it objectively. Filtering out the human emotions, wanting to believe, cognitive biased tribalism and innate traits that subconsciously impact us in a way which sabotages our ability to discern authenticity.
Especially in a world that has amplified the powerful sources reinforcing the brain washes by 1,000 compared to before the age of technology.
Make no mistake, what joj notes is exactly what the gatekeepers of messages completely understand and exploit to the max to control the masses.
It defines Donald Trump on one side and the fake climate crisis on the other side, for instance.
Those are just 2 extremely dysfunctional/destructive realms out of hundreds but show the great harm, which exploit this human weakness and use it to control us.
We all like to go to echo chambers and places that tell us the news that we want to believe in! (I actually enjoy going to places that tell me news that I disagree with too). In this age, those sources have been magnified by several orders of magnitude!
+++++++++++++
Despite my overwhelming desire to post screeds like an obsessed scientist over joj's wonderful revelation, I'll try to refrain for a couple of days, if possible to give others the opportunity to comment first!
Hmmmm ? !
Living and thinking things in this world seem to fall into groups that are communal or not and actually every degree of that in between.
Herds of buffalo , murder of crows , colonies of prairie dogs etc. Then we have the loners like tigers , hawks perhaps and the like.
Sure seems like it could be a survival gene in the DNA to put it in most simplest form.
It also seems the communal lifestyle is most popular.
And then there is me - a hybrid - sometimes i love to be around people and other times please just leave me alone .
Just messin' with ya.
John
Thanks for the great comment, John!
There was one passage that caught my imagination. It alluded to the notion that those who fell under the spell of the Nazi propaganda were not so much intellectually swayed by the arguments as needing to believe them on an emotional level. It was more about people needing to belong to a group. Perhaps this is an evolutionary trait of humans?
Victimhood and oppressor, who is who.
" You can't divide the world neatly into perpetrators and victims, ...and then assume that you are only in the victim class and then assume that gives you certain forms of redress..."
" Enhancement of the sense of victimhood on the part of one of the groups, usually the group that is going to commit the genocide, first of all their sense of being victims is much heightened by the demigods ...
(1) When Victimhood Leads to Genocide - Prof. Jordan Peterson on Dekulakization - YouTube