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Post by Cartertonian on Jun 28, 2023 8:23:54 GMT
Reflecting on fifteen years of participation in online politics discussion (pofo.org; pofoUK and this place), I have been endlessly both fascinated and horrified at the psychology behind so many exchanges one can read. The polarity and binary thought on display is staggering, in an arena wherein the object should be to find solutions to society's problems.
There are structural factors, too, such as our adversarial, 'debating society' model of parliament, which subliminally entrenches that polarity and partisanship, but it is the deeper psychology I find interesting.
Here is something lifted from Twitter, by Prof Jonathan Shedler, a psychology professor from UCSF.
Severe personality problems find camouflage. No one thinks "I'm a sadist" or "I'm a malignant narcissist." They find a belief system/social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses and construes them as virtues. The most toxic and hateful people in the world are 100% convinced they fight for what is true and right. They find a way to give free rein to their cruelty, to attack, to treat others cruelly and viciously. And they find allies to cheer them on, who also believe they are on the side of all that is true and good.
For colleagues looking for more theoretical explanation, the psychological processes are splitting, projection and projective identification. Splitting means not recognizing one's own capacity for hate, cruelty, and destructiveness. The person is blind to the bad in themselves. Instead, they project the badness onto some designated other. And this other person, via the defence of projection, is now seen as the repository of all that is bad and evil and necessary to destroy. That's the projection.
The person now feels fully justified in unleashing their viciousness and hate on the other person, who is now seen (via projection) as someone monstrous who must be destroyed. If the person who is projected on responds to the provocation with anger, this is now seen as further confirmation of how hateful and destructive they are (this is what is called is "projective identification.") The end result is that the person can deny their own sadism, cruelty, and hate—while simultaneously acting it out without restraint. And feel themselves to be 100% on the side of truth and right as they do it.
In more everyday language, what it boils down to for me is two factors:
First, people on all sides of politics allow themselves to believe that only they and their allies speak the truth. Ergo, everyone else is deluded.
Second, having convinced themselves of the 'truth' of their position, they feel justified in simply not caring about the impact their 'truth' might have on others.
You'll notice I have not made any party references. This phenomenon knows no party boundaries and can be traced back to Greece and Rome.
What has potentiated and accelerated it in the last decade or so has been social media. Prior to Twitter et al, one's only option was the apocryphal letter to the (broadsheet) paper from the eponymous 'Outraged of Tonbridge Wells'. Now anyone and everyone can, if they wish, comment in real time on the opinion of anyone else and, let's be frank, most of those comments tend to be aggressively ad hominem and without substance.
Taking this place as an example, few threads last more than half a dozen posts before they descend into aggressive, ad hominem attacks that add nothing to the discussion. I hardly post these days, precisely because of that phenomenon. When I see a topic of interest, unless it's only recently been posted it will have degenerated into a slanging match between polarised groups and any comment I might make in relation to the OP gets lost in the bar fight. Unfortunately, a vocal minority only log in for those bar fights. The same has become true of the political world upon which we come here to comment. 'Personality politics' and populism have wrought a political landscape in which little meaningful discussion can take place, thanks to the entrenchment of polarised thinking and the consolidation of notions of righteousness in those polarised positions.
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Post by wapentake on Jun 28, 2023 8:48:09 GMT
To answer at least in part we have not been best served by our political representatives in Westminster,people behave by example and I’m afraid the example has been poor.
The internet has been both a blessing and a curse,the ability to research,find things made easy but the curse is sorting the truth from the fiction.
The acceptance everybody has an opinion even though it might seem ridiculous in the extreme at times and occasionally looking in the mirror at yourself (and laughing) helps and the realisation that for all the exchanges ,the insults nobody is really listening that matters and nothing much will change.
I try to be tolerant (but am not always successful) in threads,reply to insults with polite reply and use humour where possible.
I’d be happier if the mind zone rules were applied to a few more sections but recognise the success of this board is dependent on a looser interpretation of the rules.
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Post by Orac on Jun 28, 2023 9:03:40 GMT
Much of your post I agree with. Much of what passes for politics lately is actually better understood from the perspective of psychology, or to put more plainly; outright vindictiveness / bitterness/ aggression.
Populism is a little more thorny because it really takes two to tango. Populism is indicative of a failure of the establishment, not a failure of the populists. IMHO our establishment have become incompetent, corrupt and unworthy. A certain amount of this is normal and acceptable, but the levels are now unacceptable and, if not dealt with, will lead to our destruction.
Social media is now massively influential, but in its proper place, should be a side-line for healthy and adjusted people, who should be pursuing real-world activities (girl guides etc) with others. However, to a large extent, the option to involve oneself in the real world has been demolished by the establishment along with many of the institutions people would have used for this - even pubs
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Post by Einhorn on Jun 28, 2023 9:39:05 GMT
Taking this place as an example, few threads last more than half a dozen posts before they descend into aggressive, ad hominem attacks that add nothing to the discussion. I hardly post these days, precisely because of that phenomenon. When I see a topic of interest, unless it's only recently been posted it will have degenerated into a slanging match between polarised groups and any comment I might make in relation to the OP gets lost in the bar fight. Unfortunately, a vocal minority only log in for those bar fights. The same has become true of the political world upon which we come here to comment. 'Personality politics' and populism have wrought a political landscape in which little meaningful discussion can take place, thanks to the entrenchment of polarised thinking and the consolidation of notions of righteousness in those polarised positions. I suppose it depends on what you think the purpose of a place like this is. You may see it as a place for reasonable intellectual discussion or you may see it as a platform from which to let out a cathartic primal scream. Now that we have the Mind Zone, both are catered for. |
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Post by Bentley on Jun 28, 2023 9:52:16 GMT
Online forums are the easiest but probably not the best places for serious debate and discussion.
The OP seems to suggest that the problem comes from the poster .
I suspect that the environment is just as much of a problem .
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Post by piglet on Jun 28, 2023 12:11:46 GMT
Making global judgements doesnt help either. Show us the way cartertonian with a simple example in regards to Ukraine v Russia. In that example point out personality politics, populism, which ISNT a meaningful discussion, entrenchment of polarised thinking, and consolidation of righteous positions.
To express views anti Russia does not fall into those things above, does it. Can you express an idea that expands the discussion, and justifies Russias position, or the ukrains? No, i didnt think so, so what you call without substance isnt that at all. What it is can be called repetition, but not worthless.
Or the Tories management of this country, expand on that, that isnt repetition, if you can do the things above then your note from my perspective wont be binned. You rage against repetition, thats all, that only so much can be written about anything, and you are wrong that deeper discussions can be had.
So on the Ukraine issue and the Tories, say something new. Thought not. Polarity is good, we cant be in a state of eternal confusion, minds MUST be made up its a good thing not bad like you suggest. And with the evolution of time, minds change with circumstance, and nothing is black and white, but a conclusion leading to action MUST happen.
As for the truth.....Russia is WRONG, the Tories are INCOMPETENT, but your note says it is wrong to come to a conclusion. The above does elevate you to a superior position, which you might occupy if your reply warrants it through your incoming stunning insights. I do agree though that personality will align itself to good or bad.
If you study the Myers Briggs approach you realise there is great potential for destruction. For example, if you are an INTJ or an INFJ and have a personality disoder, and come to power, something seriously bad on a global scale will happen.
Most bad boys are INFJ, Hitler, Osama, maybe even Stalin. INTJS are cold Gestapo types. Heres the shocker, INFJS only become the devil incarnate after abuse, at root they are not only GOOD people, but saints, tolerant understanding empathic, living for the benefit of others. When INFJS go yampy there is no stopping it, not only will they push the nuclear button, but jump on it.
As for politicians and who they are, they are more disturbed than most, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Blair, the list is endless. May really gets my ire, there she was betraying the whole country...openly. What can you do about that?, nothing.
In fact having a bad boy in charge can be a good thoing, who wants a nice guy in a war. Trump is right when he says the Ukrainian war would never have happened if he was in charge, hes an ESTP, and would have done a deal to end it. When he said that if the Russians used nuclear weapons so would he, and he meant it.
And the Russians would know it too. At the end of the day its our psychopaths v theirs, if we ever lost tech superiority the west would die over night. Stalin, once said when discussing the Pope said, " how many divisions has he got". Freedom and liberty are ar risk 24 hours a day every day.
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Post by johnofgwent on Jun 28, 2023 12:18:57 GMT
What has potentiated and accelerated it in the last decade or so has been social media. Prior to Twitter et al, one's only option was the apocryphal letter to the (broadsheet) paper from the eponymous 'Outraged of Tonbridge Wells'. I agree entirely with you. I extracted this small part of your post to highlight the reality
Back in 1979 One such 'outraged of tonypandy' wrote one such letter calling for the sacking of a lecturer in physiology who had been "outed" as taking it upon themselves at weekends to get dressed as a woman and wander around the village in which they lived on their bicycle. As i said of this incident, my aunt, a model for the sort of clothes you find advertised in "the tatler" and "country life" told me she knew the chap well, seeing as he lived in the next street to her home, and she had to admit he carried it off quite well and had rather decent legs for a man, really.
The letter in the south wales echo called for him to be sacked from his job where he represented a threat liable to corrupt the morals of the young people he taught
I immediately picked up my best crayon and replied to said article making several points ridiculing the woman for the risibility of the argument she was making given not one of the students he was teaching were below the age of majority and therefore by law defined as old enough to sort this out for themselves.
My response was printed in full and no more was heard of the woman, but that may be because journalists like vultures prefer a fresh kill to one that has gone a bit stale.
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Post by Orac on Jun 28, 2023 12:23:08 GMT
Very interesting, Piglet. Much insight in there
"its our psychopaths v theirs"
One my arguments against some kind of world government
When all the psychopaths get on the same team, we non-psychopaths really are in trouble.
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Post by Bentley on Jun 28, 2023 12:36:21 GMT
Politics is the art of lying . A political leader either needs the same attributes as a Mafia capo or have supporters with the same attributes .
The system and the rewards demand it.
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Post by Einhorn on Jun 28, 2023 12:55:51 GMT
Reflecting on fifteen years of participation in online politics discussion (pofo.org; pofoUK and this place), I have been endlessly both fascinated and horrified at the psychology behind so many exchanges one can read. The polarity and binary thought on display is staggering, in an arena wherein the object should be to find solutions to society's problems. There are structural factors, too, such as our adversarial, 'debating society' model of parliament, which subliminally entrenches that polarity and partisanship, but it is the deeper psychology I find interesting. Here is something lifted from Twitter, by Prof Jonathan Shedler, a psychology professor from UCSF. Severe personality problems find camouflage. No one thinks "I'm a sadist" or "I'm a malignant narcissist." They find a belief system/social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses and construes them as virtues. The most toxic and hateful people in the world are 100% convinced they fight for what is true and right. They find a way to give free rein to their cruelty, to attack, to treat others cruelly and viciously. And they find allies to cheer them on, who also believe they are on the side of all that is true and good.
For colleagues looking for more theoretical explanation, the psychological processes are splitting, projection and projective identification. Splitting means not recognizing one's own capacity for hate, cruelty, and destructiveness. The person is blind to the bad in themselves. Instead, they project the badness onto some designated other. And this other person, via the defence of projection, is now seen as the repository of all that is bad and evil and necessary to destroy. That's the projection.
The person now feels fully justified in unleashing their viciousness and hate on the other person, who is now seen (via projection) as someone monstrous who must be destroyed. If the person who is projected on responds to the provocation with anger, this is now seen as further confirmation of how hateful and destructive they are (this is what is called is "projective identification.") The end result is that the person can deny their own sadism, cruelty, and hate—while simultaneously acting it out without restraint. And feel themselves to be 100% on the side of truth and right as they do it.
In more everyday language, what it boils down to for me is two factors: First, people on all sides of politics allow themselves to believe that only they and their allies speak the truth. Ergo, everyone else is deluded. Second, having convinced themselves of the 'truth' of their position, they feel justified in simply not caring about the impact their 'truth' might have on others. You'll notice I have not made any party references. This phenomenon knows no party boundaries and can be traced back to Greece and Rome. What has potentiated and accelerated it in the last decade or so has been social media. Prior to Twitter et al, one's only option was the apocryphal letter to the (broadsheet) paper from the eponymous 'Outraged of Tonbridge Wells'. Now anyone and everyone can, if they wish, comment in real time on the opinion of anyone else and, let's be frank, most of those comments tend to be aggressively ad hominem and without substance. Taking this place as an example, few threads last more than half a dozen posts before they descend into aggressive, ad hominem attacks that add nothing to the discussion. I hardly post these days, precisely because of that phenomenon. When I see a topic of interest, unless it's only recently been posted it will have degenerated into a slanging match between polarised groups and any comment I might make in relation to the OP gets lost in the bar fight. Unfortunately, a vocal minority only log in for those bar fights. The same has become true of the political world upon which we come here to comment. 'Personality politics' and populism have wrought a political landscape in which little meaningful discussion can take place, thanks to the entrenchment of polarised thinking and the consolidation of notions of righteousness in those polarised positions. If therapy is the 'talking cure' and 'getting it off your chest' is a psychological good, I would have thought that psychologists would have approved of outlets like the old site where the moderation practically allowed uninhibited speech. No? This isn't a challenge question, by the way - I'm genuinely curious. |
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Post by The Squeezed Middle on Jun 28, 2023 17:32:32 GMT
Reflecting on fifteen years of participation in online politics discussion (pofo.org; pofoUK and this place), I have been endlessly both fascinated and horrified at the psychology behind so many exchanges one can read. The polarity and binary thought on display is staggering, in an arena wherein the object should be to find solutions to society's problems. There are structural factors, too, such as our adversarial, 'debating society' model of parliament, which subliminally entrenches that polarity and partisanship, but it is the deeper psychology I find interesting. Here is something lifted from Twitter, by Prof Jonathan Shedler, a psychology professor from UCSF. Severe personality problems find camouflage. No one thinks "I'm a sadist" or "I'm a malignant narcissist." They find a belief system/social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses and construes them as virtues. The most toxic and hateful people in the world are 100% convinced they fight for what is true and right. They find a way to give free rein to their cruelty, to attack, to treat others cruelly and viciously. And they find allies to cheer them on, who also believe they are on the side of all that is true and good.
For colleagues looking for more theoretical explanation, the psychological processes are splitting, projection and projective identification. Splitting means not recognizing one's own capacity for hate, cruelty, and destructiveness. The person is blind to the bad in themselves. Instead, they project the badness onto some designated other. And this other person, via the defence of projection, is now seen as the repository of all that is bad and evil and necessary to destroy. That's the projection.
The person now feels fully justified in unleashing their viciousness and hate on the other person, who is now seen (via projection) as someone monstrous who must be destroyed. If the person who is projected on responds to the provocation with anger, this is now seen as further confirmation of how hateful and destructive they are (this is what is called is "projective identification.") The end result is that the person can deny their own sadism, cruelty, and hate—while simultaneously acting it out without restraint. And feel themselves to be 100% on the side of truth and right as they do it.
In more everyday language, what it boils down to for me is two factors: First, people on all sides of politics allow themselves to believe that only they and their allies speak the truth. Ergo, everyone else is deluded. Second, having convinced themselves of the 'truth' of their position, they feel justified in simply not caring about the impact their 'truth' might have on others. You'll notice I have not made any party references. This phenomenon knows no party boundaries and can be traced back to Greece and Rome. What has potentiated and accelerated it in the last decade or so has been social media. Prior to Twitter et al, one's only option was the apocryphal letter to the (broadsheet) paper from the eponymous 'Outraged of Tonbridge Wells'. Now anyone and everyone can, if they wish, comment in real time on the opinion of anyone else and, let's be frank, most of those comments tend to be aggressively ad hominem and without substance. Taking this place as an example, few threads last more than half a dozen posts before they descend into aggressive, ad hominem attacks that add nothing to the discussion. I hardly post these days, precisely because of that phenomenon. When I see a topic of interest, unless it's only recently been posted it will have degenerated into a slanging match between polarised groups and any comment I might make in relation to the OP gets lost in the bar fight. Unfortunately, a vocal minority only log in for those bar fights. The same has become true of the political world upon which we come here to comment. 'Personality politics' and populism have wrought a political landscape in which little meaningful discussion can take place, thanks to the entrenchment of polarised thinking and the consolidation of notions of righteousness in those polarised positions.
Yeah, but then I've been saying much the same for yonks both on here and on the old place.
It's why I also don't post as much as I did.
But it's not just this place, it's everywhere now. For example, on Faceache the other day I was mildly critical of a local council policy and was instantly accused of being a "Rich Tory" when said policy actually impacted on the poorest most of all.
But then again, as I've also said elsewhere, politics and religion are often one and the same too and there's no arguing with a religious belief.
In the end, people are just sheep.
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Post by oracle75 on Jun 28, 2023 19:35:38 GMT
The substantive truths by Cartonianin have been dramatised and written about for hundreds if not thousands of years.
I find much of psychology à modern attempt at using science to describe and explain what has been observed by astute note takers and writers in the same way ancient carvings on cavé walls are now better interpreted by archeologicalists.
But the behaviour I see in here has reminder me of many literary characters from Iago to the many court manipulators S wrote about to the pure fanciful and amusing characters in MND who live alongside àn imaginary world where reality is suspended and humour comes from those who believe the dream and are animated by the other world.Bottom was The example of those who have succumbed to someone's malicious magic and believes he is loved.
Frankly the problems faced by the western world are so complex and division is so great that I don't care to discuss it anymore. I have created à quiet life and just lost my personal partner and respected counterbalance.
That is enough to deal with. The rest is someone else's excuse to have a fight.
The quality of the fight is pisspoor and I have better more useful things to do.
If this area is supposed to attract members with a capacity to debate, it has unfortunately been holed by the termites looking for new wood.
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Post by andrewbrown on Jun 28, 2023 20:51:14 GMT
Sorry to hear your news Oracle.
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Post by Bentley on Jun 28, 2023 21:24:35 GMT
The evil of man is that he loves to act as the teacher of others . Mencius 372- 289 bc
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Post by oracle75 on Jun 29, 2023 6:15:50 GMT
Teaching is a resentful term for the fundamental purpose of discussion...considering other points of view.
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